Copyright (c) umgweb.com 1998
The 1978 Honda XL250 came to me quite unexpectedly. My elder brother's neighbour was complaining about all the motorcycle junk his son had left behind on going Down Under. My ears perked up and the dilapidated trailster was the result of my curiosity. Just take the damn thing away, I was told.
The XL was in a bit of a state with the cylinder head cover missing, revealing all four of its valves and single camshaft to be a mass of rust. Various bits of chassis were absent and rust was more in evidence than either paint or chrome. There followed several long nights in the garage chiselling off rusted in bolts, drilling out studs and spindles and spending an inordinate amount of time, energy and swearing whilst trying to prise the cylinder off the piston.
This was all hard labour but it cost nothing, gave me an excuse to avoid vegetating in front of the TV or have long arguments with the wife over whether or not the house should be decorated yet again. The good news was that the bottom end of the engine looked fine, there was still some oil in it. The bad news was that a large pile of bits needed to be replaced. A long list was made, several visits to the breakers sorted the worst of the problems.
Along the way, the huge 23" wheel was dumped, replaced by a RS250 wheel with disc that was vastly superior to the puny SLS drum fitted to the XL. The lowered front end was matched by shorter shocks, so an ungainly gait was easily avoided.
Luckily, one breaker had a source of XL parts, so I was cheaply able to rebuild the engine. The whole cost of putting the bike back on the road was around £150. These are very straightforward motorcycles to work on, apart from cheap alloy no serious problems were encountered. At least none that could not be fixed with a big hammer.
It took a whole day to persuade into life. I found the kickstart to be awkwardly placed and with a poor ratio, it was very difficult to give the engine a good boot. My son was persuaded it would be a good bit of exercise to push myself and bike up and down the road all afternoon. The engine made some promising noises but refused to start. Finally, after checking everything else, I replaced the new spark plug with another one. Bingo! My son walked off in disgust, muttering something about advanced senility, but I don't see that it was really my fault that I had bought a duff plug.
The XL motor is similar to RS, indeed was the inspiration for that roadster. Unfortunately, the XL was still pretty worn out even after my mechanical efforts. It certainly didn't feel like its claimed 20hp at 8500rpm, more like 12hp at 6000rpm. The motor felt more like a twin than a single, with none of the lovely low down torque you might expect. It sort of whirred more ferociously come 5000 revs but never really developed any power. It made a lot of noise, mind, down to the gutted exhaust (by rust not my delinquent hand) but even that was more bothersome than inspiring.
The handling was well weird as well. This may be down to the non-standard wheel and shocks or it may just have been a result of a bent frame from the off-road battering the XL had undoubtedly received. It looked pretty straight to me but then I am no expert. The MOT tester gave it a certificate without any trouble, so it could only be mildly bent.
The most immediate handling deficiency was that it pulled strongly to the left on acceleration and to the right on backing off the throttle. My son thought it a death-trap on wheels, but I found this idiosyncrasy fairly easy to adapt to. The next most prominent manifestation was that it rewarded hard work on the gearbox and throttle with a heady weave come 60mph. This was pretty insulting as it took great skill to master the five speed gearbox which initially appeared to have four neutrals and two working gears. Insane noises came up from the box if use of the clutch was neglected.
Anyone used to old Hondas will soon master the gearbox, but playing around with tyre pressures and shock pre-load had absolutely no effect on the weaves. The only solution was to do less than 60mph, which was okay with me as above 6000rpm the engine put out enough vibes to convince me I was riding a 2000cc, nitrous swilling thumper instead of the little Honda. Absolute top speed was 70mph but I only managed it the once.
Despite all these problems, the combination of light weight and narrow cycle meant the Honda could be used to good effect in heavy traffic. It was a great relief to commute on a machine that had no value. Risks, that on expensive machines could not be contemplated, on the XL could be undertaken with impunity. Okay, it would still hurt if I crashed to the deck and had a smouldering machine pulp me into the tarmac, but I found myself striding through ridiculous gaps in traffic and doing near U-turns around stationary traffic. The pavement was also used on occasions....despite the smaller wheel and lack of horses, it was still dead easy to aviate the front end.
