New Tricks For An Old...Honda
NEW TRICKS FOR AN OLD...HONDA
Custom Motorcycles Don’t Have to be Expensive (or Fast).
Allan Girdler
were I not among friends and understanding souls, this would be something of an embarrassment. Pictured here is one of the world’s more normal motorcycles, a 1972 Honda XL250, thinly disguised with one of the world’s more complete collections of aftermarket offerings.
This is being done in the interests of fair play and equal time. For as long as there have been motorcycle magazines, there have been articles in such magazines about wonderful custom creations, usually built by people with unlimited budgets and/or fathers-in-law7 who own machine shops. During all this, the average motorcycle owner has done w hat he or she can do for the machine they own and cherish with little help or recognition from the press.
Here is a move toward correcting that oversight. Here is evidence that a normal backyard enthusiast can make worthwhile improvements, can devise a motorcycle that perfectly suits that owner’s needs, without spending a fortune or having any influence.
The changes:
• An S&W fork kit. The kit provides another inch of travel and greatly improves and softens the action of the forks. With springs (which you must use with the kit anyway). $40.
• S&W shocks and springs. The shocks are the older style, oil and air. No expensive nitrogen bladders or anything like that. They don’t fade under my gentle style of riding. The springs are progressive, 6090 lb. and give a nice and easy ride on the highway while making landings soft as kiss your hand. $80.
• Goodyear MX tires, 3.00x21 and 4.00x18. A bit misleading, in that we had these tires around the shop when the stock trials tires wore out, so I put them on the bike. The back tire works fine. 1 just got a 3.50x21 Cheng Shin, a bargain, mail order at $12.50, and haven’t put it on yet because we needed it for the shock comparison test.
Better note here that I went for the knobbie tires only after 1 began riding test bikes to and from work. Until then, I used my bike on the highway, in the rain. Trials tires were the only choice. If I still used the bike for daily transportation. I’d still have dual-purpose tires on it.
• Fun N’ Fast skid plate. I got the bike at a bargain price, used, partially because the original owner had cracked the side cover on a rock. I reckoned the plate was good insurance. It now has a nice dent right where I would have tried to move a boulder with the side cover if the plate hadn’t been there. The plate cost $15 and the side cover $25, so I am $10 to the good on this one.
• K&N high rise handlebars. This is mostly a matter of taste and maintenance. The stock bars got bent somehow and I had never liked them anyway. Too low for me. The extra rise of the new bars gives some help—you need all you can get on an XL250—when it comes to getting the front wheel off the ground. $16.
• Uni plastic levers. More good insurance. Any dirt bike gets dropped every so often. Normal point of impact is the levers and the factory pot-metal jobs don’t last long under blows. First time I broke one, I got a pair of the plastic levers. Call them an investment. They’ve been on for more than two years and while the right one is kinked—my oldest son knocked the bike over on the driveway when he came 'round the corner full tilt on his skateboard—I doubt they’ll ever break. At $6, a bargain.
• Vesco Skinny/Fat 3-gal. tank. Mark this as a glowing endorsement. One of the plagues of the motorcycle hobby is that so few7 things actually bolt right on. First tank I bought had no way to fasten to the bike. Nor did the selling shop have any instructions. The second tank required cutting the frame, which I wasn’t willing to do. The solution was to drive down to Vesco’s retail store and buy the tank shown. Bolted on with no changes, came complete with all hardware, my choice of color and of petcock and has served well ever since. I can go 150 miles between fuel stops, which must be the most ever for a dirt bike and I don’t have to worry about the fuel level as 1 can see it right through the translucent tank. It also looks racy, w hich doesn’t hurt.
Teflon-lined cables from Terry Cable. Another glowing endorsement. The Teflon-lined cables never need to be lubed, so they never gather dust and grit and so don’t need to be lubed, if you follow7 that. The cables make all controls smoother and lighter. They’re also an improvement in my case because Terry Cable will make special cables, to order. When I went to the longer travel forks and the higher bars, the clutch and front brake cables were suddenly too short. Terry Cable is a small outfit and always helpful: You call and order a stock cable or a custom and they make the order and ship it. Handy. The details are vague but seems as if I’ve paid about $12 for the six cables used so far.
