Yamaha’s SR500 is 40. Gez is way over that
Chris Shaw rekindled a love affair – by going back to the single life with a 40-year-old Yamaha SR500
Chris Shaw has a bit of a soft spot for the Yamaha SR500. Having owned a 1978 model as an everyday ride back in the ’80s and then moved on to other bikes, she rekindled her relationship with the versatile single, buying another ’78 bike a few years ago. As you can see in the photos on the left, little has changed since her first fling with the bike – apart from Chris’ hairdo.
That’s indicative of the history of the SR500 model itself – amazingly, it’s 40 years since Yamaha introduced it, and the same basic machine has been in production almost continually since 1978. In the form of the SR400, it has only just been discontinued from Yamaha dealers and despite a brief production hiatus in 2008-09, the SR400/500 is one of the longest-running models ever produced by a Japanese factory. The last bikes still didn’t even have an electric start!
But that’s enough model history – Chris’s life story is a lot more interesting and varied. She got hooked on bikes at an early age. “When I was at school we were always around bikes,” she laughs. “A mate of mine’s boyfriend was one of the local moped gang and promised me he’d take me for a ride once he’d passed his test. He was as good as his word and I went out on the back of his Yamaha RD350. My parents weren’t best pleased when they found out about it, though. I was hooked, but they wouldn’t let me have a bike until I was 18.”
Chris’s first bike was a 1977 Suzuki TS125 and she has such fond memories of it that she bought another one last year. “It’s actually a 1979 model,” she explains. “But it was the closest I could get to my first bike. It was one of a batch that was supposed to be shipped to Iran, but the Iran-iraq war put a stop to that. I love riding it. It really turns back the clock.”
Of course, back in the ’80s, as soon as she’d passed her test, Chris wanted something bigger. “I’d been looking at Suzuki GS550S and Honda CB550S,” says Chris. “But then I walked into my local dealer and there it was – a 1978 SR500. Compact, light and great looking. I loved it
and owned it for five years. I rode back and forth to college in Nottinghamshire on it, moved to London for work and took it there. After that, I moved back to Bath and got back into the local bike scene.” Back then, Chris was a piano tuner, and after working at the Bath Piano Workshop for a while she started her own business. Her choice of transport, for work and pleasure, was her SR500 – a fact that interested the local paper enough to run a piece about her (see page 66). “The bike was pictured in the newspaper with clip-ons, but I soon took them off,” Chris smiles. “They were so uncomfortable I swapped back to the standard ’bars the day after that picture was taken, I think. I did have to saw about an inch off each handlebar end so I could get the bike down the alleyway at the side of my house to park it round the back, though.
“The old photographs of me sitting on the wall were taken by a mate. When I got this bike back on the road, I went back there to see if anything had changed. A small tree has been planted, but it’s still much the same. I’ve still got that old leather jacket, too.
“Unfortunately, the SR500’S alternator packed up and I bought an XS650 hardtail chopper – it had dodgy forks, so I swapped the SR front end into that and sold the rest of the 500 to a breaker.”
Chris actually worked for the dealer who sold her the SR – Two Wheel Services in Bath – for a while, but drifted out of bikes when she got into horses and dogs. “I had my own horses, worked at a trekking centre and lived it all for quite a while,” she says. “But when I didn’t have horses any more, I got the urge to get another bike. I bought a Kawasaki Z440LTD, but it never ran right. Then I spotted this SR500 on ebay and I was hooked again.”
The bike was in Wales and Chris didn’t even see it before buying it. “The guy who was selling it was
‘DAD HELPED WITH ANY WORK ON MY FIRST SR, BUT NOW I DO MOST THINGS MYSELF. I FIND WORKING ON BIKES THERAPEUTIC’
emigrating to New Zealand and he rode it over to Bath. It had a few things wrong with it, but it was basically sound. That was in 2014 and I got it back on the road in 2016. The handlebars, silencer and mirrors aren’t the originals – though they’re pretty close – and it had the wrong chainguard and front mudguard. I bought a front mudguard on ebay – it’s actually for a later model, but it looks OK – and Fowlers in Bristol came up with a genuine chainguard. I’m happy with how it looks.”