The chain came with the bike, reclaimed from rusted oblivion, it strongly objected to its new working role in life. Thumpers are never easy on chains, so I should not have been surprised at the need to take a link out every weekend. When this treatment was required every day I knew it was time to replace the chain before it broke. I bought another worn chain from the breaker, which lasted for about a 1000 miles before the same treatment was applied. My larger bike has full enclosure, a Scottoiler and an O-ring chain, but I was determined to run the XL on a minimal budget. It's surprising what you can get away with when you put your mind to it.
Fuel worked out at a surprisingly good 70-80mpg, probably down to the lack of speed employed. Oil needed a slight top up between 1200 mile changes but I could have probably got away with total neglect. Tyres were never new, just what was available cheap from the breaker, although I drew the line at buying Japanese rubber. I wasn't that desperate to test out the reincarnation theory. Wear appeared slight and the handling became no worse even on bald tyres.
The front RS disc was probably the best performing bit of the bike, able to stop the Honda instantly, with enough feedback to be safe even on wet roads. The braking forces were so strong that the long XL forks would twist and pitch alarmingly in emergency stops, the bike feeling like it was about to flick me off, but it never did. The rear drum didn't seem to work at all, which was probably to the good because a bit of play developed at the swinging arm bearings. The back end would squirm around alarmingly when banked over but I was so into the strange handling that it caused no extra concern.
My son was forced to borrow the machine for a week when his own motorcycle failed. After the first day he vowed never again. After a day on public transport he was thankful for even the Honda's limited prowess. It had taken me two months to get the hang of starting the Honda, my son had to resort to risking life and limb with a bump start. The Honda felt rather ragged after he handed it back, I suspected he had revved the balls off the engine in the lower gears in revenge at its intransigent starting.
The bike was ridden for over a year with few major problems. I did nothing to the XL unless it was absolutely necessary, so over that time the chassis gradually degenerated to its apparently natural rust covered state, whilst the engine became ever less powerful. I coaxed over 12000 miles out of the little beast with no breakdowns on the road. It never actually failed, the engine just started churning out eyeball popping vibes at low revs. It was its way of telling me that I'd better start the cycle of renovation all over again.
I didn't, of course. The lack of power - the motor would've been the most bland in the world were it not for its excess of vibes - did not inspire me to any effort. I sold the XL as a runner for the somewhat amazing sum of £175. I was quite honest, explaining that I suspected the engine was about to explode. The new owner didn't care, he just wanted a chassis into which to fit the motor from his crashed RS250. I shudder to think what the handling would be like at 90mph!
R.T.Y.
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I always buy rat bikes. It's just a matter of what turns up. As long as it's cheap, preferably free, I'll have it. The most interesting was one of the first Honda XL250 trailsters. It was so old it had drum brakes, twin shocks and points ignition. At least I could understand them and fix 'em cheaply. A corroded heap, take it away for a tenner. So I did.
Part of the attraction of a rat was the possibility of profit. Do a cheap rebuild, turn it into a nice little earner. Cheap usually took a long time. Waiting for the right bits at the right price. The Honda took a whole seven months before it was back on the road. A good piston was the biggest problem. The cosmic exchange system turned up one eventually. These are relatively simple engines. A sort of grown up CB125. The OHC unit was a cinch to work on even for a cynical old bodger like myself.
I must be getting old. Leaping up and down on the XL's kickstart quickly tired me out. A weekend's huffing and puffing got the fires lit. Lovely burble out of the straight through exhaust. Enough engine vibration to make a Triumph Bonnie owner happy. The engine wouldn't rev beyond 5000 even in neutral. A snagged cable was revealed under the tank. The clutch was also full of nostalgia. Just like an old Norton ES2 I used to own. A quick blast up the road revealed more noise and vibration than go. And a horrible old Honda gearbox, more neutrals than gears. Total cost was £60!
I was all for selling it quickly. Too many echoes of a ruddy awful Tiger Cub. Unfortunately, a new job meant I needed to commute ten miles a day each way. There was no other machine available. Just a garage full of half finished projects. A typical biker's lament, I fear.
The worst aspect of riding the Honda in the autumn was the front drum brake. A quaint quarter width item that in my more idle moments I considered selling it off to the vintage crowd. The lack of power frightened the stuffing out of me. It was amazing the narrow squeaks I endured. The light mass didn't endow it with fast steering, either. The cars that received glancing blows from the front tyre were many.