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• Special keeper for the rear axle nut. Sorry I don’t know the proper name for this item but it’s a spring steel clip to replace the cotter pin through the rear axle nut. Cotter pins drive me crazy so I bought the clip when I noticed one in a hardware store. I'm told some bike shops have them. Less than $1 and a handy gadget.
• J&R exhaust system. This is the only engine modification on the bike. A special exhaust system is the only modification you can make that doesn’t put extra stress on the engine and I’d rather have an engine live forever than go faster. The J&R system weighs 8 lb. less than the stock one, it has a sporting exhaust note and doesn't disturb the neighbors. It’s legal on road and off. Mine came with an extra straight pipe and spark arrestor in case I ever want to race. Nice piece of equipment for $75.
• Custom seat. This is an inside tip. Rayborn Upholstery of Santa Ana, California, makes seats for racing bikes and anybody else who comes into the shop. Beautiful work. Rayborn removes the stock cover and makes a horizontal cut across the stock foam. Then they glue an additional 3-in. piece of firm foam between the former halves, trim to fit and make a new cover from Naugahyde. The seat bolts right back on, no modifications needed, and the contour is as it was.
I became determined to have one of these seats the day I hit a bump I didn’t see and felt the jolt all the way to the base of my skull. With the extra padding I can ride all day, literally, and not take a beating. Best $25 I ever spent.
• Oakley grips. Another indulgence. Oakley makes soft rubber grips with a profile not unlike an egg, pointy side away from you, with the palm surface covered with little suction cups. I have long been a sucker for new ideas in grips, saw these at the store and couldn’t resist. Apparently they look odd, ’cause people make remarks. However, nobody who has tried them has not liked them. For myself, I haven’t had sore hands since I put them on. About $5, I think.
• Malcolm Smith tool bag. Pure emotion here. I was in the store buying something else and they were having a sale on leather tool bags, just like the ISDT riders use, so I bought one. No, I don’t need a tool bag, in fact I had to buy a space blanket and a spare plug and chain lube just to have something to put in the bag. May come in handy some day. Meanwhile it looks as if I am a rider who does business and I don’t mind being mistaken for a rider like that. $19.95.
• Circle Industries sprockets. Replacement items. The stock ones were worn out so I bought new sprockets from Circle. The aluminum rear sprocket looks nice and I suppose that makes it a custom item. $30, more or less.
That’s it for now. In future I plan to get rid of the jutting taillight bracket in behalf of a Bultaco rubber strap, soon as the Bultaco dealer can get one. And I’ll rewind the generator coils for more light at night. And then no doubt some other accessory will catch my eye.
What I am not going to do is add up the money spent so far. I operate on the theory that if you treat the bike right, it will treat you right and by me that means careful maintenance, immediate repair when needed and a steady stream of little gifts for the machine. If I worried about the money I might learn I’d do as well buying a new motorcycle.
I don’t want a new motorcycle. The impetus behind this article was mostly that the other chaps here have classic road bikes and cafe racers and pure-bred enduro machines and special frames and one-off engines. They think that’s normal while an emotional involvement with a highmileage mass-produced machine is, well, kinky.
As I think I’ve made obvious, I don’t see it that way. More like the reverse. For those of us who are not racers, official or impromptu, and who don’t have piles of money and time to spend buying and repairing the latest whizzer or having a high-speed custom machine built for us only, there's much to be said in favor of a mass-produced motorcycle with bolt-on improvements.
My bike will climb hills I'm afraid to tackle, and go faster than I wish to go. I can ride dawn ’til dusk, anywhere I wish to ride. In 12,000 miles the bike has never broken down or spit me off. It’s fun to ride. To me enjoyment is what all this is about, loi
