Retro Cool: Honda CB1300, Yamaha XJR1300, Kawasaki ZRX1100, Suzuki GSX1400

For the ultimate street cred you need flat bars and a motor with more grunt than a '70s porn star. Time to turn back the clock and discover the best in retro biking

Remember when putting football cards in the spokes of your bicycle would transform it into a motorcycle? Remember when around the corner seemed far away and going into town seemed like visiting another world? Remember when you knew everyone in your street, and everyone knew you? Remember when 50p was a decent amount of pocket money and the worst thing that could happen was getting picked last for the playground football team?

The chances are that quite a few of you reading this have done or thought some of the things listed above. I bet that a few other happy memories have been unlocked while you were reading this and you're now sitting there with a smile on your face, thinking of something that happened years ago. That's nostalgia for you.

And that's what these retro bikes are all about. They aren't the best handling bikes around but they hark back to a time when bikes had soul and character and weren't faceless plastic rockets that do everything perfectly. And it's exactly this that makes them so cool and gives them their appeal.

If you buy any one of these four retro bikes you buy much more than just a jumble of nuts and bolts that have been joined together into a bike, you buy memories and feelings. Hand over your cash for your new XJR, CB, ZRX or GSX and you buy a bike that looks like the one that was parked up outside the chip shop as you rode past on your bicycle with the cards in the spokes.

You also get a substantial motorcycle for your money. Chuck £7000 at a dealer to buy a sportsbike and you get the feeling you've been short-changed slightly. The bike is tiny, where has all your money gone? Not so with these four.

Make no mistake these are all big bikes, and they make no pretences about trying to hide it. All of them weigh over 220kg, which is 50kg heavier than the latest sportsbikes. Retro bikes are big and bold and are designed to draw attention to themselves and give the rider a feeling of power. Just look at the engines.

In a time when everything is going small and compact these retro bikes simply stick two fingers up and go as large as possible on the capacity size. In fact the GSX's engine is the largest oil-cooled motor Suzuki has ever made. With retro bikes the motor is as much a part of the styling as it is a functional item. Which is why Yamaha and Suzuki have stuck with air/oil cooled engines instead of using more high tech liquid-cooled ones. When it comes to styling air-cooled engines with their fins on the cylinder look far cooler than a flat-sided liquid-cooled engine, although Kawasaki has tried to make the ZRX's engine look air-cooled by adding a few fake fins.

The engines really dominate these retro bikes and give each one its character. In the world of naked bikes top speeds are virtually irrelevant as hanging onto a set of flat bars at anything over 120mph for a substantial period of time is likely to leave you walking with your knuckles scraping the ground for the rest of your life, although if you are thinking of a career change and want to move into being a nightclub doorman then this could be an advantage. What is more important for naked bikes is roll-on acceleration. And for that you need large amounts of torque, which these engines have by the bucketful.

On most other bikes overtaking a car relies on a few down-shifts to get the motor spinning, not so with these. At low revs these bikes rocket forward, especially the Suzuki. The huge lump produces a massive 93ft-lb of torque, which in real terms is the equivalent of inviting Jonathan Ross and Ruby Wax round to tea and spiking their food with speed.

Crack the throttle open the on the Suzuki with the rev counter needle hardly over 2000rpm and it leaps forward, unless you are in first and the tyres are cold in which case the huge surge of power will happily spin the rear leaving an impressive black line behind it on the road. Which is very cool. But unfortunately it's all over too soon with the GSX. Despite it revving to 9,000rpm by the time the rev counter has cleared 5,500rpm the power is trailing off fast and the GSX has shot its proverbial bolt. Unlike the Kawasaki and the Honda, which are just getting into their stride.

Now both these bikes are cheating in a way because their engines go slightly against the retro theme and have liquid-cooling, which allows them to rev higher and produce more power. But what they miss out on in the looks department they more than make up for in rider enjoyment.

It should come as no surprise the Kawasaki has a strong engine when you consider its heritage. The ZRX's lump is basically a bored-out and tweaked ZZ-R1100 motor. All right the ZRX may not have any Ram-air or a fairing but that is still an engine that was hitting speeds of over 170mph back in 1990. To ride it's slightly more rev hungry that the other three, and it's only once it's up above 4000rpm that it really flies, but this adds to its character and keeps it high in the revs and it's great fun, and the fastest of the bunch.

But this is only something you can tell by the speed testing results, because on the road the Honda and Kawasaki felt very similar with, if anything, the Honda feeling the most powerful. The CB1300's engine is all new and has been designed to deliver exactly what Honda perceive a retro rider wants, which, according to the press waffle, is a "prodigious thrust of torque, accompanied by a thundering roar of performance." Well I reckon Honda has hit the nail on the head because the CB's engine is a beauty. Accelerate hard in first and the front will lift under power alone and the extra 100cc it has over the Kawasaki gives it the edge low down. The only real criticism I can find about the Honda is that because it is so smooth in producing power it lacks that bit of character that the Kawasaki's revvy motor gives it.

And as for the Yamaha, well it suffers because it took the route of keeping everything retro, including the motor. The XJR's air-cooled engine looks great and does everything well, but it just lacks the power of the others to give it an edge. If you own an XJR, or test ride one, you'll probably think it's got more than enough but comparing it to two liquid-cooled engines or the mighty 1400 Suzuki it's lacking.

As well as an excellent motor the CB1300 also has another trump card hidden up its sleeve - it goes around corners. Well they all go around corners but the Honda does it in a much more controlled and stable fashion. I know all of these bikes are modelled to look like bikes from a time when men were men, women were chained to the sink and bikes had a bendy frame and tyres that were the width of a coin but that isn't much of an excuse.

