Great Bikes?

 Honda CB750, 1969

Clean lines, clean garage floor. Smooth, quiet, reliable.
The British were right to be worried.

If there was one bike that sounded the death knell for the British motorcycle industry (after all their own hard work to kill it themselves) it was the Honda CB750 Four. Certainly there had been Japanese bikes on the market before this, but they were all of a smaller engine capacity and that market had been diminishing since the late 50’s as the price difference between cars and bikes had closed, thus negating the advantage of the small bike as cheap transport.

It wasn't just the Triumph/Norton recipe
that made good cafe racers

By the time the big Honda arrived, the best the British could offer were vertical, parallel twins that were long in the tooth, vibrated like mad, leaked oil and were unreliable, with poor brakes and dubious chassis technology. Even the Triumph Trident/BSA Rocket 3 of 1969 was no great leap forward, with woefully underdeveloped engines and dreadful styling.

Kawasaki had fired the first shots across the bows with the 500cc Mach lll of 1969, but this offered staggering performance in a really dangerous chassis. Motorcycle lore has it that few of the original owners of the Mach lll survived.

The Honda was altogether more civilised. Electric starter, disc brakes front and back, silky smooth and leak free, 5-speed gearbox and the reliability that the Honda name was famous for. How could it lose?

Honda were quietly confident...

There was nothing startling about the engineering; undersquare cylinder dimensions, a modest 9 to 1 compression ratio and a lightened valve train allowed over 8,000rpm and good power. There was still one carburettor per cylinder and chain primary drive, housed in a tubular double-cradle frame. Horizontally split crankcases and advanced assembly techniques put paid to unwanted oil leaks.

Much is made of the Triumph Twin’s longevity, but the transversely mounted, overhead camshaft, in-line four engine that the CB750 introduced to production motorbikes is still the most popular layout and looks set to remain that way. The CB750’s popularity, performance and reliability dealt the final blow to both the vertical twin and the British motorcycle industry and kick-started a new era in motorcycling.