|
She was eighteen, cute, perky and willing. So why was I handing her over to another man? Because it was time for her to show a younger bloke the ropes, that’s why. ‘She’ was a Honda CB125J; and I was about to end an intimate relationship. She first came into my life as the result of a friend’s stag night. I got talking to another mate, and over the course of a few pints the subject got around to bikes. Yes I did like bikes. No, I had never thought about riding one. Given a few more pints, the decision was made to send off for my provisional licence and get some training. Once I had passed the CBT, I had to have a bike of my own for the follow-up course, which started a few weeks later, so time for a look in Loot. At the time I was strapped for cash, so nothing more than about £300 was an option. Halfway down the page, there she was. £300 exactly. Said mate who had talked me into the whole thing agreed to give me a lift and check her out, so off we went. For me it was love at first sight. Small, cute, blue and shiny. Gimme! Now! Fortunately, my mate was wearing his sensible head (thank you Drew) and checked her over. Everything seemed fine apart from a knackered off-side footpeg that would need replacing, only 8,000 miles on the clock after sixteen years. £300 handed over and home she came. Remember that footpeg I mentioned? Well it fell off about a day later! A local breaker sourced a unit complete with sidestand for £20. Improved her already! Now came the job of fitting the new unit. This meant removing the silencer. For those of you not in the know, the CB125J came with a two-piece silencer, held together by a central clasp. The clasp came off easily enough, but would it go back? Would it bugger! One long session of swearing and screaming later, it finally slipped back into place. For a while. I was about to learn an important lesson about biking. If it is going to go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible moment. Just as I passed my local greasy spoon, the clasp decided to part company with the bike. As if this was not bad enough, the resultant roar attracted the attention of the local plod having his breakfast! A combination of fear and old bill being half-asleep gave me the time I needed to zoom back home and hide her behind the hedge before he could react! Time for more work. The local bike shop came up with a pipe for a CG125BR. Fitted like a dream (thank you Honda for keeping the specs on your nippers fairly similar over the years), once a couple of extra holes had been bored (thank you again Drew for doing the drilling). The new pipe also looked good and as an added bonus gave her a much louder and throatier sound (well as throaty as a 125cc single can get). Not shabby for £50. Finally, ready for the road on a regular basis? Nope. She decided to cut out anywhere over three miles away from home. I had always wanted a homebird for a partner, but not in a bike! My limited (read non-existent) mechanical know-how failed me, so another trip to my place by a slightly guilty-feeling Drew. He cleaned the carburettor, checked the timing and generally did lots of clever bikey things. Despite this, she still refused to go far from home, so time to call in the professionals. It did not seem like a bad idea to get her serviced, so off to the garage she went (only a few miles away, so she reluctantly went under her own steam!). I now learned that at least one previous owner had been the master of the bodge. The pilot jet had been drilled to the point that it was larger than the main one! The choke was held in place by a carefully hidden rubber band and kept switching itself on with vibrations (very much a part of the whole CB experience!). The battery was only half the right size and had turned a fetching shade of orange and the air ‘filter’ was a couple of old bits of sponge held together with masking tape! All of the above were fixed, along with replacing the useless Honda off-side mirror. Suddenly I had a view of something more than my right shoulder! At long last we were on the road. Winter was now setting in, but this did not deter me from starting to ride to work (not knowing better or having any sense). The dark nights threw up another problem. The lights had a mind of their own. The headlamp worked all the time, fortunately, but the brake light and indicators came into action when they wanted to, not when you hit the switch. Oh yes, Billy Bodge-It had struck again! At some time he had attempted to re-wire her. Had he never heard of wire cutters, or even scissors for that matter? Certainly connectors were nothing he had come across during his lifetime. The wires were connected by scraping plastic from the side of the wires and then squeezing them together with insulating tape! Even I could have done better than that! So I did. OK, fixing one bodge with another is not ideal, but better than the mess it was in. So I made a neat, if non-professional job of snipping the ends, twisting them together and tidying up, until my erstwhile buddy could do a proper job when he had time. There was one bit of original bodge by yours truly that could not be bettered. Some silvered tape and my old school eraser were wedged between the brake light unit and the reflector were the only way the rear light would work! Nothing else did the job as well! At long last she was ready to roll, without fear of something falling off or going wrong. Only a disaster could mess things up now. So of course one happened. A combination of greasy cobblestones, a metal pin from a palette and the sudden lack of rubber contact saw the pair of us sliding down the road in a shower of sparks. No real harm done (apart from my damaged pride). Indicator cover broken, ‘L’-plate snapped off, horn smashed and off-side footpeg (yes, that footpeg) bent upwards. Adrenalin kicked that back into place! Repairs done, for under £10. Excellent. Only worry now was would that footpeg hold up? Earlier I mentioned a very important lesson about biking? The one about going wrong at the worst possible moment? Well this one was a doozy! I own a couple of cavalry sabres. A friend had borrowed one for a fancy-dress party. So I was riding home with it strapped to the side of the bike. Crossing London Bridge, the lights turned to red, so I pulled up. Then the footpeg dropped off. Just next to two traffic cops! Now the peg falling off I could probably have explained and got away with a ticking off. But carrying a sword? No way! So the peg stayed there while I carefully pulled away and escaped as quickly as possible. The rest of the journey home was made with both feet on the pillion pegs! How the hell could anyone ever have ridden a café racer? I was in agony by the time I got home! Well, if you are going to replace one footpeg, might as well do both. £75 for two pegs! Oh well, at least brand new they won’t have rust/fatigue/whatever wrong with them. For a time, everything worked beautifully. We spent day in, day out on the road together. More than once her handling got me out of trouble. The 15 miles in to work became fun for the first time in ages. We even made a 140 mile trip to a folk festival together! Very cool, apart from on the way home she started getting slower. And slower. By the time I got home, she was doing 40mph, flat out. This a few days before my test! Admittedly 40 is all you need, but you also need to be able to concentrate on your riding, not squeezing every last drop of life out of the bike! Time for another major word of thanks. Thank you John’s of Romford. Despite their workshop getting majorly backed up, they tried everything to get her going, until in desperation they tried a new coil. Bingo! She was up and running again. Test passed. Money saved up. Time to say goodbye. Loot had found her, and Loot moved her on. I have to be honest and say that there was a tear in my eye as I watched her heading away, with another man riding her. We went through a lot together, that little bike and me. Over 6,000 miles in all weathers. I just hope her new partner took good care of her, or he will have me to answer to! Back to Bob's index... |