Vintage Thing No. 68 - Honda-BSA 550

This bike caught my eye at the Tavistock Steam fair. It's a BSA pre-unit twin frame fitted with a Honda CB550 engine. And to my eye it looks like the Honda engine fits very well although there is a bit of space above it under the tank. The frame isn't quite bursting with engine so I'm wondering if a CB750 engine would fit.

But if it did have a 750 engine there wouldn't be all that space for ease of servicing. The handlebar fairing shows this bike has been built to ride. That's the beauty with specials - you feel more in touch with the creator's mind even more than you do with a mass-produced machine.

It's the sort of bike I think more people should have made already - including BSA themselves - and it's giving me ideas, ideas of a cafe racer with similar lumpy bits.

I once admired a mate's cafe racer and said how much I liked it, to which he got in a strop and said "It's not a cafe racer! It's an endurance racer!" There followed a good-natured diatribe against posers and the trend towards form over function.

I said if he didn't like people mistaking it for a cafe racer why had he made it look like one?

Of course, I understood his point entirely. It's just that some people are put on this earth to wind up.

My special would have the K&N filters but I'd probably have disc brakes and go more for the low and lean look, with rear sets and clips ons or ace bars. Less comfortable to ride but...