Introduction

Over the years I have owned many bikes. Luckily for me, I just missed the first major change in the law in the UK, when the age for riding anything above a moped was raised to 17, and I started riding a 250 at 16 years old, I am now 48.  In between some of my early bikes were a couple that I owned for a week or two, but never actually got on the road, these were a Francis Barnett 175, and a rare Moto Guzzi 250 single, but as I didn't have them long, I don't remember too much about them, so my impressions are not included here.  I hope you enjoy reading about my "Golden Oldies", none of them were exactly roadburners with the exception of the Kawasaki Z650, a true Superbike when I bought it.  One thing before you read on, please, please, please do not take offence if I do not rate your current machine, or a bike that you have owned in the past.  These are merely my views on the bikes as I saw them at the time.  Included here are a couple of photos of bikes that I have not owned, but deserve a mention, two are of a Hillman Imp engined V8 Special, (two Imp engines!!!), and my friend Phillip's Harley Fatboy.

Royal Enfield Crusader 250

My first bike was a 1958 Royal Enfield Crusader 250, made to look like a Continental GT with fibre glass tank and clip-ons, although it still retained the original footrests that made for a rather weird riding position. It cost me £60, and I thought it was the fastest thing on the road, in actual fact it struggled to reach 70 MPH, and when it did the engine used to overheat. The head, barrel and exhaust used to glow red in the dark!! The one thing it did well was go round corners. It was fitted with Dunlop K70 tyres (advanced at the time), and used to stick like a limpet even in the wet. This machine was not too reliable though, broken kick-start, blown head gasket, dodgy electrics, and so it made way for a new Suzuki TS50 5-speed for me to take my test on.

Suzuki AP50

The Suzuki AP50 was bought in 1972 on HP and cost me £8 per month, and £5 per year for fully comp insurance, sounds good? I was only earning £32 per month, and paying my dad £12 per month keep, so it was quite a deal at the time. The little Suzz was great on petrol. I think I used to fill it up about once a fortnight, but although it was an unrestricted 50 (8 BHP!!!), it could not push my bulk along too quickly, I was only about 10 stone then, but I was tall for my age, and so wind blast used to hold it back. If I remember right, it would do about 55 MPH flat on the tank. How stupid did that look on a tiny 50. I kept the Suzuki for about 6 months, passed my test, and it being rather too slow for me, took it back to the dealer I bought it from, and traded it against a Tribsa 650!! The photo used here, (courtesy of Haynes Motorcycle Manuals), is virtually identical to the one I owned, apart from the fact mine had a high level exhaust in matt black.

Tribsa 650

Now my Tribsa 650 looked and sounded the absolute business. Clip-ons, big orange fibre glass tank, rear-sets, swept back exhausts, reverse megacone silencers, full width twin leading shoe front brake. What it really was, was the biggest load of reconstructed, cobbled together old poo I have ever bought. At £120 in 1973, it was not that cheap. It dripped oil like the Torrey Canyon (remember that crippled oil tanker the Royal Navy bombed back in 1967 to sink it), smoked more than Bet Lynch, and had about as much go as a Lada on a good day. It had a BSA frame, with what I thought to be a Bonnie engine, it turned out to be a 6T. On investigating why it did not go too well, after being thoroughly blown away by a Suzuki 200 Invader, (and he was two-up), the cylinder head was removed and found to be cracked, the twin carb manifold had a hole in it, the front mounted dynamo was hanging off (nice shiny right boot thanks to the resultant oil leak ), the gearbox had an ominous rumble when riding in top gear, and a back brake that was there for show. The performance was partly restored by fitting an original iron head, and a single carb, although it would do an indicated 110 MPH it never inspired confidence. My Tribsa thanked me not much later, by the gearbox seizing, and throwing me up the road. Luckily, whilst I was recovering, some kind soul stole it and I got £100 back off the insurance.

BSA Goldstar DBD34

With the insurance money, I did the dumb thing again, I bought an old BSA Goldstar DBD34, unfortunately, that is not mine in the picture, but a nice example that I saw at a show a few years ago. The Goldstar was not really a success. It was very tired, but to 17 year old eyes, it was the dogs dangly bits. The greatest claim to fame that bike had in my hands, was travelling down the East Lancs Road towards Liverpool with a friend in tow on his Honda CB450, (quite a nice machine). We were doing the usual "my bikes faster than your bike thing", and I overtook him at 80+ MPH, and changed up into 3rd gear then into 4th, his eyes were out on stalks when we stopped at the next set of lights, he could not believe how high geared it was. But, as time moved on, my Goldstar suffered a cracked front down tube whilst negotiating a fast left hand bend, and scared the living daylights out of me, needless to say we parted company soon after that.

