XS650

[florence]

I've always fancied one of these.  Does anyone have one or owned one in the past and can tell me what they are like.......

[SteveD CB500K0]

I think the used market gets mopped-up by the chopper builders. Parallel twin with Japanese engineering.

[mick]

Mate of mine has one as his daily rider never seems to have any trouble with it heard them called the japanese Triumph  , cheers Mick.

[Bryanj]

No Mick, might have been the Japanese Reliable Triumph tho'

[SteveD CB500K0]

Nowadays, Triumph make the reliable Triumphs.

In 2010 they made more bikes (60,000) than the best year ever in the "old" Triumph.

I went out on a Speedmaster today while they were fitting a set of Pilot Road 2s to my Sprint. What a hoot!
865cc parallel twin, 60bhp, highway pegs...

Picture coming soon.

[Seamus]

Must confess that I like the early XS650 models, but not the custom. They were brought out in the late 60's to compete with the Bonneville.
From memory, they were pretty good, but did not handle as well as the Bonnie. Similar performance though.

Also confess to owning a more modern Triumph, Speed triple and I love it

[SteveD CB500K0]

Here's the pic I promised:



Drivers view...

[HondaFour]

Here are pics of mine, sadly now sold...but I enjoyed building it if not riding it!

They seem to attract a large following, mine sold on ebay for a lot of money and there were over 300 watchers

[florence]

Very nice bike. 

I've heard they handle badly.  Did you find this to be true?  (in answering please compare to honda four as this is one of the newest bikes I have owned, apart from a very modern 1979 Honda CX500!)

[mick]

Suits you sir  (Steve).

[HondaFour]

It handled quite well, it was a very different bike to the Honda fours. It got going after 3000rpm and had a very nice exhaust note.It did not have the urgency of a SOHC four when moving on, everything was at a relaxed pace.  Not as reliable as the press say, mine had a broken gearbox which was fixed as part of the rebuild and was not good at starting. Once it started it sat there with the front wheel shimmying to and fro just like the T120 I had in 1977.  It had everything an old british parallel twin has except the oil leaks.