Forum

[Alan R]

My sister and I had both attended the local RAC/ACU training scheme before the actual test....and this was after some 2 or three years on the provisional licence and "L" plates.......Infact I had ridden my "machine of choice" a 1964 HONDA CB160 from Rosyth Dockyards ( My then RN shore base) down to my parents house in Reading, Berks with an overnight stop at Brum, whilst a learner !!..... I still have the "Graduate" badge and wear it on my main motorcycle jacket............Sisters bike was a Suzuki B100P ( The infamous Bloop )..........We both passed our test on the same day but she never rode anything bigger than a 1950's Mobylette after that...She recently retired from a Teaching career having amazed her students with the fact that if she wanted to she could technically ride a Harley Electra Glide or Honda Goldwing 1800 !!----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------

[Alan R]

Forgot to say}---------- Mid 1970's !!

[Bertie the Bullet]

Only passed my test about 6 years ago, the theory test was a doddle as I had been driving a car for about 20 years, the only thing the instructor warned me off after my practical having been passed was my speed was a touch on the quick side, I didn't have the heart to tell him that the speedo on my Gilera Cougar had snapped yet another cable a few days before the test..

[simon]

Pretty little machine those Hondas. The 305 Dreams are highly collectible now as are the smaller ones I imagine. I remember how we sneered at them when they first came out and how thoroughly wrong we were. I remember my big brother coming home a bit depressed because a Suzuki Titan 500 had just seem off a new Bonneville up Symonds Street in Auckland. It was a promise of things to come.

[Alan R]

I was Secretary of the HMS CALEDONIA motorcycle club during my time at the training establishment...We had about 12-- maybe more-- members, some with big Brit. bikes, the others with the usual mix of Bantams, Cubs, C15's etc... and my CB160........On a week-end ride and camping trip out into The Trossachs it wasn't unusual for the group to eventually split into two, with me keeping touch with a Tiger 500 or 650 Bonny around the tighter bends.............With a 5 speed box and 10,000rpm on hand from that single OHC, twin carbed, twin cylinder engine that was quite easy to do !! Putting some Dunlop "Triangulars" on it allowed the footrests to scrape as well.......EBD 21 C, where are you now ??

[Riggers]

I'm not doubting anybody's word on here but MY experience of a lot of the early Jap bikes was very exagerated BHP claims. In 1970 I had a newish Triumph Tiger 100 (500cc twin to the uninitiated), which put out a pretty genuine 34BHP and was good for a pretty genuine 100mph on a good day. It would cruise at 80mph on the M1 two up, into a head wind all day if necessary and on day trips from Hull to Brandes Hatch in Kent it had to! However I fell for the claims of Honda (backed up by MCN) that their new CB250 would do 100mph and kicked out as many horses as my Triumph, so I bought one on the grounds of cheaper insurance, tax, running costs etc etc. In reality it was flat out at 80mph one up with my head on the tank, and as for head winds two up on the M1 screaming in third gear at 45 or 50 was nearer the truth. In those days Honda's horses were nowhere near as big and strong as Triumph's! Cheers. Tony.

[Alan R]

Be fair to them, TONY what started out as full-blown "Horses" were only small "Donkeys" by the time they had travelled halfway around the world !! (LoL).......Can't ever say what the claimed BHP was for the CB160 but what I CAN relate to you is the absolute codswallop that the Insurance people came out with... I had part-ex'd my Lambretta Li150 for this baby of a REAL motorcycle at ALEXANDER's in Edinburgh (Anyone remember them ??) so was expecting the Road tax and Insurance to be the same.....The road tax was but the Insurance people wanted DOUBLE !! .. and this was back in 1968, when I was in my 3rd year Marine Engineering Apprenticeship and we were only allowed to deal with "Approved" dealers on site.....................Now bear in mind that at this stage I and my mates were almost at the end of training in Mechanical Engineering ie}---all forms of propulsion including all the calculations for power, moments of inertia etc,etc, to ONC then HNC standard ( with all the self-assurance of youth, ) ---and this cheeky agent explained that}----"These Japanese bikes have something special inside the engine which makes them go faster and thus are more of a liability !!"...........I was on £20 a week but had to cough-up if I wanted to keep the bike...so I did................................And now they're classics in their own right...I have a 1976 Honda GL1000 Goldwing and a 1980 Triumph TR7 Tiger 750...... both on a similar mileage......which one leaks oil ???

[simon]

To be fair though Riggers the true comparison would be between a Brit and a Jqp 250. I suppose it's always going to be an unfair comparison as the Japs were designing post war bikes with post war alloys and technology whereas most of the Brit bikes were tweaked 1930s designs. There are quite a few genuine 100 mph 250s around now but interestingly they use the same amount of fuel as the big bikes at the same speed. A chum did Melbourne to Adelaide on a Suzuki 250cc 4 cylinder and said he was astounded by the performance but interested that he got around 50 mpg much as he would have got on his four times heavier Ducati Darmah.

[Riggers]

You're absolutely right Simon in everything you say and ultimately the best bikes (i.e. the Jap ones) won the race - the UK industry went bang and the Japs prospered. However, in the early days the Japs did make some almost ridiculous claims for their bikes and the UK bike press seemed to be in cahoots with them. Some examples which spring to mind:- the Suzuki Super Six 250 two stroke twin - claimed top speed 110mph! The Honda 450 four stroke twin claimed 50BHP and top speed of 120mph. Suzuki 500 Cobra twin claimed top speed of 125! The famous Honda 750 Four claimed power output of 68bhp (when BSA/Triumph only claimed 59 for the Rocket3/Trident which was a faster bike). There is no doubt that all these were fantastic, up to the minute bikes which put their British rivals to shame BUT they weren't perfect. They were expensive, had suicide tyres when used in the wet and had brakes that matched- I had a Honda 750 Four K2 and the disc front brake simply didn't work in the wet for the first two or three seconds whereupon it would grab violently - fantastic then the tyres won't grip! Handling too was, with only a few exception, awful. Frames seemed to be made of flexible piping, and rear shockers were - well shocking! But in the end they got it right and we stood back and let them. And the rest as they say is history. Cheers. Tony (Royal Enfield and Yamaha TDM900 owner!).

[apparently lucky eddie]

You're right about some of the ridiculous performance for the 1970's/1980's jappers and the quite frankly lethal handling and non existant brakes. But it was easy to improve them with real Dunlops, iron discs/sintered pads and Hagon shocks. And the strokers in particular were sooo easy to tune - who did n't take a file to the transfer ports on their kawayamazuki?
I don't think the 750 Honda figures were too wild though. When the M25 was first opened it was just an little used section down Reigate hill to the A22 and it made a perfect speed testing strip, for 3 or 4 miles downhill. Unfortunately one summer evening I passed a "jam sandwich" parked up on the hard shoulder and got clocked at 137 on a slightly tuned 750 F1 Honda and a lengthy ban. It being so absurdly simple to get a license back then in the pre-computer days I got another prov.license in a slightly different name, applied for a cancellation test and was back on the road in a couple of weeks. Could n't do it nowdays though with all the bureaucracy and testing.