A tie between a 250cc Norton Jubilee and 197cc Villiers engined Norman. the back of the gearbox fell off the Norton as I was pulling away...much to the amuzement of my mates. The Norman was so badly built that I had to "seize" up the fork legs solid to stop it throwing me off!(it was a bit tired)
Most fun was a tuned Suzuki RG500 closley followed by my ex- vintage racing Scott Squirrel with nitrous oxide injection(not a word of a lie).
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I'd like to have heard that Scott :-D they sound glorious on an open pipe, with the Burgess silencers they just sound flat.
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CJ250T.
As far as Honda 250's go, I'd agree with you. I was actually rather fond of its predecessor, the G5; owned one for a year or so and despite the fact that it was glacially slow I found it comfortable and reliable, plus it was a fairly big bike for a 250 and you could pile a weekend's camping gear on it and still be fairly comfortable two-up. It was quite a handsome bike too.
The CJ lacked the leccy start and the sixth gear, and the styling was if anything worse than the Super Dream with a yucky yellow or orange as the main colours. Horrible 2-1 exhaust as well.
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Two friends had truly rotten bikes. One had a Neval Minsk, the Russian 125cc 2-stroke single. Where to start? The fact you never knew if it was running backwards or forwards until you engaged the clutch? The complete lack of brakes? The tyres which seemed to be made of old condom material?
He got rid and bought a Kwak 250 Scorpion, which was nice until it seized the cam due to the notorious gunged-up oil strainer problem. Great design, Kawasaki, putting the oil strainer BEHIND the oil pump so you have to remove the pump to get at it :-/
The other had a Yam XS250, which was totally gutless, heavy and slow. My GT200X5 was far quicker in all circumstances. The XS also had the starting foible common to the small Yam 4-strokes. It wouldn't start when warm. Starting from stone cold: fine. Hot starting within 5 minutes after switching off: fine.
But if left for more than 5 minutes, no amount of running&bumping, kicking etc would get it going unless you put some fuel down the plugholes. Eventually he saw the light and got a Suzi X7.
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I feel terrible.
I've owned a CZ, which was an awful bike, and a Honda CJ250T in yellow which I thought was great but appeared to have no pulling power whatsoever!
After that,a couple of BMs.
If ever I buy another bike, I need advice from the HJ bike style council!
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I seem to remember pulling quite a few birds on my 350K4 though :)
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I seem to remember pulling quite a few birds on my 350K4 though :)
They were by far the nicest of the Honda 250/350 twins, with the exception of the CB72 which was a real flyer; good engine, decent styling and best of all that lovely 2LS front brake.
Having said that, the short-lived 250 Dream (between the CJ and the ubiquitous Super Dream) was a favourite of mine; underpowered yes, but a very comfortable bike to ride. The 400 version was excellent.
Edited by Harleyman on 05/03/2009 at 22:31
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My dad had a CB77 until I was 8 ... many fond memories of that :)
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I had a CB250 K1, the one with the flat sided tank in white and gold which was a good bike at the time. IIRC the early ones revved 1000 rpm higher than the later ones and were a bit quicker. There is a bit of info on these bikes on the link below. 30 BHP from a 4 stroke 250 is not bad for a bike produced in 1970.
www.usedbikeguide.com/bible/display.asp?id=489
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if i remember correctly my bsa barracuda 250 single had 28hp in 1968, if i'm wrong somebody will correct me. it melted the piston at 6000mls, a common fault as they ran too weak and i thrashed the nuts off it. used to do the 24mls to work in 22mins including observing the 30mph limit in 2 small towns. those were the days. jag.
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A mate bought a Suzuki RE5 when they first came out. That would be high on anyone's list of all time turkeys.
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How about a Royal Enfield Bullet powered by a diesel engine!
"navigation up the gearbox is a bit of a bind when it takes all five gears to move the plot up to 30mph!"
www.realclassic.co.uk/diesel05112800.html
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Mid 70's, I bought a AJS Stormer Trail - the scrambler, slightly detuned and made road legal with a 'silencer' and token lights. It still wakened the dead, and although it started easily, you had to keep on blipping the throttle until it warmed up. As I discovered early one Sunday morning, switching on the lights (no battery, run off the coil) would stall the engine if it wasn't thoroughly warmed up. After 3 cycles of kick, yeeanng-ang-ang-ang, baaarp yeang-ang-ang-ang, lights, bother, stalled again, I drove off in the dark, having woken the entire street.
The clutch was obviously never meant to be used - fearfully heavy, it kept pulling the nipples off of the cable, so I became quite adept at clutchless gearchanges.
I finally made the mistake of trying to ride it from east London to Bath one wet Sunday night; an earth lead fell off, stopping it, then whilst cruising at a noisy but relatively slow pace, it siezed, depositing me in the middle lane, the bike coming to rest in the outside lane. Luckily the motorway was quieter in those days...
Amazingly, it wasn't damaged and I eventually managed to sell it - it did look splendid with its alloy tank, but it was a motorcross bike, utterly useless for the road...
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