I don't buy Japanese bikes these days for reasons really nothing to do with the products that they build which i think are now generally of a good to very high quality.

But i won't go into my reasons at all its a personal thing.

Right lets hold on to them hats !!!!! - here we go.

Now i am very particular to my very rosey tinted specs - comes with age me thinks - But to say the Japs were building quality back in the 70's seems to be stretching it more than a little bit

The actual build quality of many of the bikes was simply appauling, They were often very heavy,handled like bags of potatoes, paint peeled - that's if they were painted my Yamaha (an xs 1100 sport) had no paint on the underside of the tank, the engine paint peeled within months, chrome 1 micron thick if you were lucky and the downpipes rusted quicker than a Lancia beta.

Engines were often reliable but dont forget the many were not - design failures chocolate cams etc come to mind - you just do not hear of the failures so much these days. Even the premium jap stuff of the day were not in the same league as the premium European built bikes.

Generally the bikes rusted the electrics could not cope with wet conditions, (am i talking about jap or italian here - hard to tell isn't it they were both bad) but the japs also added cheap frames some were pressed steel and fairly poor quality with flex very common. cheapest of the cheap brakes, suspension and tyres all built down to a budget for very dry climates in The wet cold UK - They were terrible.

Performance wise against European competition at the time they were poor (i owned Ducatis, Laverdas, Moto guzzis and BMW's during that period the laverda was very very reliable ( and had jap electrics !), the Ducati i also used as an everyday bike and travelled often between Cornwall and Scotland it never let me down My BMW r65 was very reliable and my bmw r80 and r100s was exceptionally good. (my Guzzis were generally poor on the reliability front and worse than the japs on finish -i have owned several since that time all have been pretty unreliable - but they are still my favourite bike !!


These days I think the Jap's Builds good quality at the budget, with good engines and electrics if largely bland bikes in my eye (rose tints coming on here).

But look to quality stuff like KTM , Norton (Big price) certainly - Ducati and even to a degree Moto guzzi have upped the quality control and reliability and finish and build in many instances and i would say (slipping on those specs again- are again ahead of Japan on build, quality, design and materials. (I do not include BMW here as they sold themselves down the river to the marketing men big style).

Anyway give me a bike designed and built in a European factory with its foibles, failings and eccentricities (moto Guzzi , Norton and to a degree KTM any day over a bland bit of tin from the land of the rising sun.

By the way i currently run a ducati engined cagiva a 750 with 60hp good mid range torque, very reliable weighs in at 180kgs, thats quite a bit lighter than many jap 650's with far better and more usable power, suspension etc. and its 20 years old and still going strong.

On the main content of this subject though it doesn,t really matter what you choose - most bikes will do the job to a reasonable degree - you just need to chose your route and the area you ride to suit.

What do they say Jake. The victors write history?


Or each read history in different way's. I came up through the sixties seen the jap bike's come in to the UK market. Where the UK bike maker's where not interested in the small 50cc run around's. Let them have that end of the market, we'll take the rest.


Let's go back to the end of the second world war. Before my time by the way. When there was no Japanese bike manufactures. Brit bike's ruled the world. At the end of the war, Brittan was heavy in to deit. So the government of the day made the rule export or die. That's when the world was buying Brit bike. Why because none where on sale in the UK. Or what was, where of small quaintly. There was no R&D in the war year's on bike's. So all they could build was pre war bike's in a pre war way. And lot's of them. A little bit off the beaten track. If any one can remember the 50's. I can, at that time the road's where full of push bike's taking men to work. The main road to the big industrial estate's where eight ten abreast of bikes. You could not get a car on the road, or just about. The odd side car out fit, which was ex Army sale's. The money was coming in. Then you had the house building project. Took a lot of men to build houses. In the them day's people where leavening job one day and get a new job the next, just for a penny or tupence an hour more. That's history.


In Japan. Honda started to put small engines in to push bike's. The one's that has a wheel that rubbed up against the back tyre and drove you along. But most of this you know. I'm saying it for the younger reader's who don't. And it grew quite rapidly in to making small 50cc mopeds. What made Honda was the C50 and the C90. All nice people ride a Honda. When it got to when Honda was selling over a 1,00 unit's a month. It was time to go racing. Honda picked the TT. Racing 125 and 250. The first time they went out they got the Azz kicked big time. Time to go home.




