This is one of those bikes I had on my want list many years ago but never got round to getting one. I spotted a decent 1977 model come up and get it. Bike was in excellent shape and just about as standard as you're likely to get. The only obvious non-standard bit being the 3-1 exhaust.

Bike came with an extensive history with MOT certificates back to 1981, the service book and even the original bill of sale from 1977 and best of all, only 14,000 miles.

A few very minor things needed doing. The forks, although legal, were pitted so swapped for a rebuilt set with Fork bottoms polished to a mirror shine. Rear indicators were a bit naff so swapped for new ones and the engine paint on the head an barrels needed to be redone. Excepting that and a few adjustments to cables, new oil and filter etc. nothing else was needed.

Ran the bike most weekends and covered around 600-700 miles to satisfy my long standing curiosity about the bike. It proved to be a great bike to ride. 1st and 2nd gear are a little harsh at times, but this seems to be standard for these even reading old motoring magazines from the 70's and 80's. It's far more of a cruiser than say the Kawasaki Z650 from the same era. It's pretty slow of the mark compared to modern stuff and really only gets into it's element in top gear where it will chug along nicely.

Suspension is ok for the kind of riding you can do on one of these, but it's not going to cope with any real hard use (not that I'd want to try that on a bike this heavy really). Bike is heavy and as mine does not have a decent handle for getting the bike onto the centre stand, it's a pain.