State of the Art, and a Word on Parallel Twins

So now a bit of easy stuff - playing the critic. Much as I love to see the cafe racer, flat track, retro and other alternative bike styles flourishing (flourishing almost everywhere other than Britain that is), I have a gripe. I get the whole, "let's use plentiful and cheap Japanese bikes with character to base our projects on" - XS650, SR400, and various other trail bikes and so on. However, I am increasingly seeing the use of bikes that where unloved when they first appeared, and often for good reason. Just cos it's getting old doesn't mean it's cool. Sorry, but Honda CM250 et al?

Yes the winner of the Deus build-off showed abundantly better skills and talent than I can aspire to, with Much Much Go, and I love the exhausts, the stance, the paint job. But the donor motor? And comstar wheels? Not for me - ever. The same goes for the brilliant Wrench Monkees' Monkee #4 using an XS500. Why would you? At least the aesthetically similiar Icon bike, The Snake Charmer uses a rabid two stoke dirt bike motor. For me there has to be some "go" with the "show" unless there is extra charm instead. A lot of the 80's Japanese bikes being re-cycled now just don't have that charm in their genes.

Parallel twins (pre - modern clever firing orders and fuel injection) are pretty low on my favourite engine configuration chart. Low power and nasty vibrations. Brit bike's make up for this with character and stroke. That character has rubbed off very knowingly on XS650, W650 so they have their charm. But the legions of dull commuter bikes that utilised this configuration, XS, Dream and Super Dream, and the equivalents from Kawasaki and Suzuki, belong where they live, in the unglamorous bit of the past. Just my opinion you understand.....