Back in my youth, and it is now long enough ago for me to be able to say that, I was fortunate enough to be part of the British Police Team that entered an international rally that was held in Liege, Belgium every year.
In 2000 Honda agreed to sponsor a colleague and I and they offered us pretty much free choice of bike from the entire Honda range. Now that actually wasn’t as easy a choice as it might first appear. The rally we were entering was a special stage event held on closed public roads consisting of everything from narrow, bumpy, gravel strewn or even unmade lanes, to smooth race track speed main roads. To compete with any success you needed a good all-rounder, light and agile enough to cope with the rough bits, fast enough for the fast pieces….. oh, and this was Belgium where it rains a lot.
For the two days you get to recce and learn the route on roads that are open to the public, as they are on the sections of road between the stages during the rally itself, so all bikes have to be road legal machines. I had been campaigning my Yamaha TDR250 for a number of years with a fair degree of success but had been tempted to stray when CCM lent me a factory Supermoto in 1999 (an absolute disaster but that’s another story) - so when approached by Honda I knew what I wanted. My initial choice was for the XR650R, a big single cylinder bike that had enjoyed success in other events and had the reputation of being a powerful reliable machine.
Unfortunately I would need it in Supermoto form, so fitted with 17” wheels and big brakes, and not in the Enduro form as standard for the UK market. This proved to be a problem for Honda as although there were conversion kits available they were not factory options and they were keen on me to compete on a regular production bike. In the end we settled on the CB600 Hornet and literally a week before we were due to leave two brand new bikes in crates were delivered to our local dealer, Kent Motorcycles. We ran around on them for a couple of days so the initial 600 mile service could be done before setting off with a promise to finish running them in during recce.
Both bikes performed flawlessly and were returned to the dealer a week later with a few more miles on their clocks, blue discs, bald tyres and lots of scrapes to pegs, exhausts etc. They found their way into the showroom as ex-demonstrators and some poor soul got a bargain.
I loved my experience with the Hornet. It wasn’t the perfect rally bike, but as an all-round road bike it was brilliant. The slightly de-tuned CBR600 sports bike engine had a lovely nature, you could poodle round in low rev docile mode all day long, yet as soon as things got potentially interesting you could dial in some revs and it just came alive. It had great brakes, reasonable suspension and for me the perfect riding position. I genuinely couldn’t afford a new one, not even with the offer Hadrian was making me for the rally bike, but EKAM member Tracy Andrews was selling her three year old one and I bit her hand off. It was a lovely example, low miles, a belly pan and an aftermarket exhaust but otherwise standard.
It immediately became my go to bike for all things IAM, playing with friends and for trips abroad. Over the years that followed it got used for everything. I took it to Liege every year, not for the actual rally (I got the XR650R for quite a few years after that) but I used it for most of the recce miles and more importantly for our annual blast round the Nürburgring. I hate to think how many laps it’s done around there, not just with me aboard but also with a pillion as it proved ideal for showing newcomers the way around. I used it for the IAM skills days at Thruxton where it was plenty quick enough to lead the fast groups and I conducted literally hundreds of tests on it over the next twenty years.
The miles started to mount up. I’ve treated it to regular oil and filter changes but other than that it’s just been consumables such as tyres, brakes and chains etc. I did upgrade the front wheel from the original 16” version to the 17” one found on later models but this was done mainly for tyre choice, and it also allowed me to rotate the tyres between the Hornet and my VFR (I do like to get my money’s worth!). I did think about checking the valve clearances when they were due at 16k but decided not to bother after discussing it with a very well respected Honda mechanic (I know this was 25 years ago but he’s still out there). He basically told me to keep an eye on the idle and said if it starts to wander check the carb balance and if that doesn’t fix it then maybe check the valves. All these years later that’s what I’m still doing and the cover has never been off.
I put a new rear shock in it a couple of years ago. The original Honda one had been fettled slightly around 2010 but hadn’t been touched since, so a nice new Maxton unit was a bit of a treat. The forks were re-valved around about the same time and get a fluid change every couple of years, and it’s had the spark plugs replaced just the once.
And now the clock has just rolled through 100,000 miles and is now back to zero!
To say I had expected it to get this far without incident would be a fib. Over fifteen years ago I was offered another Hornet that was identical to mine (actually a year older) and I snapped it up placing it into storage at the back of the garage ready for when the original one died. It’s still there waiting.
I now have a bit of a dilemma. Part of me wants to leave it alone and just see how far it goes before going bang, but the other part wants to pull it all to pieces, give it some love, and put it all back together so it looks like new. I think I may settle on a compromise, I’ll give her a jolly good service, including the valves this time[1], and I might even pull the clutch out and see how it’s doing, and then reassemble her keeping all the scars and patina on show as befits a lady of her age.
Let’s see if it can go around the clock again, assuming I’m still riding into my 80’s!
[1] Since this article was written Nigel has checked the valve clearances. All exhaust valves were within spec. Seven of the inlet valves were out of spec but of these only one was ‘well out’.
