A tale of two eight fifties 

I bought my first GS850 off an old friend who had to sell it because he couldn't afford to run both a car and a bike and he needed a car to cart his kids around in. I'd known Phil a long time (we went to primary school together) and had bought bikes from him before. I knew he was a pretty good mechanic.

I also knew something of the history of this bike. It was a real high miler, probably something over 100,000 miles in total, although with lots of previous owners and the speedo having been disconnected for years at a stretch it's hard to be precise. Phil had got the bike for nothing but he'd rebuilt it including fitting a new crank - I'd helped him put it back together so I knew it had been done properly and also that the bike was in better mechanical condition than it's rather ropey appearance suggested. 

I was short of cash but needed some transport. The GS was about what I could afford. I'd had a GS550 Katana and a GS750 before so I knew GSs were tough old beasts and I knew they were OK to work on at home (I couldn't afford to pay anyone to fix my bike for me even if I could find a dealer I could trust). A deal was struck and I added my name to the long list of owners. 

The first thing you notice when you get on a GS850 is that they're BIG. I'm 6'4" so the size of them is a definite advantage as it means they're comfortable. The size is also rather deceptive. The turning circle is actually a lot smaller than you'd expect (no fairing to reduce the steering lock) and the weight seems to drop away once you're rolling.

It's certainly no back road scratcher. The handling is rather slow with a 19" front wheel aiding stability rather than chuckability. It's also a shaftie which can take a bit of getting used to if you've never ridden one before but having got used to one I'd never go back to chain drive on a bike I was planning to use for daily transport. 

A lot of people (generally those who've never owned a shaftie) think shaft drive ruins the handling. Not true. It's generally a lot more direct than chain drive. It's much easier to lock the back wheel up if you're clumsy changing down and you don't want to shut the power off in the middle of a bend (you don't want to do it a chain drive either come to that but you REALLY don't want to do it with a shaftie). Generally pick your line and stick to it. 

The other thing I noticed with the GSs I've owned is other peoples reaction to them. Big and black seems to be far more effective at getting you seen than any dayglo stuff - even looking like a police bike. I'm not sure quite why this is but it seems to work. It probably helps that being made before current noise regulations came in they can be relatively loud without having to worry about getting done for not having a BS stamp on your exhaust. 

The age has some other effects too. The best one is that you can get classic insurance. It also means that being old but not really making classic status (or rather classic prices) yet they aren't all that knickable (I still chain them up mind). Prices do seem to have bottomed out on them though so you do stand a reasonable chance of selling them for at least what you paid for them - if you decide to sell them.

I kept that first GS850 for 5 years using it as my only means of transport and doing only minimal maintenance on it - basically just putting petrol and oil in it. I wasn't particularly gentle with it either. GS850s seem to thrive on abuse. Thrash them and they just keep on going. 5 years and 50,000 miles had taken their toll though and it needed a rebore and general tidy up. Unfortunately I was unemployed at the time and in the middle of a major bout of depression so I didn't have the money or the inclination. At this point Phil made me an offer. Again a deal was struck and I swapped a barely running GS850 for a working X7. 

A couple of years later and I'd got over my depression and got a bit of cash to spend on a bike. It had to be usable as reliable daily transport so what to buy? When a GS850 was advertised on ukrm I decided to take a look. It turned out to be tidy with a *really* sweet motor. It had fairly obviously been rebuilt at some point as there were parts off at least two different models but it seemed to have been done well, it felt great on the test ride and the price was OK so I decided to go for it. 

The new GS850 was a lot lower mileage than my previous one. Going from the condition of the engine I reckon the 40,000 miles on the clock when I bought it was about right (and that's peanuts on a GS850). The handling was also noticeably more precise than my previous one. 

Unfortunately about a month after I bought it I high-sided it on a line of diesel on a roundabout near my home - breaking my arm in the process. The bike cartwheeled down the road hitting both sets of engine bars, trashing the tailpiece, denting the tank on both sides an taking out the instruments. 

Once my arm had healed enough to ride again I concentrated on getting the bike back on the road. I replace the clocks with a set of miniature custom ones and took the indicators and all the idiot lights off. That was enough to get it through the MOT and back on the road. Unfortunately it now looks a complete rat. I've got to go into hospital for an operation later in the year and won't be able to ride the bike for a couple of months afterwards. My plan is to strip the bike right down before I go into hospital and send the frame off for powder coating. Then I can gradually rebuild it over winter to be ready once I'm up to riding it. I'm planning on going for a mild custom look rather than standard. 

So to summarise the GS850 is a real tough old beast. If you need a workhorse that'll just keep on going it's ideal. They're fun too and it's a real old bike not a modern bike pretending to be an old one.