OLD bikes. They’re a nice idea – classic looks, relaxed performance and undemanding technology – but the reality is all too likely to be an endless swearathon of skinned knuckles and empty bank balances as you spend more time fixing your dream bike than riding the thing.
That rose-tinted dream is this: you kick your classic bike to life, it starts at the first attempt and you feel the pleasant throb of its engine, ready to go for a blast.
The red-misted reality is this: you kick your classic bike’s lifeless corpse after it fails to start at umpteenth attempt, you feel the painful throb of a broken toe and scream “Blast!”
Hence the existence of the retro bike. Evocations of past glories that attempt to combine all the appeal of a classic wrapped into a clean, friendly, non-oil-dripping, first-time-starting, hassle-free user experience, with added bonuses like brakes that bring you to a halt in the same postcode as they’re applied.
So forget the old classics and buy a brand new one instead. And when your mates tell you it’s not the real thing, just drop a few words like ‘warranty’, ‘electric start’ and ‘main dealer’ into the conversation.
Here’s our top 10 of the best brand-new classics.