….what it used to be, as they say in the classics. This morning I want to ease a burr that has been under my saddle for quite a long time. It is this. Why are people spending inordinate amounts of money restoring boring bikes?
The bike above is a mid-70’s Honda CB200. It was, at best, an adequate commuter bike. It had most of the “modern” features of 70’s Hondas. SOHC engine, electric start, good instrumentation, a disk brake on the front and a relatively comfy seat. Added to this it had Honda’s legendary build quality and longevity. I remember seeing heaps of these back in the day, mostly being used by workers going backwards and forwards to the steelworks through the customary rush hours that typified change of shift here in Wollongong. The rider was usually clad in steelworks issue bright yellow waterproof pants and jacket, Blundstone or Baxter steel toe-capped work boots, an open face helmet and (sometimes) a pair of gloves (usually also steelworks issue “safety” variety). A tiny pack rack was usually installed on the back of the seat which usually held a lunch box and other paraphernalia.
Honda sold them by the boatload. They were cheap, quiet and civilized and a better option in terms of “ride and forget” than the comparable two stroke offerings in the commuter market from the other manufacturers. What’s not to like, I hear you say? Nothing, except for the fact that they were as boring a re-run of “Neighbours.” Utterly competent (well, almost – the stainless steel front disk was totally ineffective in the wet) but utterly without character of any kind.
So, my question is, why are people spending wads of money buying (at ridiculous prices) examples of this bike and the other “grey porridge” bikes of the era and then spending even bigger wads of money restoring them? I just don’t get it. For the most part, the bikes that are being chosen for this type of treatment are “commuter” bikes, little 250’s and stuff. They wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding back then; they had all the adhesion of a flea in a typhoon (even less when it rained) and carried with them the severe risk of putting the rider to sleep whilst he was riding them so unremarkable was the experience.
“But it’s the nostalgia thing, Phil.” people have said to me, “It’s a hankering to recapture the experiences of the past when they first started riding.” I can dig that, but the experience of riding one of these things wasn’t anything to write home about then so why should the passage of years change that? I rode some bikes like this back then; they were dreadfully dull. Can they possibly be better now? Especially as we have the opportunity of comparing them to the sophisticated machines of today.
“But that’s exactly the reason why it’s so great, Phil. It’s getting back to the simple pleasures of motorcycling without ABS and all that electronic quackery.” Horse hockey. I’m sorry, but that’s just nonsense. If it was that good, manufacturers would still be building bikes like this and customers would be beating down the doors to buy them. The most dumbed-down LAMS bike of this era is still a more interesting ride than one of these.
I started riding in that era and, as a student of history and motorcycling history, I can tell you that nothing would convince me to spend a swag of money on one of these things no matter how much money I had, no matter how bored I was and no matter how much of a challenge I wanted. Like all of my era, we moved on. As the bikes got better, we bought them. And each time we took the leap to the next new level we wondered as we completed the test ride, “Why did I bother keeping my old clunker for this long?” I remember thinking this as I had my first ride on a VFR in 2002. My bike at the time was a 1983 CBX550 Honda, a lovely little thing, crammed full of all the technological whizz-bang that characterised the excesses of Honda’s marketing department at the time. It was quick enough and I loved it, but as I hunted down the Cotter Road that night on the VFR I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “Wow, where have they been hiding this thing?” And it was already a 6 year old bike at that time!
I exclude from my derision the purchase and restoration of “classic” bikes that were good bikes then and which deserve to be preserved. K1 Hondas and Z1’s are exempt. GT750 Suzuki water bottles likewise; in fact any of the known performance bikes of the day should be kept, restored, cherished and ridden.
But the “clunkers” need to be left where they lay.
And please don’t get me started on the even more inexplicable trend of taking these old things and turning them into “cafe racers.” The people concerned should go back to their history books and find out what the cafe racers of the day were. They were the hotted-up, stripped down versions of existing BIG bikes, 650 Triumphs, 750 Nortons, Big BSA’s and Matchies. They weren’t hotted up versions of the commuter bikes then and they still shouldn’t be.
Here is an example of what I have been saying. The workmanship is certainly impressive and it certainly LOOKS better than it did when it was new, but, at heart, it is still a boring commuter bike. Scooters of today would blow it into the weeds, so, why? “Because I can.”????? Well, sir, if you can, then please do, but choose a better candidate for your obvious skills. Cafe racers were just that, racers, designed to get you to and from the cafe as fast as possible. Call these things anything you like, but, please, don’t call them cafe racers.
OK, rant over. No doubt some are compiling a pithy reply to rebuke me for my intolerance; please feel free to do so.
teza51 says
Interesting Phil, did you not just get a Goldwing to do up a lot of people would say they are a machine that should be put on the Honda scrapheap but i for one have loved them since they first came on the market, each to their own i say
Phil Hall says
Thanks, Teza. I’m not sure who you have been talking to about early Gold Wings but I have never heard anybody say that they belong on the scrap heap. There were snorts of derision from the superbike riders of the day, of course, but it wasn’t built to be a superbike. It was built especially for the American touring market and has proved to be amazingly successful in that role. It also featured a number of “firsts” for Honda that made/make it a memorable bike (unlike the CB200 and its commuter-oriented brethren). It was Honda’s first water-cooled bike, first horizontally opposed engine, first shaft drive, first electric-only start, first with disks all round and the list goes on. I, too, loved it from when I first rode an original 1975 model that belonged to the father of a student at Koonawarra School. Why don’t you drop around one day and have a look at mine, it really is amazing, given its age. As for spending a bucket load of money, that’s not going to happen. 🙂