Good units still go for less than $1,000, a low price considering Honda’s reliability. In the ensuing years, the Ascot became a bargain leader on the used-bike market. Sales were slow despite good initial reviews, and the Ascot was imported for only two years in the United States. The ride was comfortable, the styling inoffensive and the handling acceptable, but the package fell far short of providing the thrill of a classic British single. The chassis was a bit heavy for the engine, which produced a claimed 35bhp, and performance was more ho-hum than jolly good. Instead of offering a new twist on the classic British single, Honda adopted a street-tracker design - FT stands for Flat Tracker - with cast wheels and an electric start. The Ascot was originally conceived as a modern version of the BSA?Gold Star, but the final product showed how much a bike can change going from drawing board to production line. Single-cylinder rivals to the Yamaha SRX600 The SRX is becoming a better investment all the time: Low-mileage units recently drew winning bids of $3,500-plus on eBay. “I’m not Freddie Spencer, anyway, so it’s fast enough for me, and it handles great.” To bring out the bike’s true kick, it’s necessary to replace the original equipment with aftermarket parts.įor Curren, though, the stock version is more than adequate.

Compounding those numbers, the bike doesn’t breathe particularly well thanks to restrictive factory exhaust and carbs. So why the brush-off? It certainly didn’t help that in an era ruled by multi-cylinder street bikes that produced triple-digit horsepower numbers, the SRX offered a claimed 41bhp and a 14-second quarter-mile time. “By almost all definitions, the SRX is a fantastic all-around motorcycle,” the magazine said. In 1995, Sport Rider declared the SRX one of the best bikes of the past decade. “It had good brakes and good suspension, and it was counterbalanced so it didn’t shake like the old singles.” “It was wonderful, far ahead of its time,” he says. Schreck put 75,000 miles on his SRX before donating it to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Ala. The package was a huge technological improvement over the SR500 of the late-Seventies, but only the niche market of thumper enthusiasts embraced it. Engineers raided parts bins from high-performance bikes such as the FZ600 for much of the chassis equipment, including the brakes and suspension. An enlarged version of Yamaha’s XT/TT engine provided the power, and the bike boasted triple disc brakes. “A real man’s single is a kick-started machine, even if it means extra effort,” Yamaha’s P.R. The bike stood out among the street bikes of its era, with a slim, pistol-grip tank, a minimalist instrument panel and, of course, no “Start” button. But once in a while in the industry, passion and enthusiasm wins for a short time instead of just bucks.” “It’s almost like an enthusiast got into the boardroom and said, ‘We’ve had a good year and Yamaha’s in good shape, so let’s make this enthusiast bike and see what happens,'” says Jack Robinson, founder of the Four-Stroke Singles National Owners Club ( “Those bikes didn’t make sense. Designed by an engineering crew bent on putting a modern spin on the café racer theme, the bike combines a nearly unbreakable engine with handling about as good as anything that wasn’t a racing-only machine, outstanding braking and bare-knuckle styling. That’s high praise, but it’s not out of the ordinary for the 600cc retro machine, which some rank among the best singles of all time. Other than that, it does everything perfect.” “When starting it warm you can’t even look at the throttle, let alone touch it, or it’ll flood. “It does everything right,” says Curren, whose secondhand SRX has just under 24,000 miles on the odometer. Curren, an SRX owner from Ohio, is among those wondering why Americans didn’t embrace the bike during the Eighties. Nearly 20 years after it hit the domestic market, the SRX600 has developed a long-overdue but well-deserved cult following in the United States. It had beautiful lines, it handled well, it was light and it always did everything I wanted it to do.” “It was an oddball, but I couldn’t have cared less.

“No one wanted a single, and no one wanted to kick-start a 600,” says Tulsa, Okla., resident Phil Schreck, who camped out on his local dealer’s doorstep in 1986 to buy an SRX. The SRX, with throwback design cues such as clip-on-style handlebars and lack of an electric starter, was imported only one year to the United States.

Yamaha srx 700