1977 XS 500

XS500 for sale on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/XS-500-YAMAHA...oryZ9809QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

Reasonable price if the engine's OK. It's got the double front disc, at
least.

Just not a nice bike to ride.

 

It's barely even a nice bike to set fire to.[/QUOTE]

Don't know much about them, but I do remember drooling over the brochure
in 197mumble when I was trying to decide between it & Honda's 550.
Ended up buying a used 550F (the metallic blue with the 4-1 pipe - still
think it's one of the better style jobs from Honda). XS500's were quite
rare in South Africa, so I never even managed to blag a ride on one.
What's the big problem with them?

/Steve.

 

This is one of *those bikes*, isn't it? Comes from the right era (which
I witnessed first hand and which I thought was an exciting one) and is a
'proper bike', but if you read the description and Seller's answer to
the question (which appears quite honest and straightforward) you would
start to wonder if it really was worth the garage space (needs a test
quite soon anyway) and I think the pictures are probably a bit better
than the bike would be in the flesh. (?)

At, say, 2-300 quid one would probably grab it if it came up locally, or
maybe up to 500 quid if it was tidy, 'unmodified' and started/ran
nicely, but I'm not sure I would want to go as far as the asking - just
not special enough. I don't think I ever rode one, but I think I would
know pretty much what to expect....

 

I bought one when I was going through my Crap Jap Twin phase.

They're smooth enough, and they handle OK, and the engine design is
incredibly advanced, especially the cylinder head, but they're
desperately bland and they aren't that quick.

Early ones had all sorts of engine ailments, but later ones were quite
solid. It's one of those bikes where there's no reason why you shouldn't
buy it, but plenty of reasons why you should buy something else, IYSWIM.

 

How Fucking Much?

"High spec", yeah, right.

Horrible pieces of shit when they were new and age has not improved
them.

 

Grimly Curmudgeon says...

They only really had one redeeming feature, and that was the twin disc
set up[1] on the early models because the forks and wheel fitted
straight into an RD. the rest of the bike was utter shite. the later
ones were completely shite because the brakes weren't easily swoppable.

[1] Using what were basically TZ350 calipers that were copies of Girling
units. They changed them to sliding calipers in 1978 because Yamaha
didn't want to pay a royalty to Girling for use of the design.

--
Lozzo
Triumph Daytona 955i SE (Black with added black bits)
Suzuki GSX-R750L trackbike (Shite with added shite bits)
Yamaha SR250 Cheasy-Rider (undergoing a transformation)
I ride way too fast to worry about cholestorol.

 

They put the same double discs on the XS650B, and then changed to
sliding calipers from the SR500/XS750.

 

what do you mean "when"?

 

Keith G wrote:
snip snip....

Just to show you lot over on the other side of the ditch how spoiled
you are, someone here in Denmark is advertising a XS500 in rather plain
condition, done 36000 miles. Asking price: only £1240! Pictures here:
http://www.discteknik.dk/Salg/HenrikXS500.htm. The truly sad thing is
that it's actually a reasonable price here.

Sigh. People here dream about £500 XS500's. Not me though.

/Steve in DK