GB250The 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?
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