Page 34 - Riding On No.157 Summer 2022

RIDING A BLAST FROM THE PAST

Who would buy an old banger? It’s not a veteran or a vintage, but concept of investment
it qualifies as a ‘classic’. It happens to be Japanese so it’s arguably in an appreciating
modern, even if it’s pretending to be 1960s British. It’s a Honda asset?
XBR 500, spoked wheels, 1987 model. Asking price is $4250 and
it’s tempting because I had one of these bikes ‘back in the day’. How about my
experience of riding this
A previous owner decided they could improve on the design that bit of Honda history?
came into the showroom, and they’ve given it a bit of the café Not a lot of XBRs were
racer touch. For better or for worse? The seat is now too low and sold in Australia, but I
too thin. And café racers dispense with rear mudguards; they have gather it was a popular
a ‘tail tidy’ and mud goes everywhere. I live on a dirt road…. courier bike in the
UK and Europe – as evidenced by all the bits available on eBay
The XBR’s original blue-tank colour scheme is now a white tank out of Germany and England. Through the 1990s, I rode my XBR
over black side panels and front guard. It’s handsome. It’s a right 100,000klms in four different eastern Oz States and on all sorts of
royal banger: one big cylinder, a carby and two pipes each with an roads. It was fantastically reliable. My first thousand kays or so on
after-market not-much-muffler for rattling café windows. After a this ‘new’ old banger have been trouble free.
fiddle with the choke and a press of the starter button (no, I don’t
have to kick it) it fires up, loudly. But it’s up against a brick wall so I However it’s a design that’s nearly forty years old, and it feels
tell myself it won’t be so bad out on the road. it. It’s ’sporty’ with footpegs set back and high, and clip-ons
demanding a forward lean. But by today’s standards its brakes
Beautiful gearbox, runs pretty smoothly right up to 7000 revs in are ordinary, along with its suspension, its headlight, its fuel
top gear, which is faster than good sense advises me. It even stops consumption, its instrumentation, its power and I suppose I have
and handles bumpy corners OK, and only a couple of fittings have to say its overall safety. On the plus side it has a 20-litre tank and
loosened by the time I return. It blows no smoke. I’m inclined to a 400-kliometre range. Loping along a country road, leaning it
believe the very low kilometres on the odometer. Heaven help me, through sweepers and twisties, riding it on gravel, even treating an
I hand over my money and ride the beast 150 kilometres home. It’s old XBR to a trip to the city, there is nothing bland about this bike.
a pleasure all the way. It’s a joy – the sound of it, the look, the comment it attracts. But
mostly it’s about the feeling - of being in the ‘back then’, but it’s
I confess I already own a near-new motorcycle. It is ‘state-of- here and now!
the-art’. It is fuel-efficient, capable and comfortable, bristling in
whizz-kid technology. Why then might I hanker for a second bike Of course for local travel I should be buying an electric motorcycle
that wasn’t even the smartest thing out of the factory back in the or scooter? So old bangers go to the scrap heap? Or do I follow the
1980s? Well, I lived in Malaysia in the early 70s and had a 1961 other environmentally friendly principle and ‘repair and re-use’? I’m
Norton ES2. That 500 cc single was all chug-chug-chug and torque going with the latter.
galore and hear-my-song exhaust. Just like this XBR. With a bit of
self-analysis, I accept that I’ve succumbed to this purchase because On a classic motorcycle it is of course appropriate to dress in full
the XBR is a fine example of an old design that can manage leathers. If I didn’t value my safety I’d show off in a pudding-basin
remarkably well in today’s world. Harleys and Beemer boxers and helmet and an Isle of Man T-shirt. The bike might win admiring
Moto Guzzis and even Vespas have current models chained to their glances parked outside a café. But I don’t park for long. On this
distant past. Now I’m chained there too. dear old banger I’d rather be riding.
I tell myself that this classic motorcycle might - just might - hold ©2022 Ken Rubeli
its value against the CPI. We live in uncertain economic times. Can Ken Rubeli
I rumble up the driveway and introduce my grandchildren to the Ulysses Member #61309
RIDING ON 34