Honda CB350

My next machine, a Honda CB350 twin registration number PLU 30L was back on the road to sanity, and reliability. A friend of mine had owned a Honda CB250 K2, and quite rightly was proud of it's reliability, and for it's day, performance. So, to go one better I bought my two year old Honda CB350 twin, the only thing against it was the bottle green metallic paint job. The CB350, although not a true 350, it was in fact 325cc, did it's job well, pretty good performance, (105 MPH flat on the tank), sounded nice, unlike it's later brethren, went round corners, and stopped in a civilised manner. Apart from replacing the battery, carb diaphragms, and chain, the CB350 was great, I owned her for a couple of years, before deciding on a change for no other reason than that, so I swopped her for a Yamaha RD200.

Yamaha RD200

Now here was a mini hooligan's machine. The Yamaha RD200, was a quick little bike. It handled brilliantly, stopped on a sixpence, and for a 200cc machine went like stink. The machine I bought was in mint condition, had only done about 2,000 miles, and looked great in gold and black. The only problem with the RD200, was that you wanted to ride it flat out everywhere, because it went so well. The only thing that held it back was my size, at nearly 6 foot and 13 stones,  ( I was now 21, and had discovered beer), the RD200 was never going to be a ton-up machine. With me flat on the tank, again!!, it would reach an indicated 90 MPH, but boy did it get up to 80 quick. I was living in London at the time, the little Yamaha was a brilliant tool for zipping through the London traffic, and for the odd blast on the open road. I sold her while I was down there, before returning to Manchester.

Yamaha XS750

I was back home in Manchester, the bike bug bit again, I bought a Yamaha XS750 registration number TNF 999R. This was probably the most comfortable bike I have ever owned. I met my wife when I owned this bike, and introduced her to the pleasures of motorcycling. The 750cc triple sounded gorgeous, and after a little fettling didn't handle too badly either considering it weighed 520lbs. I fitted Girling shocks to the rear, and Avon Roadrunner tyres, (the bee's knees in the late 70s). I found the shaft drive a revelation, no more mucky back wheels or adjusting chains. It went like a train, or seemed to, (120 MPH indicated), and was rock steady at speed. It had one or two gremlins, the rectifier burnt itself out, and boiled the battery dry, I had to replace the front fork seals, steering head bearings, and because some moron had attempted to steal it, the ignition switch and clutch lever from as it fell over when they tried to wheel it away. At one stage in my hands, my XS750 developed a mystery misfire. Whenever I tried to rev it past 5,000 RPM, the engine faded. This went on for 6 months, and despite a visit to a dealer for a run on his dyno, new plugs, new coils, new points, it still misfired. That is until I went through the unenviable job of removing the triple carb assembly, (not easy!!!), and found a lump of crud living in one of the float chambers, misfire gone, 8,000 RPM again. One fault I never did cure, was that in hot weather, both the front discs, and rear disc would slowly but surely start to bind, and could only be released by undoing the bleed nipples on each of the callipers. Apparently, the discs were slightly warped, so deciding I had spent enough, traded her in against a new Kawasaki Z650.

Kawasaki Z650 F1

I bought my Kawasaki Z650 registration number MNE 720W new in 1981, it was an F1 with alloy wheels, and blue metallic paint. The Z650, was probably one of the best bikes I have ever owned, and it was quick. My friend's Honda CB750 F1 could not live with it either in a straight line or in the twisty stuff. There is not much to say about the Z650, as it was probably the best multi-cylinder bike of it's day. It was one of the first bikes to be fitted with sintered pads giving disc brakes that actually worked in the wet. The Z900 was faster, but was a cow in the bends, ( I know, I've been on one ), so for practicality, the Z650 was really the machine to have. One of my fondest memories of the Z650 was steaming after some mates down the M61 after getting caught out at a set of lights before joining the motorway. I had the wife on the back, and shot past them at 115 MPH with Mo's hand flailing in the wind behind waving goodbye. Solo, I saw 125 MPH on the clock, many a time. I had very few problems with her, at 10 months old, one of the silencers disintegrated internally, at that time the warranty was only 12 months, so the dealer offered to replace both silencers, or fit a Motad 4 into1; the Motad went on, it sounded really throaty. The camchain tensioner also went on the blink, a fault with the Z650 at the time, it was supposed to be self adjusting, but was soon fixed FOC by my dealer. But, all good things come to an end, and due to sorry finances at the time, (we were only together for 18 months), I part exchanged her for a Kawasaki LTD440, the bike that is, not the wife.

