The Little Honda That Could

About 30 years ago we had just moved to Sherborn, Masschusetts from Natick, the next town over. We were moving up from our 1400 square-foot 1870 Victorian on a tiny city lot that I had done a ton of work on, to a 5000 square-foot 1960 Ranch on nearly two acres in one of the most affluent towns in Massachusetts.

Business was good and life was sweet, and that always meant (for me, at least) that it was time to buy either a new (to me) car or motorcycle. In this case, it was a Craigslist ad in the next town over, Holliston, for a super clean 1984 Honda VT500 Ascot. I always liked those bikes. They have 50 horsepower V-twins with 6-speed gearboxes and shaft drive, along with a radiator and a 1980s interpretation of flat track styling.

A stock Honda VT500 Ascot, in the candy red color of mine. Of course, mine didn’t have the engine guards and luggage rack. Photo by Bring-A-Trailer.

This one seemed really nice. It was clean and ran good. It did, for some reason, have a VT500 Shadow exhaust system on it, as well as crash bars with highway pegs (hate them) and a windshield (don’t care much for them either). I figured I would change the exhaust anyway which I shortly did after I bought the bike, to a cheap black Mac two-into-one system. The day I rode it home, I pulled both the crash bars and windshield and tossed them.

In any case, it was a sweet little bike that I found myself riding everywhere. After a few months of ownership, I did discover something I didn’t catch when I bought it. Instead of the proper 18” rear wheel it was supposed to have, it had a 16” from a VT500 Shadow. I guess at some point, one of the prior owners decided the seat height was too high and put the Shadow wheel on it to cut that down a bit. Or maybe it was in a wreck which explained the Shadow exhaust. I don’t know—although I will confess I was a little disappointed it took me so long to realize this fact!

My little gem, tucked away in it’s new home, with new stablemates. Windshield and crash bars already gone, pipe and headers soon to be replaced.

I guess I can rationalize my failure to spot it because we had no internet back then and I had never actually seen one of these bikes in the flesh. Either way, I did eventually source a proper used rear wheel for it and got it back to an 18” one, but it took me years to do so. I also changed out the rear shocks for something with more dampening. I had the seat redone by my local upholsterer friend (made it taller and thicker) so it was less likely to ram my crotch into the fuel tank (as the design of the stock seat tended to do). I also put on a superbike handlebar.

The bike was so fun to ride that I briefly considered converting it for dirt use, but the fact that I could never change the gearing got me to put that out of my mind. As I had many other bikes, mostly old ones, this Ascot was a typical Honda in every way— it always ran whenever I went to go ride it. I don’t think I can recall a single time over the many years I owned it that the bike did not start or run just like it should, and while it did get ridden frequently, I had plenty of other bikes to choose from at that time, including a ‘72 Kawasaki H2 (my favorite “daily”) and a slow-but-smooth ‘72 Suzuki GT750 Water Buffalo (see my garage pic above, from the 1990s).

Such a great motorcycle to ride. Which I did, a lot. This photo by Classic Bike Guide.

I also don’t recall ever fixing anything on the bike ever, other than changing the oil a few times, replacing the battery, and putting on a set of new tires. I’m sure I put at least 5-6000 miles on it and it never needed its valves adjusted, carbs cleaned, sparkplugs changed, or anything else.

There is a reason Honda has sold so many bikes in our country, like it or not!

The VT500 was a great little bike with the emphasis on “little.” I don’t think anyone taller than 5’8” would be very comfortable on it for long rides. The pegs were too high and would tend to give me hip cramps, the seat rammed you into the tank, and then that made the handlebars too close. But the sweet little 50-horse engine and 6-spd were really all any of us needs to go anywhere. Many years later, my oldest daughter got an FT500 when she was a college student, and with only 34 horsepower and a 5 spd, it was pretty doggy compared to my VT500 that was supposed to do the quarter mile in 13.5 seconds.

A 1984 magazine ad for the VT500 (my model), and the FT500 (the one my daughter had).

Of course, all good things must come to an end, and after many years of ownership I sold that bike and many others. FortNine did a video review of the bike and pretty much trashed it for it’s shaft drive power losses, ball-crushing seat design and cramped ergonomics. I also agree it had a ridiculously high mounted headlight I always wanted to change, but hey, compared to what else we had in the 1980s, I think it was pretty awesome. That said, if a mint Honda VT500 Ascot showed up at my door someday, I wouldn’t kick it out of the garage at this point in my life!

*top article photo by Bring-a-Trailer