Design failures chocolate cams etc come to mind


This one come's up time and time again. It was not so much a design failure as more a quality control failure on the materials used in making the cam's. But by then there where a lot of bike out there failing. So it was stop making them and back to the drawing board. The over head cam shaft used in the failing VFR, is still used to day. So it's not a design fault, but as I said, it was a material fault.


The break through for Honda was the Dream bike. What we know as the super dream or the CB series. Honda is the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Japan and has been since it started production in 1955. At its peak in 1982, Honda manufactured almost three million motorcycles annually. With that kind of sale's they can't be a bad bike.
John933

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To buy petrol in Europe. Pull up at station. Wait. Get out a 20 Euro note, then ask someone to fill up the bike. Give person money. Ride away. Simple.

Jake,
I recall reading some of your thoughts in an earlier thread, and that was a while ago.
You might like to read this book:-
Quartered Safe Out Here - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Dave

Many of the bikes you mentioned are about a decade after I started biking and the Euro / Jap contrast at that point couldn't be greater. Friends in London who couldn't get to Southend (about 30 miles) on their C15s and Bantams or the south coast on their A65s (about 60 miles) without breaking down while we went to Morocco and Greece on Jap stuff- 250 Yamaha / 300cc Honda - without any real problems. 650 and 750 Triumphs that couldn't do a long trip (Greece / Black sea / Italy) without having to be rebuilt or recovered while a 650 Yamaha / 550 Honda had only minor issues or no problems at all. Even towards the end of the 70's when BMWs were starting to be widely used they'd need more attention that our Jap stuff (earlyGold Wings by then).

I agree that the quality of the materials probably wasn't as good as the British or Euro stuff but to be honest I didn't care then and I don't care now. What mattered to me was the design, how reliable they were and "image". Value for money was probably in there somewhere but not that high on the list.

Mollydog's memory that BSA and Triumph (forget about Harley!) were THE bikes to own on the West coast around 1970 is a strange inversion of what my London based opinion was at the time. BSA et al were just oil covered greasy throwbacks with downmarket working class connotations and had lack of imagination failure written all over them. Can't afford a car or not able to pass your test - ride a BSA with a stick for a sidecar on L plates.

The Japanese stuff otoh were high tech, brightly coloured and forward looking. Modern cutting edge designs that worked and kept on working. These were leisure bikes rather than ride to work plodders and as such represented our London vision of what California was like - bright metallic paint and chrome glinting in the sunshine. A lifestyle. All I needed was a blonde girlfriend to finish the illusion!

In addition, because they were dismissed as here today gone tomorrow (how can anything rev that high and not fall to bits) Jap cr@p, it annoyed all of the ageing 60's rockers when we turned up anywhere on them.

In general I didn't (and still don't) pay much attention to magazine tests when it comes to choosing what to buy. All the Brit bike fanaticism and ride the flag marketing that filled the pages of mags back then put me off. I could see with my own eyes piles of broken Triumph parts littering the sides of roads yet year after year the new, improved, better than ever road tests were extolling their virtues. I nearly got caught by the long range Norton Combat Commando and how it could effortlessly drone on for hundreds of miles on a tankful of fuel but fortunately came to my senses in time.

There was one article however that did it for me. An oddball article, it compared two bikes - a 500cc Velocette and the then new Kawasaki H1. The Velo represented to me everything that was wrong with Brit bikes - an old design, an old image, an old mindset, whereas the H1 was cutting edge (it was 1970!) That article did it for me. I couldn't afford one then (although I came very close to blowing my student grant on one a couple of years later) but as soon as I could I bought one - and I still have it now.

However - that was then and then is now a different country. I look at what the Chinese are turning out and wonder when they'll come up with something that'll make the Japanese offerings look old and tired. History won't repeat itself but there is a lot of corporate complacency in the Japanese factories in recent years. That it's possible to compete with them now is evidenced by Triumph, BMW, Harley et al but they all have the drawback of only producing relatively small numbers of big bikes. The Chinese seem to be doing what the Japanese did back then - starting from the bottom up and producing in volume. At the moment it seems more like the 1950's with a huge range of never heard of them manufacturers but I suspect things will change.

