Saturday, 30 July 2011

Old Flames; Part 1

This is going to be an occasional series about bikes I've owned in the past. Unfortunately, I lost almost all my photos when I moved house 19 years ago, so the pictures will be mostly of similar bikes stolen from the Web.

First bike owned was a 1972 Honda CD 175, bought in 1975, when I was still at school.


I worked in a factory during my school holidays and purchased one of these for the princely sum of £115. At the time this was more than a month's wages, and my insurance was less than £20.
I learned to ride on this, then rode it from near Glasgow to London and back (c. 800 miles/ 1300 km) three weeks later.

Good points: cheap to run, easy to fix, plenty of spares, and after a bicycle, stunning powerful!
Bad points: lack of brakes, terrible handling, really uncool.

I took an afternoon off school and passed my test wearing a combat jacket over my blazer!
It might not have been a brilliant bike, but this was FREEDOM!!
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5 comments:

  1. Norman30 July 2011 at 22:32

    Forgot to add: 6 volts electrics made night time riding 'interesting'.

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  2. M&TD1 August 2011 at 13:20

    Yup, a bike allowed you to actually go places for the first time. Unlike my friends who all decided to get driving licenses, but who couldn't afford cars.

    M@TD

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  3. Anonymous1 August 2011 at 19:00

    The wee Honda "dum de dum" as we called them around Cumbernauld back then. I had one to use as soon as I passed my test, with the main use being to take me to work as cheap as possible, which it did for a few years. Also a year after me using it to pass the test my girlfriend passed hers on it. What happened to it? well over one winter we stripped it, cleaned it up, got it repainted and looking good. We put it up for sale in the Spring and it helped pay for half my CB550F.

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  4. Anonymous1 August 2011 at 19:02

    "dum de dum" = CD175 and forgot to say its kawa

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  5. Norman1 August 2011 at 19:08

    Ha! ha! ha! I'd forgotten all about that! I think it was Bike magazine that had a test of the CD175 with a picture of a guy riding one with the caption 'dum de dum, wonder what's for tea?' They were very common as a 'ride to work' bike, but weren't very interesting.

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