I didn't hang around to argue the toss. I wasn't willing to pay out the exorbitant amount demanded for insurance. Neither were any of my mates. One advantage of such rats is that few want to steal them. Those so brain dead to try probably wouldn't be able to start them.
After slowing down to legal velocities life became a bit easier. Not that the Honda responded well. Felt more like a knackered 250 Superdream than anything else. Sod all torque and gutless when revved hard. If it didn't vibrate so much it'd be called bland. Two things saved it from being swapped for a C50. It was reliable and it went where it was pointed.
After three months of working I'd had enough. So had the 'silencer' which was straight through. It cracked right through, left hanging on its bracket. The noise was violent enough for a pack of wild dogs to come charging out of nowhere. Bloody things almost knocked me right off the bike. I kept a deathgrip on the throttle. Threw them off as we bounced up the road.
The XL engine was so lowly tuned that just about any pipe could be hammered on. Or maybe it was just generally so worn that the open megaphone made no difference. I had to be a bit careful that I didn't burn my inner thigh on it. I couldn't be bothered to reweld the high-level exhaust pipe. Never do any work on a hack unless it's absolutely essential. Working on one part can, in its disassembly, lead to all kinds of engineering horrors in related components.
By the time I was ready to sell it was the depths of winter. Except for some silly offers there were no takers. January was enlivened by a foot's worth of snow with hard packed iced underneath. The XL didn't like it but I did! No-one else on the country roads. Every time I came off we both slid along the road without any serious damage.
The XL was never a proper trail bike. But it's robust, best on dry mud and grass. Getting the front wheel up a yard is a shoulder dislocating business. The suspension's been modded at the front (who mentioned washers?) and replaced at the back with a pair of Girlings that feel like they'd be better suited to a Sherman tank.
Used as I was to old Brits and dubious hacks the lack of suspension travel was tolerable. Potholes were overcome by standing up on the pegs. About the only useful trail inherited trait on the bike. Off-road, though, the XL's front wheel tended to dig into soft ground. Startled was my first impression on being thrown over the bars. Quickly overtaken by pain as the bars whacked my leg and my neck was almost snapped off when my head hit the ground. I knew from past experience that there was no point attacking the bike. It usually hurt me more.
The vibro massage effect from the motor soon revived my spirits. Its effect at 3500 revs was most beneficial on female pillions. I never took any men on the back, so perish that thought! I must admit that when I tracked down the missing engine bolt the amplitude was markedly diminished. When taking a girl on the back I loosened the bolt a little!
In March it was decided the XL was ideal for a Continental outing. If it blew up I'd just dump it in the nearest ditch and hitch home. A cold spell made the ride to Dover like an arctic outing. Seven layers of clothing made me look very porky and wasn't entirely effective. Just as the outskirts of the city were reached the engine died. Locked up solid. My friend did the right thing, towed us the 300 miles back home! That was a fear and loathing experience with the Honda bopping all over the road.
The camchain had snapped. Somehow the valves hadn't snagged the piston. From past endeavours I had a large box full of old Honda camchains and tensioners. A bit of bodging allowed me to rebuild the motor at zero cost. Okay, I got the cam timing one tooth out. The engine pulled like a Puch Maxi. Or Maximum Puke as they are known around here.
After that was fixed a bit more commuting followed. I couldn't complain, the sun was shining and the Honda made the right kind of noise. Someone offered £200 and I wasn't even tempted. A week later the front wheel bearings wore out. Interesting wobbles and enough churning noises to convince friends the engine was on the way out. I was amazed when the bearings popped out with the first thump from the hammer. The brake shoes were down to their rivets but the braking didn't seem any worse.
I always bought used consumables but there seemed no way I could find any usable shoes for the Honda. I told myself not to use the front brake unless it was absolutely necessary. A near miss, when I misjudged the traffic lights and couldn't brake in time, soon had me looking through my selection of wheels. A wheel off a similar era Suzuki TS250 went in. It was a full width drum with good shoes, had about ten times the braking.
