Your Favourite Honda ;o)

Yes Jap suicide tyres we used to call them, dampers were crap as well. The 400/4 didn't do it for me, looked a nice package but was slow and boring. I actually really like the early dreams though and they had terrible handling and brakes. If oil changes and filter cleaning were neglected on the little Hondas big end failure was assured.
Never liked the Kawasaki Z650 either, that was boring as well.
 
I knew a guy that had a hot, near new Z650, lots of trick bits, aluminium rims, a lot of alloy weight saving bits and everything that could be Swiss cheesed was.
Super lumpy cam, smooth bores, 4/1 etc.

Went like a scolded cat, unlike Pats boring stockie.
 
chrisk said:
I knew a guy that had a hot, near new Z650, lots of trick bits, aluminium rims, a lot of alloy weight saving bits and everything that could be Swiss cheesed was.
Super lumpy cam, smooth bores, 4/1 etc.

Went like a scolded cat, unlike Pats boring stockie.
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Yes it was a boring stockie Chris and I wouldn't have wasted a halfpenny on the thing. Maybe I was expecting too much.
 
I was usually underwhelmed when I first rode the newest hot shit from Japan... mostly boring, vile-handling stuff, sometimes actually had some noticable power. Not even the Kawaski GPZ900/Ninja appealed to me, I found it truely fugly. The first bike that really stirred me was the slabby GSXR when it hit the german market. Lightweight, agile with good brakes and decent oomph, a game-changer. Its shortcomings showed up pretty quickly though, but it did show the way to go, and was quickly followed by all others.

Older jap "classics" can now be viewed through rose-tinted glasses, they're now no better than in the day. Just a reminder of the onslaught from the japanese manufacturers. Actually quite surprising so many have survived, they were built to a price and not meant to be ridden for more than 5-6 years before being chucked in the shredder and replaced by the newest hot shit...

Wifey drove this N600 for a couple of years before it rusted out;IMG_4917.JPG
Actually a decent little machine with lots of bike-based mechanicals. Far more sophisticated than the comtemporary Fiat 500/126 which ruled that particular market niche here. The Honda would walk all over the Fiat, but they both rusted equally quickly. :ROFLMAO:

piet
 
sfcpiet said:
I was usually underwhelmed when I first rode the newest hot shit from Japan... mostly boring, vile-handling stuff, sometimes actually had some noticable power. Not even the Kawaski GPZ900/Ninja appealed to me, I found it truely fugly. The first bike that really stirred me was the slabby GSXR when it hit the german market. Lightweight, agile with good brakes and decent oomph, a game-changer. Its shortcomings showed up pretty quickly though, but it did show the way to go, and was quickly followed by all others.

Older jap "classics" can now be viewed through rose-tinted glasses, they're now no better than in the day. Just a reminder of the onslaught from the japanese manufacturers. Actually quite surprising so many have survived, they were built to a price and not meant to be ridden for more than 5-6 years before being chucked in the shredder and replaced by the newest hot shit...

Wifey drove this N600 for a couple of years before it rusted out;View attachment 99786
Actually a decent little machine with lots of bike-based mechanicals. Far more sophisticated than the comtemporary Fiat 500/126 which ruled that particular market niche here. The Honda would walk all over the Fiat, but they both rusted equally quickly. :ROFLMAO:

piet
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A lot of the things probably survived due to not being used.
Luckily, most were shredded when the owners succumbed to the advertising departments and traded them in for more recent piles of pooo.
Paul
 
regarding replica 250/297 six's

"George Beal commissioned six replicas. Made in France by JPX"

wasnt that just the engine unit Paul?

the rest?????CLEM
 
Some Hondas are built to last ......... Several Honda CBR1100XX Super Blackbirds are now approaching one million miles with routine maintenance / servicing ........

( According to dealer feedback in a magazine article ... ) ............


Talking of longevity ...... a Practical Sportsbike feature on long termers spotlighted a Kawasaki ZX9R a while back which had covered 100,000 miles ....... Only on it`s THIRD engine though ............

