I had a 1983 Ascot twin, the bike I have owned the most years of all my bikes. In fact, I owned it 3 times in total
The engine and drive train was shared with the 500 Shadow and 500 Euro. Mechanical parts are easy to find, but cloak like instruments, plastic and fuel tank as well as exhaust can be difficult if you want the bike to be stock. Way more Shadows were sold than Ascots.
The handling of the Ascot was typical cruiser; light but slow. If you tried to grab it by its horn and wrestle it into quick changes of direction, the frame would flex dramatically, causing instability. The period tests in Cycle, Motorcyclist and Cycle World spoke of almost limitless cornering clearance, but I was dragging parts within a couple of miles of taking possession. I raised mine 40 mm at the back with longer, stiffer Koni shocks made for the Magna V65 as well as Progressive fork springs with more preload. That helped. Pegs would still touch down lightly, but the Ascot is the only bike I've owned where I could see the tarmac had actually touched the tire sidewalls by a tenth of a mm or two.
I really liked the 18in rear wheel over the 16in on the Shadow; better looking and better handling and more cornering clearance. With a pair of 2-2 MAC pipes, the engine got more power everywhere and almost had sufficient midrange to stop having to shift down into 5th every time there was a headwind or a hill to climb.
The fuel tank only held 9.5 litres and the seat was a torture rack, but overall I really liked the bike. If a larger tank - the Shadow held 11 litres IIRC, but still too small - could easily be adapted, I would probably have kept the bike and had a shop make me a better seat. I would then also have upgraded the engine with parts from the Transalp 600 for more grunt. But instead I got something else. Should have kept it, though, as a city commuter it was next to perfect what with the shaft drive and superb reliability.
BTW, the same basic engine is still in production today in the Shadow 750 series.
Pages: 1