A mate finally coughed up three hundred notes for the XL. A month later the petrol tank rusted through. That fixed he's done another six months worth of riding and reckons himself content with the Honda. He sees it as a future classic and is searching for original components. He's a bit brain damaged from 20 years with a hoary old BSA A65. Me? I bought a fifty quid CD200!
Frank White
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I took one look at the CBX250RS, decided there and then to buy it. Three years and 13000 miles old it might've been, but the chassis shone like it'd just popped out of the crate. The owner wasn't so old as to be senile enough to neglect the all important oil changes. Something that the new generation of riders seem to ignore. A brief blast around a housing estate didn't dim my enthusiasm and the deal was done.
The next day I loaded up with the camping gear, headed north for the Scottish Highlands. The RS rustled and growled along very nicely, settling to a relaxed if slightly firm (suspension-wise) 80mph pace. Being a mere single, albeit one with four valves and DOHC's, the Honda managed to be both fast and relaxed, lacking the frenetic feel of multi cylinder engines. Top speed was 100mph (on the clock, maybe a true 90mph) which confirmed the presence of around 30 horses.
Most of the vibration was damped out by the balancer system. The engine felt raw edged rather than rough at low revs, and right at the top end felt a bit like a dodgy Superdream - but by then the power had run out so no point pushing that hard unless I wanted a crankcase full of shot bearings. I did 300 to 400 miles in a day without traumatizing either hands or feet.
Crossing the Scottish border I met up with a lad on an XS250, had a real blast before we worked out who was top dog. The CBX was faster but the XS pilot madder, going into some blind bends on the wrong side of the road. Only after we'd splashed through a foot deep puddle, vision suddenly and frightenly blotted out by the spray, did the RS emerge as superior, the poor old XS left way behind with a fit of the stutters. The Honda's electrics proved to be in another, more modern, world and never gave any problems other than the odd new spark plug.
The CBX had Japlops on its rims which were fine in the dry but a bit loose on wet roads or when I rode the bike over a field. The back tyre would suddenly step out a foot or two on grass, which was my excuse for plowing into a large tent that flew a foreign flag. I've never seen two people get so angry in my life before, but they were Germans, so what could you expect. The campsite manager chucked me out just to keep them quiet. I must say I didn't envy the German chap's chance of surviving the night with his 200lb companion. She redefined the word Teutonic.
The CBX took that moment to shag its starter clutch, the engine roaring into life but making enough rattles to have the dogs tearing around in a feeding frenzy. I kicked them away, got out of there in a series of high speed slides but avoided crushing any more tents, even though I tried quite hard. The starter clutch was fixed with a quick disassembly and clean out.
That was the only trouble I had in the initial 2500 mile tour, although the drive chain did need some constant fettling, I've seen more impressive stuff on a moped. The single disc out front also gave me some moments of terror, lacking finesse it was dead easy to lock up the wheel in the wet. On the dodgy Japlop, that had the front wheel trying to break-dance and my underpants filling up with noxious muck. I won't be a bore by demanding a drum brake, not least because past experiences didn't impress and I had one casing crack up on me, the bike ending up cart-wheeling down the tarmac.
Some way down the road, with 29000 miles on the clock, I suffered the usual nastiness from the front disc - warped metal and sticking caliper pistons had the front end howling and squeaking. Also, the spokes in the wire wheel were rusting badly, in some places about half the metal had been eaten away. One problem with the CBX was that parts in breakers were rare (though many are the same as the grey import GB250) and the front wheel proved impossible. However, a reasonable looking CB250RS wheel went straight in, although that bike also suffers from similar problems. The CB250RS has a bit of a reputation for engine problems that happily the CBX doesn't share.
By 32000 miles the chrome plated exhaust system was heavily coated in the brown stuff, the baffles corroded to the point where they rattled around. I could've ignored that but the freer flowing exhaust was causing an ever wider midrange power glut and the RS was the kind of bike that needed all the power it could lay its hands upon. Again, no cheap exhausts were available in breakers but some used baffles were banged in and the holes welded up. The carburation was as smooth as could be expected on a machine of this mileage.
