Things I hate about the BSA Gold Star 650

This really was not the video I hoped to make. I have been a SUPER HUGE fan of the Gold Star 650 since seeing them at Motorcycle Live in 2021. I was told by the CEO himself that he put 10,000km on the development motorcycle to ensure it was a great product. I was then SOLD on the brand.
I headed to my dealer in December 2022 to ride one of the first UK demo Goldies and came back from the ride no longer eager to place a deposit.
To this date of upload, every single influencer has been repeating each other nearly word for word, installing virtues such as 'watchmaker quality' and 'big thumping single'.
Today, I’m diving into a motorcycle that has sparked a lot of buzz in the community the BSA Gold Star 650. As a massive fan of this bike since I first laid eyes on it at Motorcycle Live in 2021, I was truly excited to experience it firsthand. I even heard from the CEO about the extensive development that went into this model, and I was sold on the brand!
However, after taking one of the first UK demo rides in December 2022, my excitement took a hit. While influencers have glorified the Gold Star with phrases like "watchmaker quality" and "big thumping single," I’m here to provide a real world perspective that you won’t find in the typical reviews.
Let me clarify-this is not a HATE piece. I genuinely wanted to love the Gold Star, but after my ride, I found some significant issues that made me reconsider. For the asking price of £7,200 (including OTR fees at the time of test), I left feeling uneasy about the bike’s handling and overall quality.
I’ve noted some concerning flaws, like pitting on the chassis, misaligned passenger foot-peg rails, loose side panels and a fuel gauge that seems to have a mind of its own. Plus, the handling issues during cornering left me feeling anxious every time I rode it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d be spending extra money just to improve it, rather than enjoying the ride.
Plus a poor handling characteristic when cornering which makes you feel like the rear has lost traction which most reviewers mention but blame the pirelli tyres or 'greasy roads'. When it first happened to me, there was no warning and it corrected as quickly as it occurred. Which makes me uneasy about trusting the Gold Star in corners.
The boot marks on the exhaust are prevalent in nearly all of the KZbin videos I have watched and your fav influencers have ignored them. If you don't see the marks you'll see heavy polishing to the exhaust by the dealer where the boot marks used to be.
Surely in this day and age basic things like boots marking exhausts should not exist on modern motorcycles. and now there's a lot of aftermarket in exhaust shields for this very reason.
Talk at that time of production revolved around a UK government grant to build a new technical and design facility in Banbury, Oxfordshire, as well as a separate factory facility near Coventry, instead production tooling was diverted from China to India and BSA Motorcycles has become a postal address in a shared mailing office suite in Worcester.
The Gold Star is built at the Mahindra Two Wheels Plant in Madhya Pradesh, India. They also produce Jawa Motorcycles and Farm Machinery at this plant.
Map Link: maps.app.goo.g...
The tubular steel chassis was developed by British engineering company Ricardo but not built by them and may be modified after initial development.
On an engineering level: Lets talk about the misaligned passenger foot-peg rails. During manufacture they didn't even turn up the inner spigot to carry the joint, which would ensure that any shear force at the weld would not snap the welds. Does this sound like British Engineering?
It’s the suspension that I have the most criticism for on the Gold Star, feeling bouncy at the front and under damped and on the rear, due to this mismatch it can get quite unsettled in bumpy bends or when ridden in the wet.
This video isn’t about monetisation (I had to as KZbin were putting adverts over the video before I monetised it) it’s about transparency and helping potential buyers make informed decisions.
Myself, I am waiting for a time when production quality has increased to a level where owning a BSA Gold Star would make me very happy indeed.
*****
Links
Jawa 42 which shares a ton of components with the Gold Star (just look at the electrics, downswept instruments (you are all told were specially made for the Gold Star), fuel tank and more: www.jawamotorc...
I found Ricado the frame developer here: www.ricardo.co... - A search on their website results in zero mentions of BSA Motorcycles in any of their press releases.