OLDIE'S GOLD?

History makes yet another comeback with the BSA Gold Star 650. Is it what you were hoping for?

- Kartik Ware

When I first saw the BSA Gold Star 650, I wanted one for myself. I'm a sucker for retro bikes as well as big singles, and it's unlikely that a bigger single will be made in India. So what if that Lucas-inspired tail-light looked too Japanese for its own good? That was an easy fix. All I wanted was an honest retro big single, and the Gold Star promised to be just that. The fact that it carried one of the most famous names in motorcycling history, from one of the most special machines I've ridden in my life (a DBD34), was just the pinstripe-icing on the metalcake. And since nostalgia is always special, a motorcycle channelling it must also be so. Right?

So, it was a bit underwhelming when I rode it for the first few kilometres in its low- and mid-range, and found it to be rather... flat. I can't describe the feeling any other way. A thought surfaced, though I brushed it away. There was plenty of useable torque, of course; a big single will always have it, but I still felt like it was missing something. The thought called out again.

Ignoring it, I wound open the Gold Star's throttle on an empty fast road. The lovely meters harnessing the anti-clockwise spirit of ye olde Smiths Chronometrics smoothly swung around until the speedometer pointed at 140 kph. Like a proper Gold Star, this one made the most sense when the going was fast, too. This was more like it. And yet, it... asn't. Now, the aforementioned thought was back, shouting at me to stop right away and undertake a quick Google search. And I did.