The bike still looked nice as I always kept it clean and the paint was good quality. As a single there wasn't much maintenance to do, even the four valves never seemed to lose their clearances. As well as being mild on consumables, fuel was excellent, between 60 and 85mpg. Doing 70mpg was as easy as avoiding thrashing the bike above 8000 revs, which basically meant staying away from motorways.
No great hassle on such a light bike, which practically screamed at me to find some deserted country lanes. Initially, the centrestand prong dug into the tarmac during fierce hustling but this was easily solved with a hacksaw. The Japlops proved the real limit to bend swinging but as the bike would still take much larger machines in tight corners it wasn't something that worried me (and the rubber lasts for over 15000 miles).
The main advantage of a thumper's narrowness, which allows the engine to be mounted low in the frame, giving excellent chassis dynamics and one reason why the CBX was vastly superior on the road to thumper trailies. The major disadvantage's the vibration but the CBX is about the right size to avoid being overwhelmed by the buzzing. Bigger thumpers need such power sapping balancers that both performance and economy suffers. 250 to 350cc is ideal and it's a pity that manufacturer's get away with foisting inferior 600/650 thumpers on the general public. It all comes down to how much they can charge!
The Honda powered on to 43000 miles with no real signs of demise other than a general feeling of tiredness. The speedo didn't quite spin around the clock so rapidly and the silky rustle of a newish engine had a few rattles in there. I might still have carried on with the CBX had not a really beautiful GB250 come up on the private market for £1200. With only 3000 miles on the clock the guy was practically giving it away. The mill was virtually identical and the retro looks a real head turner. I sold the CBX the next week for £900.
Both these bikes are just powerful enough to make it as proper motorcycles. They are amazingly cheap to buy and run, very easy to ride and don't seem to have any serious problems. They make most new 250's look like overpriced dogs.
Gary Eastern
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The GB250 originally turned up in the UK as a grey import, but the 1988 bike had gone through five owners and had 27000 miles on its clock before it came into my hands. Judging by the state of the oil and the largeness of the valve clearances not one of them had bothered with even the most rudimentary of maintenance chores. With just a single carb and electronic ignition it was the kind of abuse you could get away with on a modern Japanese engine.
The chassis also reflected the level of owner involvement, with plenty of rust and alloy corrosion, though the whole front end looked suspiciously new. The guy I bought it off seemed to have only a limited number of brain cells left, made no sense whatsoever, but then I'd only paid five hundred notes. A sum for which even the most religious adherent of the UMG ethos could hardly expect perfection. Some time spent sorting the engine which showed no internal signs of its misspent youth was followed with a chassis clean up. Chain and sprocket set revived the transmission and the awful Taiwanese tyres were changed for cheapo Michelins, which lacked the former's plastic compound and outrageous reaction to the merest sign of dampness on our roads.
The GB250's basically similar to our own CBX250, with a set of classic clothes to fool the natives. On a number of occasions I had some British bike fanatic almost run me off the road in his eagerness to swap experiences. They turned quite nasty when they realised their mistake, not too amused when I pointed out the technological advances in the DOHC thumper motor, and showed them the distinctive lack of oil smearing as the most basic sign of relatively advanced engineering. I tried not to snicker when they invariably had trouble starting their piece of old world engineering.
Initially, I treated the Honda very gently, not sure how much life was left in the motor, but all this did was to leave me a sitting target for bored cagers. I soon ignored the relatively high mileage, made some serious play on the throttle. That got the little single moving. It wasn't without some torque, that unique thumper ability to run along on the merest hint of throttle, but in a typical Honda manner it also thrived on maximum revs.
A new engine puts out thirty horses, not bad given that the whole bike weighs less than 300lbs and its classic ambitions means the motor is lowly slung in a more than adequate chassis. That adds up to fast acceleration to 80mph, which turned out to be a feasible cruising speed. As much as a ton was possible under favourable conditions but I rarely pushed it beyond 90mph because the engine then gave out a disturbing level of vibration in contrast to its smoothness at lower revs.
The only element in the whole bike that caused any concern was the gearbox that only worked under a rising throttle and very precise clutch hand. It was intractable at slow town speeds with an elusive neutral and a feeling that the cogs were moments off dropping out of the crankcases. It was something that took about 1500 miles before I became used to it and was able to adapt my foot to its nastiness. Fresh oil didn't help much, it was either wear or bad design or, most likely, a combination of the two.
