Every bike is a legend...or is it?

[Pigeon]

You've owned bikes. Were any of them utterly despicable?

I've owned a few bikes and every one had character, something that each could offer. Each bike had some endearing feature that I enjoyed at the time.

But have you bought a bike and it's been a complete shed since day 1,or a royal PITA, or a complete disappointment?

I'm not looking to be negative, but curious as to what others have experienced.

[redeem ouzzer]

Only one I disliked was my Bandit 400 V-Ltd. Having owned and ridden my fair share of Suzuki 400's I thought it would be great. It was slow, had phantom carb issues that made it foul the plugs so it wouldn't start once it had cooled down, and it also tried to burn me alive on a filling station forecourt. I ended up sending it to a dyno centre to solve the carb issues. Then to cap it off I sold it to some nutter who threatened to sue despite riding it all the way back to St Albans without an issue. It did handle and stop well though.
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Be a REAL MAN!

[Vracktal]

https://databikes.com/imgs/a/b/n/t/o/kawasaki__kle_1992_1_lgw.jpg

Ta-daaaa.

Heavy, terrible suspension, unreliable, vibey engine, loved to rust and eat their own gearbox shafts, slow, woeful brakes.
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2007 BMW R1200R: On road
2009 BMW G650X Challenge: On road
1975 Norton Commando 850: Off road, awaiting recommissioning

[MarJay]

954 blade. </controversial>

Too hard, too twitchy, not enough feel. Massively overrated.
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F; Cheap project: CBR900RR FireBlade
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[P.addy]

TL1000S was thoroughly disappointed. It's rep as a killer isn't backed up by how sedate it was when I rode it. I removed the damper and nailed it most places and it never gave me 1 minute of worry. Underwhelming.

[Piercee100]

How about really crap?

Bought an old 1978 Honda CD185 One owner, low mileage 250 pounds on ebay. I thought it would be fun, economical, comfy, and reliable. Instead it just managed 40mpg @ 60mph. It vibrated so much your hands and feet hurt. The timing seemed to always be moving (points). It didn't like starting from hot or cold. Bits would randomly drop off and the bulbs blow. At idle the single carb would flood itself. It smoked bad, despite only having 10k on the clocks. I once did a 100mile round trip on it using two tanks of petrol and I've never been so happy to get off a bike in my life.

Eventually after rebuilding the engine with new pistons and rings to help it along the sump plug fell out but I still rode it 5 miles home. (It does still kinda run).
Now sits in my garden under a cover waiting for me to do something with it. (My other bikes are in the garage).
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Rides: Honda H100a (Retired), VT500e (Sold), Kawasaki ZX400 (sold), Kawasaki GT550 (Sold), Suzuki Inazuma (Daily), Honda CD185t (Broken), LML Star 2t (Last run edition).

[Robby]

CB500, SV650. I haven't owned that many bikes over the years, probably 15-20. I always forget that I owned these two. Nothing that memorable about them, they didn't even make things interesting by being unreliable. Just bland.

GPX750. It wanted to kill me. When I got up to speed, it felt like I was balancing on a knife edge. Did a lot of work on the suspension, new tyres, renewed many parts. Still felt like it wanted to kill me.

[rubyhorse2]

First bike...Sachs STC 4 stroke version. Knew nothing about bikes, bought from a backstreet garage, wouldnt work in the rain, hated that bike once the novelty of 'first bike happiness' had worn off, which was about a week later when it wouldnt work.

[andyscooter]

Honda lead 100cc scooter


slow, twitchy steering, ugly, boring ,full of vibration ,drum brakes on both wheels where shite in the wet


was pretty much un killable though and very easy to work on
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gilera runner vxr200 (chavped)
if its spelt wrong its my fat fingers and daft auto correct on my tablet

[blue_painted]

RD350LC YPVS - mine was a Brazilian tack-welded late model with garish red plastic that didn't fit properly.

It felt slow and sloppy and although nothing really broke it just didn't have any charm.

It did have a hard act to follow as it came after my KR1S.
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GP-100 -> CB250RS -> CBX550F2 (pause) KR1S -> RD350YPVS -> ZX6-R (pause) CD200 ->Mash 400 -> T100 (current) & (R1100RT scrapped pile o' shite) (CB250 Nighthawk - SORN in shed) Meteor 350 (current)

[Polarbear]

Going to be controversial here.

Suzuki GT500.

After various Yammy and Kwak 250 strokers I went and bought, new, a GT500.

I hated it from the off. It didn't feel like a 2 stroke. It was the length of a supertanker and handled like one. The front disk brake was laughable when you weren't shitting yourself. All in all as much fun as shagging the local heffalump.

I hated it so much I never had another Suzuki until I bought my busa 30 odd years later.
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Victory Cross Country American tractor.

[pepperami]

I had a BSA Bantam God it was awful! , slow as a slow thing on national slow day .
Almost every nut and bolt was slowly working their way out to escape.
The brakes were no better than something found on a push-bike.

my mate had a Yamaha YB100 at the same time and it was faster by a margin and it handled better
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[The Shaggy D.A.]

