BSA B25

The BSA B25 street scrambler was a rare bike in it's time and even more rare today. The old bikes such as this one, are given little in the way of ackowledgement for the power and performance they were capable of. Probably because they were prone to reliability issues. Although, I have to say, the old B25 never failed to get me to where I wanted to go; it just rarely got me back home again!

This bike was bought in August 1973 for $500.00. It was the bike I learned to ride on and in fact was the bike I took my motorcycle test on.

Here is an interesting fact. In the 70's in Ontario, there were no provisions for learning to ride a motorcycle on the road. There was no learner's permit, no M1 or M2. You were expected to know how to ride a bike without ever going on the road. After you sucessfully passed your written test, you made an appointment to attend the driver testing center. At this time, you were issued a oneway permit to attend the testing center. The permit allowed you to get the the designated testing facility on a specific date and time. You either passed the test and road the bike home, or, if you failed, find someone to pick the bike up and drive you home. If you passed, there were no restrictions on you. You could ride any bike (except a trike) anywhere, any time and with passengers if you wanted.

Compared to many of today's bikes of this size, the BSA performed incredibly well. Driving at highway speeds even with two-up was never a problem. You could also realize a 200 mile (320 km) range on the tank. That's around 71 mpg imperial! The one major draw backs for this bike were poor wet weather performance because of poorly sealed points; poor cold wether starting (no choke) and the lack of a primary kick start. The bike could only be kick started on neutral and if you pulled in the clutch the kick start disengaged from the motor.

Off-road performace was adequate at best. That is, unless you wanted to do some hill climbing. Its light weight, gearing and incredible torque made this bike well suited for climbing even the steepest of hills.