All good input that adds to our "corporate" memories of the good old days, while relating to the present day conditions.
There are about a dozen of us rather than the half dozen that I thought earlier - so, in truth, we are not a massively significant sample for the statisticians purposes.

As for Triumph, I believe that they are well aware of the need for smaller products - I seem to recall that there have been items about a new 250cc in the fairly recent past; even that is a big bike for some markets.
Aren't they aiming to enter the bike market in India??
KTM ditto.

I also remember Yamaha announcements of the past few years:-
One related to their need to get into 3 cyl bikes for the "western " market; that was a while ago and they are now doing exactly that.

The second was more interesting, and it was about where the company profits arise:-
Yamaha profits are predominantly from marketing 125cc bikes for the far east. Period.
The "western" market, including all the stuff about GP racing, Rossi et al I assume is merely a sideshow in terms of the company trade; it provides them with "facetime" on the world media.
When folks write on here about how certain manufacturers need to produce the "perfect" bike for adventuring/travelling/whatever I truly believe that they do not realise what a minority they are in this world - even some of those who do acknowledge the point tend to then dismiss it.

Anyone for a Hero Honda?

Oops, it's had a makeover:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_MotoCorp
But it remains the largest bike manufacturer in the world.

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Dave

Once upon a time (quite a few years ago) a "wise old man" aka a bike mechanic who was on the verge of retiring, told me never to buy anything built before approximately the mid-1960s. This was in the days when you could walk into the workshop in a dealership and actually talk with the guys working on the bikes.
When I asked the rather obvious question, he went on to say that the developments that took place in materials technology/metallurgy during world war 2 did not filter into mainstream manufacturing until that time.
In essence, his view was that most things made before, say, 1965 were based on the standards used when road vehicles were first developed.

This all rang true to me: why should the UK factories update their supply chain, increase their own raw material costs, retool or whatever else would be necessary when everything they were making was flying out of the showrooms?

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Dave

I just read this .. and a thought came to me....

velocette 500 has held the 24 hour land speed record for a 500cc bike since 1961 ( and still hold it) Not bad for a crap old design bike running on points, lucas electrics, monograde dino oil and crossply rubber tyres

The York to London 4-Horse chariot record held by Biggus Dickus and his slave #LXIX set in AD49 still stands. This despite the large number of naked blue-painted people along the route throwing things.


Sadly, I believe this record like the Velocette one are likely to remain, as only a large company could afford to break them and to do so would have little commercial value. You can imagine the marketing man saying "Vello-who???"


;-)


Andy

Possibly BMW were thinking similarly, but with a different conclusion, when they put in their effort for the 2014 TT with their 1000cc inline 4 cyl.

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Dave

Yes it was a sad day when my local Velocette dealer closed down. And as it was only a couple of years ago I remember it well.

Thing is I'm sure the Velo is probably the better bike - which is why all the local (or even national) owners kept the business going for so long. The Kawasaki drinks fuel like there's a hole in the tank, is a p.i.a. to keep in tune, is uncomfortable and tiring to ride and deserves its reputation of being likely to kill you if you don't concentrate when riding it. It's the only one of my current bunch of wrecks (and from memory the only bike I've ever owned) I've never taken out of the country.

But I would never ever have bought a Velo - or even it's butch big brother, Vincent - even when they were giving them away in the 70's. Not unless I needed a boat anchor anyway. The oil leaks represented the middle age owners incontinence, the chuffing noises were their smokers cough and their stately progress looked like failing mental faculties. All stuff I saw in my grandparents.

On the other hand the scream of the Kawasaki's engine, the way the front would lift out of corners, the transition from Clark Kent to Superman as the revs rose - it needed as much adrenalin as petrol to get you down the road. The Brits were selling a bike, the Japs were selling an interesting future, a lifestyle, - you'd be a road god on the H1, the local plumber on the Velo (although my local plumber actually rides a 30's Brough these days ! ).

Now, complete b@ll@cks though all of that is, it's what the Japs brought to the bike world and it's why I still look east if I'm in the market for something new. I might look at Euro offerings but tend to spend my money in the orient. Brainwashed? - my psychiatrist says not, but I did buy one of those Japanese sportscars, Rotus or Lotus or whatever they're called

I truly hope that my grandkids never see me in that light!

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Dave