I've had no major lemons, but a couple where a bike didn't meet my expectations. The CB100N was slow, smoked like a fucker, pogoed when using the indicators, but it got me my licence, which is what I bought it for. The GT550 was a good bike, but the wrong bike for me at the time - my riding circle pretty much had ZZR1100s and the like, which led me to take chances I shouldn't have done just to play catchup. I'd loved the look of the Savage for years, but having one confirmed I don't like feet forward riding position, and the piddly tank range annoyed me.

Pretty much been mindset issues, rather than the bikes themselves.
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Chances are quite high you are not in my Monkeysphere, and I don't care about you. Don't take it personally.
Currently : Royal Enfield 350 Meteor
Previously : CB100N > CB250RS > XJ900F > GT550 > GPZ750R/1000RX > AJS M16 > R100RT > Bullet 500 > CB500 > LS650P > Bullet Electra X & YBR125 > Bullet 350 "Superstar" & YBR125 Custom > Royal Enfield Classic 500 Despatch Limited Edition (28 of 200) & CB Two-Fifty Nighthawk > ER5

[nowhere.elysium]

CB125T. It's hardly a surprising nominee, but still - absolutely fucking awful. Shit brakes, even after servicing, gutless bland engine, laughable attempt at suspension. Bear in mind that this is after riding a Chinese 125 for a couple of years, too. The Chinese bike outclassed it in pretty much every way.

CBF125 - appalling design and manufacturing standards. Who the fuck thought that AC lights on an FI bike made sense? Also, why the hell does it have a fuel pump that's large enough to keep a Land Rover going?
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'10 SV650SF, '83 GS650GT (it lives!), Questionable DIY dash project, 3D Printer project, Lasercutter project

[stinkwheel]

My personal dire motorcycle was a 600 diversion courtesy bike I rode for a fortnight. It was utterly uninspiring in every respect.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Rogerborg]

Lifan LF250B, a Chinese nut-and-bolt copy of the Virago 250, to the point where it's credible to believe that they bought the jigs when Yamaha stopped making them.

Bought without riding it, the handling was predictably lardy and barge-like, but the worst part was that it was so, so slowwwww. I never saw a real 70mph out of it, it just lacked the power to get there. It ran smoothly enough, but was clearly crippled in some way that I never managed to figure out.

The chrome started to flake, the rear brake cable snapped, the front brake kept binding despite copious cleaning, then the downpipe rotted through at 3 years old due to being bent and stretched so much that it was practically paper thin from new.

When I finally found a replacement (with the same issue) and got the system off, the collector essentially dissolved in my hands, and it was uneconomically to repair. Sold it for sweetie money and was glad to be rid of it.

The contrast with my Chinese HN125-8 couldn't have been sharper.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[M.C]

Not owned but day 1 of my DAS training was on an ER5, first time on NSL country roads, and I was ready to pull over and end it all.

Up until that point I assumed all bikes were fun, how f**king wrong I was. The Bandit I rode the next day was by comparison, amazing

[Kris]

[.Bishbash.]

[Reservoir Dog]

[weasley]

KDX 125. When it worked it was a bit fun, but it was both unreliable and difficult to get parts for. After the first engine failure it sat in my garage for ages awaiting fixing, then I fixed it, rode it, it broke down again and sat in a mate's back garden for ages awaiting fixing. Eventually the mate felt sorry for me and bought it for pennies. Dunno what happened to it after that.

I pushed it further than I rode it - I called it my exercise bike.
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Yamaha XJ600 | Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat | KTM 990 SMT | BMW F900XR TE

[linuxyeti]

XJ600N Diversion - hated it. Swapped my Lexmoto Arrow 125 for it, so wished I hadn't, the Arrow was by far a nicer bike to ride
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Beware what photos you upload, or link to on here, especially if you have family members on them

[.Chris.]

I've had one or two.

GN400 was arguably the perfect bike for me on paper but didn't really live up to expectations. The electrical system was an absolute joke. The headlamp was almost dangerously dingy, and with the engine idling the indicators would stop flashing after a while if the brake light was also illuminated. Kickstart-only on a 400 single gets old rather quickly. Finally it decided to burn a valve for no apparent reason. Poor spares availability was another irritant. All in all it probably would have been OK if I'd decided to pour money into it, repair it all properly and upgrade the deficiencies but by then I'd had enough and got rid.
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Chris
1985 Kawasaki Z550F

[chris-red]

GS500 - utter inspiring shit pile suzuki continued to make even when it was 20+ years out of date.

Nothing good about it.

Bandit 600/650, bland boring rot boxes, the only thing going for them is they are cheap and parts are plentyful. The only people that think they are any good haven't ridden anything better.
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Well, you know what they say. If you want to save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
Skudd:- Perhaps she just thinks you are a window licker and is being nice just in case she becomes another Jill Dando.
WANTED:- Fujinon (Fuji) M42 (Screw on) lenses, let me know if you have anything.

[ZX-7R]

I would say my RG500 frustrated me more than anything.Was not as fast as the magazines liked to portray,was pretty unreliable,always fouling plugs etc.,and handling deteriated to dangerous in the end.

Had a steering damper on it and needed almost maximum to keep the front end stable.Rear shock commited Hari Kiri in the end.

Remember racing a KR1-S up and down the dual carraigeway at Box Hill not long before it blew up for the final time,and he said he was scared just following me the way i was all over the place.
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Current Bike - 2000 ZX-7R