Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

GREEVES GRIFFON 250 ENDURO M 8. .. Q. N " Cl r:C a. SOMETHING TO TIDE THINGS OVER WHILE THE BRITISH PLA YCATCH UP. By Paul Boudreau Photos b y Da vid Swift The Greev es 250 Enduro has all the on purpose. Anything that was n 't things th at make for good riding. It's needed, isn't there. The head and barrel got two wheels and a motor. The motor fins are huge, which makes for happy works and the wheels go 'round. It's pistons, but the crank cas e is just big fast, light and handles well. The first " • enough to crank and th e gear box is just time I rode it, I said w ow, whatta bik e! big eno ugh for four gear s (ho w bout Soon the reaso n became apparent. I'm a one more, huh ?). The entire set up is motocrosser and so is the Greeves : q.e.d, very light and strong. It has a Motoplat Th e motor, fram e, forks , shocks, ingition (yey) and a Amal carburet or hubs and geometry are all direct copies (bo o). I am thoroughly convinced that of the Griffon MX. It is probably more somewhere deep in th e bowels of the accurate to say that the Griffon Enduro Amal Carburetor factory is an old T ory is th e MX with the necessary enduro who firml y believes in taxati on w ithout accoutrements. The gearbox is a wide representation and never quite got over ratio 4-speed unit which worked fine. what we did to the British in '76. The However, I feel another gear would do o ld coot does nothing all day but drop wo nders for the 250's temp erm en t. pin worms into the innards of these car b s and ship them off to the colonies. T h ere are no t many 250 's around that I thought the air cleaners worked can pull a 4 -speed in deep sand or up fine . Ron Schneiders didn't. Whatever. long hills. In other words, the Griffon To say the exhaust note is crisp was either screaming or dying when the would be lik e saying King Kong was bi g.• going got rough. The motor puts out Man, this thing is loud. The pipe is long plenty of stuff, mind yo u, but the long and torquey with this juice can th in g on gearing doesn't give you the big h it th e en d that acts as a spark arresto r and when you need it. takes a bit o f the bite off the sound, but The frame is for sure indestructable, not enough. The upswep t pipe also h as a It will take anything you care to dish p en chant for frying cab les , gas lin es , out. Let's face it; there are more old plug wires a nd any other umb ilical Greeves around than old riders. The co nnectio ns which might fall in its p ath . tubing is Reynolds 531 (na tch) with Being up over the motor and 'twixt th e some very san o welding at th e joints. frame tubes, however, makes it, like th e The lar ge-diame ter single down t ube and rest of the bike, unbreakable. massive square section swinging arm do The wheels are round with tradit ional not flex. The wh ole arrangement is spokes. Hubs are conical alloy sh eet , quite strong a nd rigid. My only complaint is th e foo t pegs . Like the rest very light, very strong and very b o ss. In o f th e frame parts, they are m onstrous keeping wit h the bulletpro o f mot if of and offer no way of letting you .d o wn . th e Griffo n Enduro, th e rims are st eel. But th e undersides h ave sharp ed ges that When an enduro rider is up to hi s tut u could h an g you up in the ro cky in boulders an d his Akronts are sing ing sections. " N earer My God T o Th ee " , h e thin k s o f The fo rks ar e sp ecial Greeves-Ceriani th e o ld steel rims hanging on the wa ll in and the shocks are Girl in g. 'N u f said . his garage and a little voi ce in his Bell Greeves mak es a go od motor. Th e St ar say s "dummy". St ick with steel ; 250cc power pl ant could be a real th ey sta y rounder longer . eye- opener wh en it co m es on th e pipe, The rest of the stuff on th e b ik e is but th e gear b ox just drags it down. T oo O.K. , I guess. Th e ligh ts an d horn d id n't "b ad . I w as really impressed with th e w ork o n th e one I go t. They're Lucas workma nship an d fu nc t io na lity it ems. Ga vin Lucas and Bru ce Arn al incorp orated into th e mill . No frill s o r gre w up in th e same n eighborh ood, if fancy stuff here. This motor was m ad e yo u ge t my drift. U If you like going fast in fast places. th e Greeves is right up your f ireroad . The fe nders ar e polish ed allo y which look great unt il you run into a wall . But then so does yo ur face. The petrol tank is fiberglass and holds three gallo ns. It's p ainted a very foxy metal flake called Mo o rland Blue (I say). Aircraft lo ckn uts are used everywhere but o n the kick-start peddle, which retaliated by ' falling o ff th e firs t da y o u t . I must dwell fo r a moment on the sp eed ometer. As every en d uro rider kn o ws, th e sp eed ometer is yo u r fri end. It w ill help you get nice zeroes at the checks and n ice t ro p hies at the fin ishes. Now Greeves, in an obvious effort to reduce produc tion costs, is running the speedo meter off the rear wheel. I had though t th at this p ra cti ce had go ne ou t wit h tw in-p ipe CZ's, for sp inning rear w heels do not acc urate o do meter readings make. A no ther thing: T he ta il light h as a tenden cy to come lo ose whenever an ed itor runs a Greeves Path finder o ver it. But t he n , th at 's anothe r story. Ah , now th at we 've d isp en ced with t he technicals, let's talk about rid ing th e t h ing. Heaven. It h an dl es th e way a On e can have a lot of f un on this bike, if one doesn't get too serio us. Greeves is supposed to handle. A t speed it will follow an y line yo u choose. The bike is light enough to b e flicked about through rocks or brush. Turns are real fun since sliding is th e Greeves' long suit. If y o u wish to cut a tight tum just drive the bars right into th e san d and di al on all the ponies. Th e bike does the rest. Those nas ty little baseball sized rocks don't see m to b o th er the Griffon and it tra cks well th rough deep sand. Lo ft in g ove r more fo rm idable obsticals suc h as larg e ro cks , logs and o th er riders is a chore since th e fro nt end is a bit rob us t an d likes to stay in firm co ntact with the gr ound. Water did not seem to bother t he Gri ffon an d I too k it in w ell over the cases. In fact it o nly stopped running o nc e durin g the w ho le test and t ha t was b ecause the A ma l go t excited an d passed o ut. Good bike, this. No lie. Good, th at is, bu t no t go od eno ugh . Gr eeves was t he mar que th at ch anged it all. T hey wer e th e first to go "ding" whe n ot hers w en t "t hump" . Time was when if you w eren 't riding a Greevcs, yo u weren 't going fast. T hey swarmed o ver th e d esert lik e ants ov er ho ne y. Na mes like G ary Bailey in the West and Ron J eckel in the East st ruck fea r in th e hearts of th e fo ur- strokers, Bu t ti mes have c ha nged. Greeves just does n't show up in the win columns m uch any more. Oh , t he re's still a few aro und; I saw Roger Godin going migh ty fast on a new Griffon MX last summer in Ne w England. J eckel still mo ves prett y q uick on his . But aye! there's the ru b. When Ron went IS DT in g last year, he too k his Dalesman, even though he's the East coast d istributor for Greeves. He kne w that against the big boys, the Greeves wouldn't cut it. But if you're out for some good ti m es in the d irt and arc not too concerned abo ut winning, give t he Greeves End uro a go . It 's really a lot of fu n. T he co bby o ld lunger j ust grows o n yo u. It' s ugly as sin , but you'll love it, for sure. And th ough these wo rds may pas s away and these p ages may return wh ence they came, th e Greeves will live on; endure. so t o speak . Quit e cobby, don't y ou think?

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