There were a few other minor issues with the bike, too. “The main one was that the carb kept flooding,” Chris explains. “I took it off, stripped it and got it ultrasonically cleaned. With my first SR, I had my dad to help out with any work on it, but now I tackle most things myself. I find working on bikes quite therapeutic. I’ve got a workshop manual and if I can’t work out how to do something I go on forums and ask. Gino on the XT500 group talked
me through setting up the carb once I’d had it cleaned.”
After riding the bike around locally for a while, Chris was finally confident enough in its performance to tackle a longer trip last year. “I went to the International XT/SR500 meet at Hay-on-wye and the bike ran just about perfectly,” she says. “I rode over there on my own and had no trouble. It was great to finally meet up with some of the people I’d got to know through the forums. I hope it behaves for you.”
I’ve been looking forward to getting a ride on Chris’s SR since getting in touch with her. You see, around the time Chris was enjoying her first SR500, I bought one to run through the winter in place of my Suzuki GS750. Like Chris’, my bike was my only transport back then and I reckoned the SR would make a perfect winter hack. It did, but I enjoyed it so much that I kept it for the following summer, too. I’m hoping to bring back some of the simpler joys of motorcycling aboard Chris’s slimline single.
But equally, a standard SR500 like Chris’s bike is plenty lively enough to have fun on the right roads – as I’m rediscovering. With Chris having reminded me of the starting drill, I’m off without any fuss. Some sort of muscle memory left over from my own SR days makes the pattern handlebars seem a touch unfamiliar, but that’s about it. The rest is exactly how I remember it. There’s a wonderfully light and poised feel to the bike that makes flicking it through corners a delight. The front disc is perfectly maintained and easily a match for the bike’s minimal bulk, and the punch out of corners is still there as long as I keep the revs up a bit – this is no old-school, long-stroke slogger, after all.
Arriving back in Bath after a few hours in the glorious Somerset countryside reminds me how good the SR is in town, too. It’s slim, light and manageable – with enough power to keep me one step ahead of the gathering rushhour traffic. It feels beautifully balanced, too, so filtering through lines of stationary cars is almost a pleasure. All too soon I’m back at Chris’s house, handing back the keys to her red-and-black time machine. But, just for a few hours, I’ve been back in the ’80s. And it felt good.
With SRS, it’s easy to make them better still. Its engine was based on the XT mill, with a few differences. It has electronic ignition for a start and, probably in an effort to give it a bit more urge on the street, the SR500 engine has a bigger carb – 34mm compared to 32mm on early (pre-1980) XTS. It also has a bigger inlet valve, clutch and a larger-capacity oil pump than the early XT. From 1980, the XT engine got the upgrades that had been standard right from the start on the SR – though it retained a points ignition system.
But there’s room for improvement. Speaking to XT and SR expert the late Dave Newitt some years ago, he let me in on the secret of a (relatively) cheap way to get 37bhp from an SR. The problem, according to Dave, is in the engine breathing. A 34mm inlet stub from a TT500 or a 36mm stub from an XS650 is what you want, combined with a 36mm carburettor and a 1¾in diameter exhaust downpipe (stock is 1½in). Sounds good to me.
I’d say that Chris has got her SR500 for the long haul this time round. She’s got a couple of modern bikes, too, but she looks so at home on the SR500, flicking it effortlessly through the Bath traffic or carving through bends on some of the twisty B-roads in the countryside surrounding the city. So what next for someone who’s equally at home on one of Yamaha’s musical instruments as she is on one of their bikes?
Well she’s got a Yamaha CT1 restoration project – with the engine out already – sharing space with two pianos in her living room (I forgot to look to see if they were Yamahas), so I don’t think she’s done yet. “I might sell the CT1 when it’s finished,” Chris admits sheepishly. “I won’t be getting rid of the TS or the SR, but a friend recently let me have a go on his TY250 and I absolutely loved it.
I can’t wait to go out again for a bit more trials practice. Now I really fancy one of them – or perhaps a TY175.” Why not? You can’t have too much of a good thing.
‘THE BIKE’S LIGHT AND POISED FEEL MAKES FLICKING IT THROUGH CORNERS A DELIGHT’