A New Old Touring Bike?

I’ve been doing a load of thinking about what I REALLY like and don’t like in my life recently. In terms of motorcycling, I concluded that the most fun I’ve had over the last 3 or 4 years has been when I’ve done shorter distances on smaller bikes, as opposed to mile munching on the bigger bikes. 

I also have this issue about how hard it is to get bikes down the side of my house and the smaller, lighter bikes are most definitely a lot easier to do that with and therefore more likely to be ridden more.

I’d started thinking that I might get rid of all of my bikes and buy a nearly new 125 but my heart just wasn’t in that. I like old stuff 🙂

The answer is, I think, staring me in the face. My gorgeous 1962 Royal Enfield 250 Crusader has only done about 600 miles since the complete nut and bolt restoration a couple of years ago. She has never let me down (🤞) and I recently pulled her out of the shed for the first time in 8 months; tickled the carb, switched on and she started second kick. Like she almost always does. I know every nut and bolt on her. She has done a fully loaded 4 day camping trip to the Isle of Man with n’er a grumble and cruises effortlessly at 50-55 mph. 

So I have decided that she is going to be my one and only bike. After all, she was designed to be daily transport, not a rarely used toy so, accepting that she needs more maintenance than a modern bike, she should be up to light touring duties. I also like that it will force me to go at a slower pace and do shorter daily distances.

The Kawasaki GPZ500 has been sold to a neighbour, and is going next week.

Some improvements are going to be made to the Crusader to make her more suitable for what I want to do. Firstly, I’ve bought some new front brake shoes to see if that improves the pitiful braking provided by the 40+ year old linings I reinstalled. If not, I’ll have some softer linings fitted to see if that helps (at the expense of longevity but I don’t do 000’s of miles.)

I picked up an old rack locally that last saw service on a BSA A10, but fits nicely after I made a couple of new brackets.

That has allowed me to fit my enormous top box that came with the Kawasaki. I’ll use it for now but keep an eye out for a more suitably sized vintage one.

I have a LoobMan chain oiler on its way to me. I had one of those fitted to my Honda 250G5 and really liked the simplicity of it.

And I’m going to replace the seat foam, which is way too soft - you end up sitting on the metal seat pan! I have an old Honda Dream 400 seat foam that will trim down nicely to fit and I think that will make a massive improvement as the Dream was one of the most comfortable bikes I’ve ridden.

I am booked to attend the REOC International Rally in Hay on Wye in a couple of weeks, which will be a nice 300 mile round trip, followed by a week in the Isle of Man for the Classic TT so we’ll be able to test the plan out and see how things go. Can’t wait!