Despite the gearchange, the bike was an extremely useful little device, took whatever I threw at it in its stride. I particularly liked the way it shot through Central London, fast enough to give the odd DR pause for thought and was nimble enough to get me out of trouble the numerous times cagers tried to run me off the road for daring to make them look silly by doing a journey in a fifth of the time it took them. One of the stranger sights was of a cager turned scooterist, lurching along like an accident looking for somewhere to happen on one of those modern Wop scooters. They are quite fat things compared to the GB, not to mention slow and odd handling, and I'd sometimes find one on my tail, suddenly lurching to a stop when he couldn't make the gap. Still, it's better to have them on two wheels than four, even if they have paid way over the odds for some stylist's futuristic creation that turns out to be a nightmare in real life.
After about two months of such self-indulgence a curious change overcame my reaction to the self-effacing ways of the little Honda. I began to repeat the neglect and abuse that the previous owners had inflicted on the seemingly indestructible Japanese machine. Exactly why and how this happened I'm not sure - normally, anything I spend serious money on is deferred to and held slightly in awe, obviously deserving of some respect. Perhaps it was because tinkering with the valves and adding fresh oil every 1000 miles gave no discernible improvement in speed or general running. Or perhaps it was because it never really shone up despite loads of effort, happily fading away and corroding under the influence of our totally unpredictable autumn weather.
Perhaps I'd read too many UMG articles where the ethos was to see how long it took for destruction testing to have an effect; a unique art form even though it originated in the sheer laziness of the editor in being unable to bring himself to do any work on his own motorcycles and being surprised at how long the damn things lasted without exploding. Even the editor would admit to the odd oil change, but I decided that the GB deserved to experience total neglect...
British bike fanatics should be sitting down when they read this! I got a further 18000 miles out of a bike which by any sane account should already be in deep trouble! But no, the Honda rolled relentlessly forward with just the odd increase in engine rattles, and fuel consumption going from a reasonable 70mpg to 55mpg. How did the end come? A valve spring broke, letting the valve whack the piston which shattered and in turn sent enough debris through the engine to completely ruin everything that wasn't already on its last legs. Luckily, the demise happened a mere quarter of a mile from home, so even right at the end the Honda wasn't that vindictive.
Aided along by the newish front end, the chassis didn't really go into a desperate rate of wear, merely fading yet more and shedding one set of swinging arm bearings that proved impossible to buy new. Phosphor bronze replacements were made up on my ancient lathe - self lubricating, see! That effort, along with a few cans of paint on the chassis, proved worthwhile because after the engine had blown I found a replacement motor in the breakers for £300. The guy claimed it had only done 3000 miles, showing me a speedo off something else to prove it! But he was willing to let me roll my chassis down to his shop, install the motor and check it out, before handing over the dosh.
It was a good 'un, with unexpected urge at 90mph and less vibration than the earlier example. Did that convince me to give it plenty of tender loving care this time around? Er, no! Trouble is once you get into lazy habits it's dead hard to break out of them, and, besides these Jap bastards make such tough motors there's hardly any need to do anything to them. Is there?
Dereck Young
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There are CBX250's and CBX250's, as I was soon to learn when trying to track down a good one. I wanted the blend of performance and frugality potentially on offer. What I didn't want was any of the dogs none too artfully disguised as premium tackle. I couldn't believe some of the stuff punters tried to pull. A frame so bent that the bike pulled viciously to the right. Burnt out electrics. And the one with a camchain that went off like a machine gun halfway through the test ride. The more rat-like the bike experienced, the more possessed I became about finding the perfect deal.
That turned up in a dealer's, of all places. £1300, no offers entertained, unless I wanted to drop my pants in the back room - nod, wink! Not my scene - must've been the pink shirt I was wearing! I couldn't find anything about the bike that disagreed with the reputed 9000 miles on the clock and the one owner in the registration doc. Lovely, especially compared to the wannabe rats I'd earlier encountered, which had ranged in price from £800 to £1400. Some people have an awful lot of nerve.