Show the Suzuki a corner and it developed a nasty case of "fat bird on a trampoline" syndrome. Everything wobbles. The suspension may be set up for comfort rather than screaming through bends but I would still expect it to be able to handle a few corners. Once you have turned in, which takes a bit of effort because of the sheer size of the beast, if you hit a bump or touch the throttle mid-corner the whole bike starts to sway back and forward on the suspension as the forks get all confused and pass on the bewilderment to the shocks. It's really not nice, especially when it's 228kg of machine doing it.

The XJR is marginally better, and is helped by decent suspension and a 4kg weight advantage over the Suzuki, although it to is anything but planted whereas the Kawasaki and Honda feel like modern bikes. The ZRX still has a bit of a wobble about it but as least it gives you enough confidence to push it slightly. Turning in it actually feels quite sporty and its big bars help you hold it down mid-corner and adjust you line but it to suffers from soft suspension. The Honda is simply in a different class.

You can forget about any wobbles and just corner like it's a modern bike, which it is, and so are the others, although you wouldn't have guessed it by riding them. Honda hasn't done anything trick with the CB, it has twin rear shocks, right-way-up forks and a steel double-cradle frame just like the rest of them, it just that the designers have decided to take out the "character wobble" and make a bike that corners. But it isn't without its faults. Because the handling is so good the CB does tend to run out of ground clearance very easily, which is a compliment in a way. As for the others, I reckon that stiffening the suspension should improve them slightly.

I suspect most owners of these bikes probably won't be doing many miles, they are much more Sunday blast or town riding bikes, so wind protection isn't really an issue. Obviously the CB, XJR and GSX have nothing but their clocks to shelter the rider but the ZRX's tiny fairing actually proves quite effective. The riding positions are virtually identical between the bikes although the Yamaha's bars feel the highest while the Kawasaki's footpegs are set slightly further back than on the other three. All four have huge padded seats with the Suzuki's probably the comfiest due to its enormous size.

In fact just about everything about the Suzuki is big. To sit on it feels by far the biggest of the bunch and the tank is large and spreads you legs around it. The Honda also feels quite physically big but the Kawasaki and Yamaha have the shortest tanks and feel the smallest.

Having to bring a rapidly moving 228kg to a halt requires a fair amount of effort and the six-piston Tokico calipers are more than up to the job, although the super soft front forks do tend to dive faster than an Iraqi into a bunker at the sight of a B52 as soon as they are touched. The Kawasaki has identical front calipers to the Suzuki's but feel slightly weaker, which is probably due to its smaller front discs. Both the Honda and Yamaha rely on four-piston calipers with the XJR borrowing the excellent set-up from the R1 and the CB's looking suspiciously like CBR600's. Both are more than up to the job.

You can read as many reviews as you like about these bikes but I bet that most buyers are more likely to base their decision on which bike they like the look of best rather than its reviews. For my part I reckon that it's a toss up between the Yamaha and the Kawasaki for the best looking. The Yamaha looks properly retro. It has an air-cooled engine, stylish graphics, funky short-cut exhausts and Öhlins stickers on the shocks which gives it some exclusivity, and on the Kawasaki the Eddie Lawson replica colours look ace. The Suzuki is cool but just too big. White and blue are definitely the best colours but it just doesn't quite do it for me. And the Honda just isn't retro enough, which is more a problem with its heritage than anything else.

Where Kawasaki has drawn inspiration from GPZ1100 and indeed Eddie Lawson's KZ1000 race bike, Suzuki the GS1000 of the '80s and Yamaha the mighty XS1100, Honda has based its retro bike on the CB1000 "Big One" which was launched in 1993. But that's just what I reckon, and like I say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and anyway most bikers probably want to forget the days of the GS1000 and XS1100 because of painful memories of Sta-pressed trousers and big hair.

So after all is said and done which is the one to go for? If we are talking true retro then it's a toss up between the Yamaha and the Suzuki as I don't really count the Honda or Kawasaki as true retro on account of their engines. If it's between these two then I would go for the Yamaha as it handles better, looks cool and isn't such a handful. Between the Honda and Kawasaki it's the CB1300 because it does everything well and handles the best.

If you don't care about the cooling of the engine and just want a naked bike that looks good, has a big, powerful motor and a bit of attitude then I would have to recommend the CB1300. Yes it's water-cooled, yes its heritage may be questioned but it isn't a struggle to ride like the others and the enormously powerful engine will keep you more than entertained.

So close your eyes and remember a time long ago when twin shocks were the latest thing, polyester jackets were cool and wearing Brut 33 was considered foreplay. And I leave you with a final word of warning. When strolling down memory lane try not to stand in any white dog shit.

Specifications

Honda CB1300

Price £6640
Engine capacity 1284cc
Power 113.5bhp@7500rpm
Torque 86.6lb.ft@5800rpm   
Weight 224kg
Seat height 790mm
Fuel capacity 25L
Top speed 142.8mph

Kawasaki ZRX1100

Price £6790
Engine capacity 1164cc
Power 120.2bhp@8400rpm
Torque 83.9lb.ft@6800rpm
Weight 223kg
Seat height 790mm
Fuel capacity 20L
Top speed 150.8mph

Suzuki GSX1400

Price £6499
Engine capacity 1402cc
Power 104.4bhp@6700rpm
Torque 93.3lb.ft@5100rpm
Weight 228kg
Seat height 775mm
Fuel capacity 22L
Top speed 145mph

Yamaha XJR1300

Price £6349
Engine capacity 1251cc
Power 107.2bhp@7700rpm
Torque 77.4lb.ft@6600rpm   
Weight 224kg
Seat height 775mm
Fuel capacity 21L
Top speed 137.5mph