When I started riding everyone either rode Harleys or British bikes. Hondas were new on the market and no "real motorcyclist" would ride a Honda. If you rode a Harley or a British bike you expected it to break down. The quid pro quo was that you could almost always fix them with a screw driver and a couple of wrenches. Back in the day, a tool kit was actually a necessity and was used regularly on the road. A group ride was always sprinkled with a series of stops to fix someone's carb, clutch, or ignition. Maybe we were all naive or just stupid, because we would think nothing of taking off across the desert on something less reliable than a lawnmower. Riders that toured were crazy. A brand new Norton, Triumph or BSA straight off the show room floor was not a good candidate to make it across the USA without some sort of mechanical problems. There are still a lot of old bikes running, not too fast, but running just the same. They just take a lot of knowledge about what a particular knocking sound might mean. Is that a rod going or is the clutch bearing getting ready to go out again?
I rode British iron but I had a friend whose family had Harleys and one old Indian. He also had a Sears Allstate Puch with a 3 speed hand shift on the left handlebar. It didn't have much power but it was pretty reliable. Once in a great while the motor would start backwards. Very strange taking off in reverse.
I worked at the local BSA, Jawa, Honda dealer. I was really just a kid that hung around and they gave me work to keep me quiet. The Hondas were so different that seasoned riders wouldn't consider them. The pressed steel frames of the Dream and Benley models looked like cheap crap. Remember, in the 1960s Japan still suffered from an image as a manufacturer of cheap toys and short lived small appliances. The biggest Honda engines were 305 cc while British bikes were 650s and of course the Harleys went to 1200 cc. The Honda electric starters were amazing. No one thought that they would last. The high RPMs that the Honda's revved would obviously wear the engines out in a hurry. (The Honda pistons outlasted the cranks on some British bikes) And what is with the lack of oil leaks? We did notice that you could start a Honda without getting gas on your hand from tickling the carb and get to your destination relatively clean and not smelling like gas and oil. We also learned that none of those stops on road rides were to fix the Hondas, just the American and British bikes.
Now everything is computerized. They almost never break down. Anyone can ride a motorcycle, no mechanical knowledge necessary. However, on that rare occasion that it does stop, better call a tow truck, because you are going to need several thousand dollars worth of computer diagnostic equipment to repair it.
I'm thinking that it might be time to get more two strokes. Dead simple and you can rebuild the engine in a bedroom if necessary (trust me on that). They will reward you with predictable break downs and you can claim to be a mechanical expert when you get it running again.
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