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On these pages you'll find pictures of some bikes I've owned and ridden and what I thought of them.

(Click on the thumbnails to see a larger Picture)

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Honda C50/CA100

My first Bike in 1970 and I rode it to death. One of Honda's masterpieces almost unburstable virtually bullet proof. Fell of it loads of times and never broke it. Every one who wants to ride or drive on the road should start on one of these.

Honda C72

Although I learned to ride on a Honda C50. The C72 was my first real motorcycle. It was quite advanced for it's time with an electric starter and indicators. Although not as fast some of the other 250s around it was quite capable of 80mph.

CB72 & Me

My next bike was a CB72. This was a sporty twin carb version of the C72 using a tubular frame with telescopic forks. Lighter and quicker with a top speed of 90+mph.

BSA Barracuda

This was a more basic machine. No electric starter or indicators but it was light and quite nippy considering that it had a single cylinder of 250cc. But it was let down by the design and build quality of the engine internals that meant that these models were prone to throwing the conrod if over stressed.

BSA C15 SS80

My next bike precedes the Barracuda but to my mind is the better bike. Although not as fast was more reliable and less prone to blowing up. This is one of the bikes that I wish I'd kept as it made an excellent commuter bike.

Ducati 250 MkIII

This was without a doubt one of the best 250s of it's time. It was fast for a bike of it's size with a top speed of just over 100mph (with a few modifications) and it handled excellently too. I could ride rings around my friends on their Jap and Brit 250s. This is another one I should have kept, but I sold it to my girlfriend after I'd passed my test.

Triumph Tiger Cub

A 200cc single using cycle parts from the BSA Bantam produced a very good commuter bike. I had one for a short time in the mid 1970s and found it an excellent tool to go to work on. Unfortunately like many small classic bikes these days a good one is difficult to find at a sensible price.

Honda 750 4

This was the first of the Japanese super bikes. The one that showed other motorcycle manufacturers the way to go and spelled the death of the British motorcycle industry.

In fact Triumph didn't catch up until September 1990.

Suzuki GT500

Another excellent bike, this came out around the same time as the Honda 4. Once again the British bike industry where shown the way, but still plodded along producing variants on a 1930s theme.

1959 BSA A10 with Busmar child/adult sidecar

I bought this outfit in 1975 for £59 and it ran and ran. A superbly reliable machine.

The bike next to it is a Honda CB125S another of Honda's little gems.

Here is the same machine in 1979. The sidecar body has been removed due to the wooden frame being rotten and a bag of sand is being used as ballast (this was later replaced by a large wooden tool chest). The small engine on the sidecar was used to power the lights, due to the Lucas generator being somewhat unreliable.

The bike was eventually sold in 1989/90

Also, in the 60's BSA sold Kawasaki the rights to produce the A10, here's what they produced. Can you tell the difference?

©Spen2008