Innholdsfortegnelse for November - December 2015 i Motorcycle Classics

Looking for the magic bullet: 1974-1976 Yamaha RD200 Like Goldilocks, Japanese bike makers tried every size to find one that was just right. During the late 1960s, you could buy bikes starting from 50cc at almost 10cc intervals, including 65, 80, 90, 100, 110, 125, 150, 160, 175, 200, 250, 305, 350cc and more. The 200cc class emerged around 1970 as a practical option for commuting, with just enough juice to make a sometime weekend tourer. Launched for 1974 as the Yamaha RD200, the bike’s roots can be traced all the way back to the 1968 180cc CS1. Although “built on the same scale as the RD125B,” said Cycle in June 1975, the RD200 was 35 pounds heavier. Yet compared with the RD250, the 200 was as much as 50…

In Ducati folklore, the 1972 Imola 200-mile race is a defining event. Before Imola, Ducati was a minor Italian motorcycle manufacturer of esoteric 4-stroke singles with strange valve gear, but after Imola they could take on the world’s best and comprehensively beat them. As Ducati’s great engineer Fabio Taglioni said in 1974, “When we won at Imola we won the market, too.” It was the Imola victory that ostensibly set the stage for Ducati’s subsequent success. When the 750 was conceived, Taglioni was 49 years old. He was virtually unknown outside Italy, and Ducati was still a minor motorcycle manufacturer in world terms. Despite new management, economic viability was essential, and Taglioni was instructed to utilize as much carry-over technology from the existing range of singles as possible. A V-twin…

Larry Orlick is best known in his local motorcycle circle as a Ducati fanatic, since he at one point cornered the market on single-cylinder 450 Ducatis. In actuality, he has owned a lot of different makes. “I’ve owned a lot of Brit bikes,” Larry says. “I owned two 500 Triumphs, two Bonnevilles and a few BSAs. In fact, I previously owned a 1975 Triumph Tiger. It was a goodlooking, fast bike. I sold it so I could buy a BMW, quit my job and go touring around the U.S. and Central America.” Larry was on the road for a year and a half, and when he got back he found a job and got married. Some years went by. He still had the BMW, and while he claims he wasn’t…

In 1974, the prototype Suzuki RG500 made its competition debut, raising the curtain on the modern era of 500cc Grand Prix racing by making factory-level Japanese 4-cylinder performance available to privateers for the first time. It was 40 years ago this year, in the summer of 1975, that Barry Sheene won the Dutch TT at Assen aboard an RG500, claiming Suzuki’s first-ever 500cc GP victory. Before the first 25-bike batch of Mark 1 RG500s went on sale for the 1976 season, the paddocks of the Continental Circus had been packed with a selection of arcane bikes; 4-stroke Italian twins and multis, British singles, and the prototypes of the soon-to-be-supreme Japanese 2-strokes, headed by over-bored 350 Yamahas and the firstgeneration air-cooled customer 500s, like the TR500 Suzuki twins and Kawasaki H1R…

Owners who shy away from rebuilding their own carburetors might be surprised to find it’s often a fairly straightforward proposal. The carburetors on most of our old bikes are quite simple, and experience says that success hinges on two key issues: cleanliness and thoroughness. It takes more than a simple strip-down and cleaning with a can of carburetor spray to get good results. To do it right, you have to thoroughly soak and clean the carburetor body so that any trace of dirt is removed. That’s sometimes easier said than done, as modern carb cleaners are much milder than their forebearers and less effective at dissolving dirt and other deposits. Fortunately, ultrasonic cleaners keep getting more affordable, with 6-liter units (the smallest we’d suggest) running around $120. Briefly, an ultrasonic…

Red rock formations, landscapes that are the stuff of science fiction and an overall aura of breathtaking beauty best describe Arches National Park. Perhaps overlooked as a result of being less well-known and farther from the West Coast than the big name national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon), Arches is every bit as beautiful as its more popular big brothers. Tucked away in Utah’s southeastern corner right on the Colorado River (and just minutes outside of Moab), you know you’re entering a special place as you approach this 120-squaremile patch of nature’s artistic endeavors. Stunning, visually arresting and dramatic are the appropriate adjectives. As you ride southeast on US 191, combinations of red, pink and light sandy-brown rock formations start to appear sporadically, and then become more…