Deal duly done, I had 30 horses worth of DOHC 250cc thumper blues on my hands. As it happened, I spent many a happy month loping around on the CBX's predecessor, the RS250. A neat little bundle of metal if ever there was one, but with a nasty side that caught me out come 27000 miles. As in total engine failure, first brought to my attention by a seized motor. The rest of it was only fit for paperweights, too. The CBX250 had a much better reputation, though it never sold in large numbers because of its silly new price.
The engine lives on in the GB250 series, which turn up in the grey importers on occasion, though I've never come across a reasonably priced one in good shape. My CBX shone with years of loving polishing and rustled with an almost electric sophistication. Not outright fast, nor likely to leave my brain protruding out of the back of my cranium, but nevertheless an excellent mix of adequate power, minimal mass and taut handling.
Don't know if the springing's entirely stock, might well've been tightened up along the way. It rumbled a little over minor bumps, needed a major pothole before it reacted with all its travel. Bounced around and felt a little too directly connected to the tarmac for the first week or two. Then, as tends to happen, the minor irritants went into the background and its major benefits grabbed my mind and kept me on a roll.
It's a sneaky little beast in town. Its narrowness and lightness lets it kill most rivals dead. The same cunningness makes it a delight on twisty country roads. And it has one of those engines that like to run at maximum speed all day long. Top speed's around the ton, under favourable conditions, but most of the time it peaks out at 90mph, a speed it'll happily hold until the fuel runs out.
That made it bearable on motorways, though it had nothing in hand if the need to accelerate out of trouble arose. But I didn't like motorways much, preferred to let the little Honda sing its tune on fast A-roads, where it was well on the pace without threatening my licence to too great an extent. As in perfectly suited to our heavily policed and highly restricted roads.
The only area where it gave a hard time was the rear chain, those thumper power pulses, though quelled by a balancer as far as the rider was concerned, tended to rip the poor old means of power transmission apart. Even a heavy-duty O-ring chain with a set of brand new sprockets failed to last for more than 6000 miles. More than made up for by the average 70-75mpg economy, Avons that lasted in excess of 15000 miles and an engine that didn't consume one drop of oil between 2500 mile services. Neither did the valves go out of adjustment, making me neglect them for 5000 miles at a time. Only the Japanese can get away with such engineering finesse on such small, high revving engines.
A few minor chassis problems emerged as the mileometer spun past the 25000 mile point. The rear wheel bearings went, had corroded solidly into the hub which cracked up when assaulted by the usual lump-hammer and chisel routine. Oops! A spare wheel cost £25, had nearly new shoes in it! Lucky that! Replacement of the swinging arm bearings was similarly traumatic but I didn't quite wreck the frame!
One battery leaked acid, dissolved its brackets, rattled around and tore some of the wiring apart. The replacement lasted less than six months despite being lovingly wrapped in old inner-tubes. The electrical system is a bit marginal on these bikes, well worth checking over when contemplating purchase.
Pretty much what you'd expect on an ageing Japanese bike. On the other hand, the bike clicked righteously up to 38000 miles, and would, I feel, have done heaps more, before disaster struck. Not in the form of mechanical breakage but one of those wide Transit vans. The problem with vans is that their sheer size makes their drivers feel invincible. The jerk behind the wheel came merrily barrelling along the road, well over on my side.
I was overtaking a car at the time with no obvious escape route, other than sprouting wings and going all celestial. I hit the horn, flasher and brakes in one desperately coordinated move and had time to scream bastard at the driver. Not wanting to pass on unremarked I rammed the Honda into the side of the car, squeezed my knees in so hard they threatened to snap the tank in half, and managed to float the Honda into the tiny gap between van and car.
Man and machine were shuffled back and forth between the two vehicles. My left kneecap was shattered by the door handle of the car and my right lower leg almost amputated by the rear bumper of the Transit. The rest I only learnt after I woke up in a white room with tubes poking out of me in some very intimate places. Apparently, the accident had damaged a large number of cars in the ensuing pile-up, flattened the CBX and left me with a fifty-fifty chance of walking again. Somewhere along the line my memory blanked out the actual details of the crash or maybe I just passed out from the pain of having various limbs attacked. Some time later I ended up back on the road, on a DR350, but I'm totally messed up in my head, full of fear every time I set out. Oh well, can't win them all.
G.P.
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