I actually registered for this forum a while back, but have simply lurked..... Thought it was time to "fess up".
My name is John born 1951 and I live in the village of Little Billington, just south of Leighton Buzzard, in Beds. In my younger years, cars were only for tinkering with and the bike was my everyday transport. Throughout the '70's and in to the 80's, this was the case, always an sohc four as the primary bike. Other bikes (tinkerers) came and went and I did have a van (a Reliant Rebel - I've always had a 3 or 4 wheeled Reliant of some description around since 1968!!!) and trailer for racing (I was a keen club racer - mainly Bantams, plus anything I could beg/steal/borrow) but commuted to London daily on two wheels.
My first was a 750/4 K0, reliable as a wood burning stove but in truth too heavy and unwieldy for tooling around central London. In 1973 I bought a second hand CB500/4 in gold, excellent bike, possibly the best of the lot.... After a year or so (and 40,000 miles) I traded it for another in brown, this time brand new. Again, very reliable and vies with the gold one as the best of the bunch. On both bikes though the silencers rotted out, two sets on the brown one (over 75,000 miles).........
The replacement for this one was a 400/4. Fun bike but IMHO too many gears and too buzzy for my personal taste. Handled well though but I didn't keep it very long. Replaced it with a 550/4F1. I don't recall too much about this one. Did the job fine but somehow I never warmed to it. Didn't have the character of the 500's..........
My next bike was not a four and was a bad mistake..... It was a CX500. Unbelievably unreliable (the ends fell out at 8,000 miles, followed (after warranty repair) by cam problems, oil leaks, clutch failure)........
Back to a four, this time a CB650 Nighthawk. I loved this bike. By now my circumstances had changed somewhat, started a family, needed to commute by car (my trusty Reliant Kitten, bought at 4 years old in 1979 - I still have it on the road, well over half a million miles up and it still runs brilliantly and looks good to boot!), so the bike was now for recreation, in fact over the 18 months I had it, it only covered 9000 miles, with total reliability of course. Alas, someone else obviously loved it too because it vanished from a bike bay in Milton Keynes one Saturday morning in 1984, never to be seen or heard of again.
Then I went Italian for a decade or two - a couple of Guzzis (surely the ultimate biodegradable bike but good to ride) lastly A Morini, which I kept until 2007 when I moved to where I am now - I had nowhere to store it so I sold it. As it was it took 6 years to get permission to build a garage (now done).
So, what am I doing here? Well I have another 500/4...... I had been looking for one to restore for a long while, in fact I was poised to buy a 550/4F1 that is available locally, fully restored with under 500 miles up, but really wanted a 500. I bought the brown one off e-bay a while back. Not very well described or photographed, I went over to look at it and bought it there and then, it was far, far better in the metal than the photographs, a real no expense spared restoration - I didn't even haggle on the price as no way could I get one near this one for the money...... It looks exactly as if it just rolled out of the showroom - every detail is correct and pretty much all is genuine Honda...... It also came with a ring binder full of receipts for parts supplied/works done - I stopped adding up at £10000...... I was only 2/3 of the way through it too!!!
Quite a bit of fettling to do, but nothing too bad, just basic commissioning really.
And I'm a happy bunny
John