There was a time not long ago when photographers and videographers (including members of motorcycling’s fourth estate) used the F-word a lot. They’d say things like “Film this,” or “Film that,” and then get on with the task of recording what needed to be recorded for their assignments. They said “film” because, well, their cameras used film to document what they were recording. There were no GoPro-size cameras back then, either, so obtaining a rider’s-eye view from the motorcycle required strapping a bulky film-laden camera, plus triggering apparatus, onto the bike or rider. I remember as a staff writer for Cycle Guide magazine riding shotgun several times for photographer David Dewhurst to get some on-board images using his camera. He’d entrust his expensive Nikon to me by attaching it to…

The clutch lever is pulled tight to the handlebar and the throttle opened. Both eyes are on the lights as they blink from amber through to green. Dumping the clutch, Bill Sherman launches his Harley-Davidson XLRTT down the straight asphalt track. He uses the clutch once more for the shift to second, and then only feathers the kill switch and nudges the shifter to move into third and finally fourth gear. Following the same drill every time he drag raced with his XLRTT, Bill was undefeated in 1965. He set two track records, even winning the Rockford 500 Nationals on the July 4th long weekend with a quarter-mile elapsed time of 12.10 seconds at 109.74mph. According to Bill, who now lives on a farm near Peru, Illinois, the XLRTT was…

Just about every motorcyclist with a passion for riding can relate to the phrase “Sunday Morning Ride.” Who hasn’t, at one time or another, laid plans to join other bike-crazy friends for a Sunday morning ride? I know I have countless times during my 50 years in the sport. For a contingent of die-hard riders in San Francisco’s Bay Area, the words “Sunday Morning Ride” are especially significant, because every Sunday morning at about 7 a.m. — without invite or public fanfare — they gather at an ARCO gas station on Shoreline Highway in Marin County’s Tamalpais Valley for a weekly ride dating back several decades. Anywhere from a dozen to a couple hundred bikes gather, and what eventually became known as the Sunday Morning Ride has become an integral…

The iconic “Knucklehead” — the overhead valve 61-cubic-inch V-twin introduced by Harley-Davidson in early 1936 — is a milestone motorcycle and one of the most important American bikes ever made. Yet up until the last minute, it was uncertain whether Harley would release the bike for sale. In the early days before World War II, Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson sent test riders of new models out into the wooded hills of rural Wisconsin. The experimental models were unmarked, and testers were instructed to stay away from towns and dealerships. The point of all this secrecy was to keep the rumor mill down. The motorcycle world was very small, and even without the Internet or cheap, long-distance telephones, rumors would spread from one end of the country to another faster than a Twentieth…

Royal Star Q: I have a 1966 BSA Royal Star that looks just great. I bought it from the person who restored it. After I bought it, I took it easy on the old girl until one day I decided to give it a little more throttle. It jumped out of second gear, and it continues to do so every time I get on it. I have been advised that I need to readjust the clutch because the plates are dragging. I have played with Triumph engines and I have been into their transmissions before. I once had a 1951 BSA A10 Golden Flash engine and transmission all apart, but I didn’t have any transmission problems to deal with. I just replaced the bearings, seals, etc. I can’t understand what…

11/1 Join the Southern California Norton Owners Club for “the best ride by a dam site,” the Hansen Dam All-British Ride. Now in its 36th year, the ride is a great way to spend a day enjoying British motorcycles. Recent years have seen more than 500 bikes of all makes show up. On the web at socalnorton.com 11/7 The 9th Annual Cops and Rodders Car, Truck and Motorcycle show runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Hi Corbett Field at Reid Park in Tucson, Arizona. Spectator admission is free. Last year’s show featured more than 650 vehicle entries and attracted more than 15,000 spectators. On the web at copsandrodderstucson.org 11/7 Visit Norcross, Georgia, for the 25th Annual Blue Moon Cycle European Swap Meet on Saturday, Nov. 7. The swap…

