Goofy gears

fairly leapt at me off the news stand with its cover photo of the Honda CB72 and I read the article with great interest. Most references these days to those early Hondas seem to relate to the 305cc CB77 but to the best of my recollection these were not common in NSW because of the steep hike in registration fees above 250cc which then applied. I bought my black CB72 in 1968 for about $400, from the Honda dealer in Wahroonga on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, something, which seems rather unbelievable now, given the upmarket nature of the Wahroonga shopping centre! It was a 1964 model and was traded on a CB 450 by a member of the RAAF from Richmond. It had probably seen better days but it ran well enough with no real signs of abuse. I owned it for two or three years, commuting to work and having fun on weekends and it never gave any major problems. However there was indeed the matter of the “weird” gear ratios mentioned in the article and it was pretty annoying. I remember following a friend on a CB 175 which had a 5 speed box, going up the S bends to Hawkesbury lookout from the old Yarramundi crossing on the Nepean. At each tight bend on the steep grade, he would fly away from me while I struggled out of 1st gear, trying to find enough revs to drop it into 2rd. Very annoying when I was on a 250! It was as if Honda had somehow forgotten to include a gear. What possessed them? It was also rather a pain in heavy traffic.

The article also praised its handling and while I don’t doubt it, that is something which I don’t particularly remember. I was a pretty inexperienced rider at the time, so that may have been true but it certainly wasn’t a patch on the Mk3 Ducati 250 that I owned some years later. Very much later again, I became acquainted with a Laverda 750 belonging to a friend which I rode on a few occasions and I was very struck by the resemblance of its motor to that of my old CB72. I have often wondered how this came about or was it just some sort of coincidence.

I now realise what a pretty little bike the CB72 was and what a breakthrough it represented. It would be nice to have now, especially with said five speed Nova gear box, although more to the point, I wish I still had the Mk3 Ducati, but I’m sure I couldn’t afford it... In addition, thanks for the extraordinary tale of the flat twin Harley. Jeff Rigby Via email