Kawasaki LTD440

Now here was the sorriest heap of junk I have ever bought, the Kawasaki LTD440, registration number RNA 448W. Perhaps I was sickened by it just coming off the Z650, but this was one of the worst examples of the Japanese trying to build a custom bike that I have ever come across. I suppose the saying "needs must" comes in here, I needed a bike, and at the time, this was the best I could afford. Don't get me wrong, it was low mileage, and in great condition, but on the other hand, it was slow to the point of boredom, and handled like a pig. To get the best out of the engine, it had to be revved to the redline, and because of this was actually worse than the Z650 on petrol. Whenever you approached a bend, you did so with trepidation. It grounded out at a very modest angle of lean, and if you did find a fast smooth bend, bucked and wallowed like it had no damping at either end, if the bend was bumpy, the bike felt downright dangerous. The riding position was abysmal, not only were the bars wide, but kinked back at a ridiculous angle causing severe wrist ache. The "custom" seat was appalling. It was impossible to move around on the seat because it was so radically shaped, causing you to sit leaning back slightly resulting in numbness setting in, and your lower back to ache. When my wife sat on the pillion, she was 6 inches above me, right in the wind blast and her legs were cramped up like a jockey. Needless to say we both hated it, although not much went wrong with it, with fatherhood looming, a friend of mine who adored the LTD, (God knows why), took it off my hands.

Cars took over my life from here, due to the birth of my son, that is, until I bought my baby, the VN800 Classic, now this bike we both love.

Hillman Imp Engined Special

I thought you might like to see the pictures below. I dug them out of my collection of photos taken many moons ago at the Darley Moor track in Derbyshire, it is a rather large special that had V8 engine made from two Hillman Imp engines, and a Jaguar dash, I recently had an email that this bike was still running, and owned by someone working at Rolls Royce in Crewe UK.  If you are the owner get in touch, and let me know more about it.  Mistakenly, I thought it was a Rover V8 engine, but this is even more special.

Harley Fatboy

This is a photo of a Harley-Davidson Fatboy, belonging my friend Phillip at AOL.

Mark's RD200 & FS1E

During my hunt for photos of some of my old bikes, I received an email from
Mark Gardiner, reminiscing about the RD200, sadly he did not have any photos either, but I thought it was well worth publishing Mark's tale, as well as a photo of a Yamaha FS1E that he once owned, a cracking little 50, read on......

Hi,

I felt I had to mail you after stumbling across your site whilst on a search for scans of Yamaha RD product literature circa 1975/6. I used to have loads but they got stolen from my Father's house when he died a few years back.

I had a brand new, blue, second liveried RD200 on my 17th B'day which I had saved up for by working weekends/holidays. Previously I had done the same to buy a new (Blackcurrant) FS1E. I paid 185.00 pounds for the FS1E from a dealer in Thames Ditton called Comerfords and sold it a year later (immaculate) for 195.00! I took my test on it and took mates on the back...brilliant. I always laughed that my logbook named the dealer as 'Comesloads' !!!

However, I sold the RD200 after only 18 months as I had progressed to working full time and had some hard, cold journeys to work and day release college, where I got fed up lugging all my winter/wet gear around all day! I have not had a bike since... BUT, I was fortunate to have my RD200 throughout the famous long hot summer of 1976 and as I had just left college and couldn't find the job I was looking for to start my career, had all day, every day to polish, tinker and lavish love on my prized stallion. If I got too hot, I just  got on the bike, turned the key, pressed that evocative electric start and it burbled into life with that tight, zipping growl...Off I went, posing.

Now, in recent years I have often dreamt that the bike is still in my lockup and that I must go down and use it as I haven't done so for all these years. I wake up and of course I haven't got it!!  Whenever I have talked to other bikers I always boast what a brilliant bike it was and how fast for a 200 twin... It was infamous for this in its day and would easily keep up with the RD250 and the old Kwaker 250 triple... It had that incredible tight power band that pulled in third gear - forever - and if you tensioned the chain just right, the torque was breathtaking! But, I must say that I have had some doubt in my mind as to whether it was really like I remembered, but reading your report, I realised I remember it absolutely correctly!

God I wish I still had it... My last glimpse was it being pushed away by the buyer who wanted to go over to Australia and tour round on it!... he had to push it as he had no UK licence! I paid 390.00 I think and got 365.00 but it was showroom... I never dropped my bikes...! Like you, the only downer was its diminutive stature. Quite a bit lower than the RD250 and Suzuki RS  250... but it looked purposeful slunk on the side stand, waiting, with those two big dials up front and pert up in the air rear,  threatening it had attitude... It was that scale as it was built for the home market, the RD 250 and 350 were specifically designed for the UK market to catch the wave of intense Bike mania at that time... Sadly, I have no pics of the 200 only the FS1E waiting to be collected by the Chinese guy who bought it off me. Two weeks later he wrote it off!

Cheers for letting me ramble! Mark

If anyone knows the whereabouts of any of the bikes above, those with the registration numbers I remembered that is, or you want to know anything else about the bikes here, please email me.

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