1 Here’s a great gift to give, a shot at winning a cool bike. The latest raffle from the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame museum is this lovely original-condition 1986 Honda CR250R, a throwback to the mid-1980s when Hall of Famers like Rick Johnson, David Bailey, Jeff Ward and Broc Glover battled for AMA championships. The AMA had recently instituted the Production Rule for professional motocross, and the major manufacturers were investing increasingly more into developing their production bikes. This bike is ready to compete for post-vintage motocross glory — or to show off in your living room. Raffle tickets are available for a donation to the museum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Tickets cost $5 for one or $20 for five. The drawing will be held at the AMA Championship…

The mythical Vincent in the barn. It’s the holy grail of vintage motorcycles, the find every vintage motorcycle junkie dreams about. And sometimes, the dream comes true. This all started one night with a phone call from an old friend. He’d been contacted by a man in Philadelphia whose company had purchased a home at a tax foreclosure sale. A cleanup crew had gone to empty the house, and cleaning the garage out the crew came upon an older, unfamiliar motorcycle. They sought the advice of my friend, who runs a vintage motorcycle website. I specialize in Vincent restoration (classicmotorcycleengineering.com), so he pointed them my way. The people on the Philadelphia end really knew nothing of motorcycles. They sent some photographs showing a Vincent, and I spent several hours over…

The band Stealers Wheel had a hit in the early 1970s with their song Stuck in the Middle with You. The lyrics included the memorable line, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.” Regardless of the Stealers Wheel’s sentiments, being stuck in the middle isn’t a bad place to be. Throughout the 1970s, many motorcycle manufacturers offered mid-liter machines. The category was, in fact, crowded. Examples of middleweight bikes produced throughout the decade include Honda’s CB500 and CB550, Kawasaki’s KH400 and KZ400, Suzuki’s GS400 and GT550, and Yamaha’s RD400 and XS500. Financial advisor Mark Orgel of Altoona, Wisconsin, certainly doesn’t mind being stuck in the middle. Mark learned to ride as a youngster in the early 1970s and…

I’m lucky to have a brother who’s also one of my best friends, so when I ventured north to experience the Sunday Morning Ride after nearly 50 years, I asked him to join me. For our little blast into the past it seemed appropriate to ride bikes in tune with yesteryear, and fortunately for us Yamaha and Royal Enfield made a couple of retro-style bikes available to us — Yamaha’s 399cc SR400 single and Royal Enfield’s 535cc Continental GT single — so we packed the thumpers in Alan’s truck and off we went. I rode the SR400 during the ride up the coast, while Alan manned the Continental GT. The kickstart SR400 felt nimble and light, and its torquey engine offers adequate power for exiting the tight turns on the…

Constructive deconstruction. It’s the tear-down phase of any project and usually the most fun, whether it’s a bathroom rehab or, in this case, our basket case 1970 Honda CB350. Given the appearance of our project bike, that bathroom analogy turns out to be oddly apt, because frankly, our Honda looks like, well, you know … When we unveiled our Honda project bike last issue, we gave a quick rundown of its attributes, listing the good, the bad and the ugly. There’s lots of ugly, no question, but the deeper we get into this old Honda the better it looks. For one thing — and it’s a major thing — we’ve proven it actually runs. Not only that, it actually runs quite well, blessedly absent any ugly smoke out of the…

Thanks to a motorcycle-loving father, Nick Hargis was something of a ringer to get hooked on vintage racing. The riding bug bit Nick’s dad, Jeff Hargis, long before Nick was born, with dirt bikes his favored mounts. Following in his father’s footsteps, Nick took his first ride at the tender age of 4 — on a dirt bike, naturally enough. Riding stuck, and when Nick was 14 his dad signed him up for the Team Chicago road race school at Grattan Raceway in Michigan — without telling Nick. “I didn’t know he was going to sign me up,” Nick says. “He threw me on his bike, a 1998 Triumph Speed Triple, and said ‘Don’t crash.’ Part of the agreement was, if I crashed, I had to tell my mom.” That’s…