Thoughts after a short ride on a Matchless G15 Hybrid (2010)

“Fancy swapping bikes for a while”, said our section leader Roy, after pulling alongside me in the heavy traffic of Saffron Walden. “Not while we are in the middle of town”, I replied, “I’ll do it on the return journey”. So that is how I came to be trying out Roy’s 750cc Norton engined Matchless while he rode back on my Royal Enfield Bullet. Apparently this particular bike is a 1965 G15CS, although I wouldn’t have known the difference from the standard G15, but it was of the style I like with large useful fuel tank and low silencers. It felt comfortable enough when I sat on it except that the straight bars which were fitted and which would have suited me fine not so many years ago could now do with being slightly higher for me, to improve my body position to footrest stance.

This was the first time that I had ridden any Matchless or AJS model other than my lightweight 350 and two stroke Stormer. It was also my first time for any bike with the Norton twin engine, so I really had nothing to compare it with other than the BSA A7 Star Twin that I last owned back in 1982, as the 1996 Honda CB500 twin which I owned a few years ago was hardly comparable. But on this run I was not exactly going to be trying out the performance in any case. My first thoughts after getting on the bike was that I didn’t like the sponge handlebar grips which Roy had fitted as they didn’t feel as firm as I like grips to be, but in fact I soon got used to them and didn’t even notice them after a while. The eight inch Norton front brake looks quite impressive, but I wasn’t too impressed by it as to me it didn’t seem to have as much power as I expected and hoped for. However, it could be that my feelings were shaped by having just got off a bike equipped with a disc brake as by the time we had got back to Brentwood I was no longer thinking about stopping distances all the time so I must have been feeling happier with it, although I am not too sure that I would have felt the same about it if I had been stopping from considerably higher speeds than we had been travelling at and which the bike was capable of.

As said previously, I didn’t get any sort of chance to try the bike for any higher speeds as on this run there were not many derestricted stretches and in any case we were usually running between 45 and 50 mph. However, on occasions I hung back a bit in order to try the acceleration out and I was surprised to find that the bike didn’t surge forward quite as impressively when the throttle was just opened at lowish revs in a high gear as I expected. I don’t really know what I expected because it “took off” well enough when changing down a gear, but I suppose that various magazine articles on Norton 750 engined bikes had somehow “programmed” me to expect something more. It was though, as Rolls Royce used to say about their offerings, adequate – at least for me. At first I was noticing what seemed to be a considerable amount of clattering and knocking noises seeming to come from the engine area, but then most bikes, unless they are water cooled, seem to produce bad sounding noises from the engine area which tend to get amplified by the fuel tank (and my new Enfield is no exception in this) which you learn to ignore once you get used to them and realise that they are not getting any worse as the miles go by. Once I did that I settled down to appreciating the bike’s good points.

As I have already mentioned, I would have preferred a slightly more raised handlebar position to improve my comfort. Even so, I was not exactly uncomfortable during the forty or so miles which I rode the bike for and I have to say that the seat was quite a bit more comfortable than the one on my Enfield as, unlike that bike where sliding back along the dual seat in order to change riding position brings you uncomfortably up against the noticeably hard lump where the rear mudguard rises underneath, the G15’s dual seat allowed such movement in complete comfort. I also assumed that the seat still had the original Dunlopillo rubber filling rather than the modern foam sponge rubbish as well, which helps comfort a great deal as it doesn’t pack down and lose its springiness during a journey. So it was full marks to AMC and their dual seat for its comfort.

Another good point was the gearbox, or more precisely, the ability to be able to select neutral from either first or second gear while the bike was at a standstill at any time. This is in marked contrast to the redesigned Albion box on my Enfield, which despite being almost new, does not like selecting neutral at all while at a standstill once when its oil gets hot in traffic. Being the 5 speed version it does not have the extra neutral finding lever, the provision of which was surely an admission of a problem by the original maker of the 4 speed version. The Albion derived gearbox of my Francis Barnett has a similar reluctance for neutral selection at a standstill, but to a lesser degree, while selection of neutral on my Matchless G5 lightweight is also just as good as this G15 so I guess that AMC designers knew a thing or two about good gearbox selector design and the G15’s box gave me no trouble whatsoever despite me being unfamiliar with the bike.

The handling of the bike also never gave me any problems. Now this is in no way any sort of performance review so I will ignore such nonsense talk about roadholding at speed and bits of the bike touching down on corners etc as I had no opportunity to try such things and wouldn’t do so on someone else’s bike in any case. This is a heavy old bike though and that probably benefited it in that it always felt stable on the road, reacting to longitudinal strip road repairs and depressions but a lot less disturbed by them than a much lighter bike would be. The damping of the rear suspension units of this bike was a bit tired and allowed an amount of wallowing when accelerating out of a bumpy roundabout, but the frame felt secure and steady enough at the same time and I have to say that the longer I rode the bike the more I liked it. The only problem with a heavy bike though (and my G5 lightweight, although not exactly as light as I originally thought it would be, is considerably lighter than this bike) is that sooner or later you are going to have to stop and wheel it around and put it on and take it off the centre stand and such like. I did take this one off its stand without too much effort at the start of my run, but cannot report on wheeling it about or actually heaving it onto the stand as I handed it back to Roy without needing to. These things become more of a concern to me as the years go by however.

The other thing which gave me some cause for concern was watching Roy start the bike for me, with great hefty bootings of the kickstarter seeming to indicate a fairly highish compression ratio. On a 500 single of the older style your body weight and flywheel momentum over two revolutions does most of the work in starting, but on a large twin with one “bang” every revolution you cannot build up such a momentum so you have to put extra effort in with your leg. As I need to be careful with my damaged right knee I would not want to risk too many starting attempts on this bike and although I very much enjoyed my try-out and first time experience on a G15 such as this and found it a nice bike to ride I would not choose it as a bike for myself for that very reason. I feel that by taking an engine that was originally designed as a 500 twin out to half as much again and trying to increase its performance with higher compression ratios it might have taken away the very virtues that I would have appreciated, by increasing the harshness of the engine as well as making the starting more difficult. My old BSA Star Twin 500 (also a Bert Hopwood engine and a complete redesign based on the earlier Perkins A7) could run happily at 60 to 70mph and was extremely easy to start and that is all I ask from a bike of this style now. As I have never tried one of the AMC’s own engine design twins I cannot say if their 500 twin would be as easy to live with as was my Star Twin, perhaps I need to try Roy’s “Trusty Rusty” as well – to compare the relative 500 twins.

Is it more Norton or more Matchless and does it really matter as long as the end result is right?