BTW .... Piero Laverda once quoted the life expectancy of a RGS as being 14 years .......... No mention of the amount of mileage you`re supposed to cover in that period of time , though ..........
 
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Mileages covered in the days of our youth were vastly different from what many of us probably manage today. I bought my SF1 in early '75 with 19,000 miles on the clock. By mid '76 it had done more than 70,000 miles. Then I really started clocking up the ks, but with a TZ front drum and no speedo I have no accurate record of it. It was my only mode of transport and Australia is a very big place. A trip from Perth to Melbourne and back would be 7,000km without detours. I kept up the high mileage until about 2000 when family began to appear.
 
Blackbirds really seemed to grab hold of people, I know several who never lost the wow factor on them. They are generally only used for longer trips too which is the best thing for engine longevity on well serviced engines. My ´01 VFR is the same, it is easy to keep owning it and not too many more years before it also is on classic rego....my "new" modern bike, I must be getting old!
People here think that bikes have high mileage with under fifty thousand k on the clock.
 
PL once said to me that "they" expected the triples to get bought by serious motorcyclists who would buy a new model (from them) after 3 to 5 years, and then pass on the used one, and repeat again and again, so that there were many used triples around the planet that they would continue to supply the needed parts for, possibly even making that side of the business bigger than the new bikes.There is a ten year rule for parts in Italy (I think) or there was, 20 would have been good for factory bits, but in both cases the business has to survive!
CLEM
 
CLEMTOG said:
PL once said to me that "they" expected the triples to get bought by serious motorcyclists who would buy a new model (from them) after 3 to 5 years, and then pass on the used one, and repeat again and again, so that there were many used triples around the planet that they would continue to supply the needed parts for, possibly even making that side of the business bigger than the new bikes.There is a ten year rule for parts in Italy (I think) or there was, 20 would have been good for factory bits, but in both cases the business has to survive!
CLEM
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That's part of the reason Laverda floundered.
If you want to sell people a new bike every few years, they'd better be cheap.

The 10 year parts supply rule is worldwide Clem, be it Datsun or Whirlpool. One has to keep " the economy" turning. Build recyclable, don't build rebuildable.

Paul
 
I have always thought were Laverda serious when stating that they would sell a new bike after every 5 years for the same customer. I don't see that the technology, manufacturing methods and markets would support this almost anyhow. I consider that idea is originated from Henry Ford and model T, and the idea was copied by Japanese manufacturers. I have read the book from Henry Ford (Henry Ford - Today and tomorrow, 1926, probably is still reprinted then and then) as did the Japanese manufacturers and copied the thoughts for manufacturing. The production methods were later called lean manufacturing after the Japanese had developed them further. A Wikipedia article about Lean manufacturing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

I consider that Laverda should have made large scale FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. For example, Ford started to use this in 1970's) and QFD (Quality Function Deployment, was brought from Japan to USA in early 1980's) tables to make what they actually wanted. Considering that Laverda and Italian bikes generally would need the old school maintenance constantly from the beginning with a new bike. In Finland a couple of new Laverdas were sold when new for those rich motorcyclists, who were not able to cope with them. On the other hand, for example, people who can well cope with 1950's British bikes and maintain them almost forever have had very great success with Laverda. These are not the people who have had money to buy a new triple after every few years, rather once in a lifetime if even then. Why would you buy a new bike if they were almost similar and worked as well were they new or 10 years old?

The component technology and manufacturing was still mostly slow and expensive European manufacturing for long life time, suitable for agricultural and other professional machines. Later Laverda tried to shorten the life of some components just by adding some clearances and other simple methods, but the components were still as expensive to produce, as the methods to produce them were not much changed.
 
If it is made as it is, according to almost everything, including what engineering schools teach in Finland, it is intended to be a very good one, at least, needs old school maintenance, and to work for decades, and to be repairable almost forever.
 
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