Honda CD 175

Before leaving Motorcycle Sport magazine to become a freelance tester of high-speed motor cycles, David Minton had already acquired a certain reputation for his way with a bike. He would take some proud scion of a pedigree line — usually British, usually a vertical twin — ride it in his inimitable fashion, and very soon wreck it.

Not always totally: sometimes the damage would be nothing more than a fractured mudguard, seat fixing or headlamp support. But often a valve would fall in, a gasket would blow, a pushrod bend. He believed in revs: and British bikes of the 1960s, designwise already a little long in the tooth, were not up to that sort of life.

When he was reduced to a Honda, having disposed of all available 500s, it was expected that he would be reporting back, probably almost concurrently with his departure, with grave news.

He was riding the 175 Honda of 1967, which made extensive use of pressed steel for the box spine of the frame and other cycle parts, including even the rear pivoted fork. Where he had been accustomed to fault the expensive tubular frame of high-performance British machines, he was happy to report that the Honda layout was pleasingly rigid. Instead of waiting for cracks to appear (as invariably happened with the all-metal mudguards of Triumph or BSA, Norton or Matchless), he could only marvel at the durability of the plastic guards fitted to the 175.

Vibration, he said of the 180° crankshaft engine, was 'non-existent except for a couple of periods of "humming" through wind; on his return, he was reduced to the handlebar'. Praise indeed. about 70mph).

He informed readers that the 'little claimed to be a sports bike, machine cruised flat out most of the time without faltering', and then, in a revealing aside, mused on the possibility of Honda achieving similar results should they turn their hand to a pushrod-operated vertical twin with a 360° crankshaft. A 100-mile journey from London to Norwich was covered at a steady 75 to 80mph (with the wind; on his return, he was reduced to about 70mph). This on a 175 that was not claimed to be a sports bike.