The worst bike you have owned.

[benny hedges]

I had 2 CG125s which I also hated

at a meet last year a young chap came over and asked me to have a ride on his cg cos it felt funny...
i got 50 yards before getting off and pushing it back!

the handlebars were loose, no rh grip, as soon as i moved off the mirrors swung in at me and the chain was running over bumps where the rear sprocket teeth shouldve been.

looking closer, everything was loose - front and rear spindles, sprocket carrier nuts, chainguard hanging off, no oil in it, bald & perished tyres, no fuel cap, the list is endless!!!

the only toolkit he had was one of them pushbike multi spanner things lol... looks like thats what had been used to do all the nuts up with!!!

thing is, they start life as perfectly good ultra-commuter bikes, capable of lasting decades at over 100mpg, but years of abuse by learners with halfords toolkits obviously takes its toll.... thats if theyve been maintained at all!

another chap off another forum rang me last year for some advice..... he was going looking at a yzf125r (baby r1) for a friend, and hoping to collect it and ride it home.... he wanted to know if there was anything to look out for.
i said well if the bike's only a year old and 2k miles its barely run in so just check the obvious before you leave like oil level, lights, chain, tyre pressures etc....
about 4hrs later he rang back.... i said well, did you get it home then?

no - i'm in an rac truck. it seized up at 80mph!!!

he commented how quick it was for a 125 and how easy the wheel came up lol nice - for someone elses bike!
when he got it back he had a closer look, to find it was absolutely Bone dry. not a drop of oil in the engine, and no sign of leaks, rich tea coloured plug so it hadnt been burning it...

all i could suggest was the po mustve drained it completely for some reason... probably cos he knocked him down a grand!
thing is on these, the piston is a sacrificial item that runs in a bare coated ally liner.. the piston is designed to wear, but it was absolutely fkt.
cost him a new engine from a breaker!
point is, even a new bike can be totally shagged if its not been looked after or been abused.
some ratters will run forever even though they look like dogshit.

one man's poison is another man's meat. one man's fetish is another man's feet.

[lumpyv]

once bought a bsa b44 that someone had tried to make into a "cafe racer" i bought it with the intention of putting it back to something more original? it was a b8stard to start, at the time i was a proper lightweight. i paid a guy to redo the wiring harness and sort out the spark. he was a big old hairy 20 stone biker and he could kick it over like a puch maxi! i never could deal with all the compression. it was on the road for about 3 years and i reckon i only ever went about 50 miles on it. the worst thing was that would never start when it was warm . if thats what owning an old british bike is all about i, ll stick with the riceburner

[popkat]

worst had to be a CZ125, the whole silencer was held on with a nut on the end of a rod down the end of the silencer, it undid itself and the exhaust fell off going over wandsworth bridge, after that it lost fourth gear, then third, then second, first gear top speed was 10mph sat it in my mums garage for about a year and some bloke who collected them gave me £50 for it, i don't know what suprised me more, getting £50 or that someone collected them

Had a VF750s (the shafty one) apart from taking up 2 lanes at anything over 90mph it was ok

@ storminghonda.. Had lots of yamaha's, raced an FZR600 aswell, never had a bad geabox and never heard them refered to as "chocolate" the only notorious yam boxes were in the XS750 triple, and some cases in the XS1100.

[Kev L]

+1 on the CZ's. My Dad had one to commute on back in the 70's and I had a couple given to me to move on a few years ago. The bright idea of using the gearshift lever as the kickstarter,given the differing tolerances required for each job, is a masive fail. Having to move your whole leg up or down to get sufficient movement to get a gear can't be right. Anything from the CZ/Jawa stable intended for the road needs to be avoided at all costs.

[motostorm]

gn 250 , i was flat broke , and had an option to go back dispatching and pay this yoke off by the week , (at full ridiculous price ,,,,, from a relative ) it never broke down , but the gearshift had to be replaced all the time because its too long and shaft is too small , and the forks just ,,, well .... failed ?????
i got overtaken by a cg 125 too , no joke ,

edit: useless b@sartd of a yoke

[ernie234]

250 super dream no pull in it at all and xz550 yamaha had 2 of them blew the 2 up well u never learn.

[MJONESY]

has to be a yzf750r i loved the bike but it was the biggest pile i have ever owned, i spent far more time fixing it than i ever did riding it, it met its demise when it would not start one saturday morning by sunday evening it was on ebay in a hundred different pieces

[bigtwinthing]

Yamaha TR1 12 rear head gaskets over 2 years, a fully waterproof left boot thanks to all the oil coming from the costant oil leak from the rear head. Enclosed rear chain, and shocking handling. did look quite smart though, sold that and bought a ducati Darmah 900, that was almost as bad.

[simo]

A 250 Matchless, it kept breaking crank pins. Usually went at low revs miles from home. The third time I left it in a Farm yard and asked the Farmer to put it on his scrap heap.

[ChrisC]

Triumph cub...200cc of sheer hell ...don't even want to write about it....lol

[Seven Of Nine Firestorm]

Chinese skyjet 125cc <<<==----- I wouldn't recomend these bikes to anyone, a sowing machine sounded better, could probably run faster than it. Utter crap in all ways.

[Boubepo]

About 30 years ago my g/f now my wife bought a new Kawasaki Z250 - I was 16 and she was 17 and the bike was a beauty........................ but oh! what a pile of sh1te, 18 months later I had to replace the rotten zausts, the rotten wheel bearings, the engine had been replaced twice under warrantee and the 3rd engine rattled like a bag of spanners. Then the 125cc law came in for learners meaning the price of 250 bikes fell to unknown levels!! Even to this day I can't look at a Kawasaki without going grrrrr!... and what's this Ninja sh1t? I'd still like to force a Ninja Turtle up mr kawasaki's @rse!!

[darkember]

The Honda c90 that I passed my test on!

Awesome machines don't knock-em

[Wicky]

My one and only two-stroke - an old air-cooled RD350 with a rotten loom - promptly got my money back. Best and worse simultaneously was ol' 250 Superdream. Indestructible reliable, ill handling and overweight all at the same time.

[Phimosis]

CZ125, a total basket case, pre mix oiling daft kickstart, constantly breaking chain adjusters, 50 mph top whack with a cloud that looked like there was a buring oil slick behind it, this was brand new in 1985 paid £350 or thereabouts, had it 3 weeks, smashed it up with a hammer and faked a robbery and resultant claim..............insurance company provided me with another brand new retard...