What's the worst bike you've ever ridden?

[mangocrazy]

We've had the worst bike you've ever owned - now what's the worst bike you've ever ridden, even if it was only once?

Here's my entry.

I have to go back to 1984/85 when I was invited to go with Superbike magazine on a brief tour around France. I was the photographer. I can only assume the other lensmen they used took one look at the stultifying lineup of motorcycles that SB magazine had blagged from the importers and said 'er - nah. I need to wash my smalls'...

There were four of us; Tony Middlehurst (Editor), John Cutts (RIP) (Deputy Editor), myself and a chap whose name I cannot remember. We hardly spoke. The bike line-up (from best to truly awful) was as follows:

Honda XBR500 (cracking little bike, and my first choice every time)
Yamaha XJ900 (shaft drive, big, comfy, but monopolised by JC.)
Kawasaki Z650 (shaft drive, never got to ride it, monopolised by He Whose Name I cannot remember)
BMW R45 - the subject of this little exercise in vilification...

Ah yes - the BMW R45. What on earth possessed BMW to produce this gutless, insipid sack of shit I cannot imagine. It produced fractionally over 30hp (allegedly) and had difficulty even dragging its sorry arse off the line at traffic lights. It needed two-stroke levels of skill to launch, but gave nothing back in return. It weighed around 450lbs (the same as much more powerful bikes in the range) and had zero torque. Zilch, nada, rien. When I say that my bike at the time was a tuned RD350LC, you can understand the disgust, antipathy and loathing I felt for this appalling excuse for a motorbike. The front end of the bike was raised up in the air, chopper stylee and the rear was low. Very low.

As a result it handled like a plate of sick; the front tyre (a ridiculously hard compound Pirelli SuperTouring) gave absolutely zero feedback, and combined with the power and torque-free motor was the motorcycle equivalent of pushing a supermarket trolley. Up the escalator. You never had any clue as to where the front end might be heading at any moment in time. I had to thrash the living daylights out of it to even stay in sight of the other riders, all the while wondering if I might be on my arse at any moment. Oh, and it rained. It rained and it rained and then it rained some more. In France, in August. I felt horribly cheated.

If I was ever invited to do a Room 101 list, that piece of crap would be first on the list. It was truly, definitively awful.

Over to you...

[weeksy]

XJ600. Horrific thing with no good points

[ZRX61]

There wasn't a shaft drive Z650 Kaw... Did you mean the GT750 or 550?

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Yamaha SR250, probably a 1980 model, this was in 85 or 86, a mate owned it, I had a 250LC, I rode it at most half a mile, it was truly awful, dog slow, weird riding position and just to top things off, rubber mounted handlebars, just to add to the vague handling, a truly outstandingly bad motorcycle.

[mangocrazy]

There wasn't a shaft drive Z650 Kaw... Did you mean the GT750 or 550?

Probably the GT550 in that case. It definitely had shaft drive and was a despatcher's favourite.

[demographic]

CB 125 TDJ.
It needed to be powered through corners like my XJ550 but it didn't have any power so always felt like it wanted to run wide.

Just never handled right.

[Yorick]

Hedonist's 748. He loaned it while mine was in for work. I only got half a mile before I took it back.
Got a taxi home 10 miles.

Later he loaned me his GSXR400. That lasted a mile.

[Couchy]

Plenty of good handling bikes being listed as worst bikes, aren’t people strange

[KungFooBob]

The worst bikes are still fun. Just not as much as the best bikes

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Plenty of good handling bikes being listed as worst bikes, aren’t people strange

Have you ridden a knackered SR250?

[Skub]

I'm going to pick two bikes.

I'm also going to interpret the 'worst bike you've ever ridden' in terms of how much I disliked it/them,rather than them being bad bikes as such,though there may be a bit of that too!

First up was BMW K1000RS. A horrid,heavy,spongy handling and inadequately braked machine,which for me had no redeeming features whatsoever.

Next up was more recent and was another BMW. This time it was the Starbucks adventure favourite,a GS1200. I couldn't wait to give it back. I can forgive machines unreliability,if they have some character,but this one managed to be a dog and forever shitting on it's owner,who tried 3 more of the same before defecting to Triumph.

Now,before anyone accuses me of hating on the beemers,I spent more than a decade happily owning and riding an R90S. It was a lovely bike. That's probably the last era when BMW were a quality item.

[weeksy]

Plenty of good handling bikes being listed as worst bikes, aren’t people strange

You're not putting the xj600 in there? In its defence, it didn't technically do anything wrong as such

[Couchy]

Plenty of good handling bikes being listed as worst bikes, aren’t people strange

You're not putting the xj600 in there? In its defence, it didn't technically do anything wrong as such

Yeah had one, handled lovely, was comfy and went as well as can be expected for 54hp. I’ve ridden plenty of modern bikes that handle worse tbh. Not sure what you would have been expecting from it that it didn’t deliver and made it rubbish ?

[Cousin Jack]

BSA C12.

IIRC had an alleged 12 horsepower when new. Mine was not new, and most of the horses were a bit winded. Also IIRC shared the same frame as the 350, so it was a lardy beast.

Had a delightful design feature, the rear sprocket was part of the rear hub. New chain and sprockets was an expensive exercise

[Bigyin]

Yamaha BT1100 Bulldog ....1100 cc of bad handling horrible piece of shit. Yamaha attempt at a Buell and just as crap

[Bigyin]

There wasn't a shaft drive Z650 Kaw... Did you mean the GT750 or 550?

Probably the GT550 in that case. It definitely had shaft drive and was a despatcher's favourite.

Yup as a courier in the late 80's the GT550 and GT750 were sought after as a work bike as the engine was bomb proof, the bike was comfortable for all day riding and low maintenance ...crap weather protection compared to the RT BMW's so normally fitted with bar muffs

[Druid]

CZ250

Softly sprung and with no discenable damping it pogoed its way around the west midlands for the couple of months I owned it. It still had its OE Barum tyres which were made of the hardest compound known to man, they provided very little grip but promised (or threatened) extremely long life. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still on it. Relatively heavy and low powered it eas even slower than the CB250k which preceded it. It had a habit of vibrating fasteners loose, it once ejected a spark plug which hit the bottom of the tank with such force I thought the engine had exploded. It could be started with a screwdriver and the gear lever doubled as a kickstart. The speedo wobbled about 10mph either side of the actual speed, headlight was pathetic and drum brakes front and rear didn't even work well enough to lock the tyres. Truly horrible

[Ditchfinder]

Mz etz 125 with a knackered reg/rec, every time it got hot it misfired and blew the baffle out of the exhaust.

A bastard to start when it was cold or hot, kick starter fouled the for pegs which eventually snapped at the weld because of having to kick out over so much.

Front brake was great but girls were so soft they bottomed out of you more than tickled it.

It weighed a metric fucktonne and produced less power than most mopeds.

It's still rotting at the bottom of my dad's garden.

Then got a gpz305, why I ever carried on riding bikes after those two I've no idea

[ZRX61]

Probably the GT550 in that case. It definitely had shaft drive and was a despatcher's favourite.

They were indeed... & preferable to Plastic Maggots..

[Newey]

XJ600. Horrific thing with no good points

Had a test ride on one of these, handled like a thrupenny bit which I can only put done to it being a shaft drive, nasty thing.