Innholdsfortegnelse for September - October 2015 i Motorcycle Classics

• 1971-1981 • 23hp @ 6,500rpm/76mph • 246cc air-cooled 2-stroke single • 5-speed, chain final drive • 269lb (half tank fuel)/35-45mpg • Price then/now: $799 (1972)/$850-$1,750 1971-1981 Suzuki TS250R Savage A year before the XL250 came on the scene, Cycle magazine conducted a six-way test in its August 1971 issue among the 250cc offroad bikes then on the market. Their conclusion: “Winner? Suzuki by a whole bunch … the Suzuki TS250R is the finest motorcycle of its type available for purchase in the United States.” That’s pretty unequivocal! Compared with its predecessor, the 1969 TS250, the “R” was a full 35 pounds lighter and came with added reliability via Suzuki’s PEI Pointless Electronic Ignition. Otherwise, the R followed a similar pattern to the TS, with a rugged 246cc piston-port 2-stroke…

Golf courses and Concours d’Elegance. The pairing has become a norm, evoking images of wealthy, elegantly dressed patrons languidly strolling across acres of painstakingly manicured greens with perfectly restored, ultra-rare vintage motorcycles or cars punctuating the scenery. That image is perfectly mirrored at tony events like the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and by name alone you’d be forgiven for expecting the same at the Riding Into History Concours d’Elegance (RIH), held annually for the past 16 years at what many consider ground zero for golfing, World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Florida. The concours circuit has done much to elevate the profile of classic motorcycles, but it’s never really been my scene, leaning as I do toward homegrown street shows, or festivals like Vintage Motorcycle Days and Barber. Yet I’d…

The words “genius” and “tragedy” are often overstated, but it is beyond question that New Zealander John Britten was an engineering genius, and that his death from cancer 20 years ago in 1995, aged 45, was a tragedy for the world of motorcycling. John Britten’s achievements have received just acclaim the world over. The motorcycles he developed, with their technological excellence and avant-garde engineering, would have been sufficient by their very creation to ensure his name was remembered. The fact that they also won races around the world by defeating the products of established manufacturers with far greater resources only adds to the caliber of his achievement. John was an innovator, and throughout the 10 years we knew each other, I stood beside him many times as he examined another…

Few series-production motorcycles ever made have achieved such mythical status as the V-twin Crocker, of which roughly 110 examples are thought to have been built in Los Angeles, California, between 1936 and 1942, each one unique. The fact that Albert G. Crocker, the creator, was notorious for not numbering his products consecutively not only means nobody is exactly sure how many bikes he ended up making, it also gives a hint of the kind of man he was. Rather than concentrate on paperwork, Al Crocker had a single-minded intent to create the fastest, lightest, most powerful and most sophisticated street motorcycle that money could buy. Unfortunately, it was an ambition that proved incompatible with making a profit. Forced to compete on price with the much larger Harley-Davidson and Indian companies,…

Stiff clutch Q: I have a 1975 Norton 850 Commando that I bought recently. It sat for many years, but runs very good, and it only has 7,700 miles on it. My problem is the clutch is so hard to operate that I can hardly ride it in stop-and-go traffic. In 15-20 minutes my hand is cramped up. It will also not go into neutral when running, but it goes right in when I stop the engine. I have lubed the cable and made sure it is routed with nice smooth bends. A Norton specialist says nothing is wrong with the clutch, even though it seems it is the problem. I have had many different bikes over the last 40-odd years, but I’ve never had a clutch this hard to operate.…

What: Laughlin, Nevada. A desert hot spot along the Colorado River and a great base camp for exploring southern Nevada, Arizona and California’s eastern Mojave Desert. How to Get There: From the south, come in on I-40 and head north on either side of the Colorado River. From the north, take US 95 south from Vegas and then pick up the SR 163 east. From the east, grab SR 68 in Kingman and head west. Best Kept Secret: The best kept secret is not a secret at all — it’s the In-N-Out Burger restaurant on Casino Drive in downtown Laughlin. Order off the secret menu, and tell them you want your burger Animal Style. Avoid: The summer months (it’s too hot) and the annual Laughlin River Run (it’s too crowded).…

The show season brings out the good stuff, and nowhere was that truer than this last June at Rockerbox Motofest at Road America racetrack in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Classic bike fans turned out by the thousands, putting to rest any lingering doubts about the show’s future when it moved from the streets of Milwaukee to Road America in 2014. As it turns out, the show’s shift in location (it was “uninvited” by Milwaukee officials in 2013) uniquely matches Road America’s own history: The track was built in 1955 after street racing in nearby Elkhart Lake was banned. It’s the perfect venue for a vintage-cum-custom classic gathering, with AHRMA racers providing the sound track for the event as they work their way around Road America’s 4-mile, 14-turn circuit. Clear skies for…

In the early 1970s, Honda had a dilemma. Offhighway bikes were selling like cold beer in July, and the sweet spot in the market was the quarterliter class. Yet Honda could only offer their CB100-derived SL125 or the SL350, also based on a street bike (the CB350). What to do? A fresh start was required, and Honda came up with a groundbreaking design that defined dual-sport bikes for at least a decade, anticipating as it did the demise of 2-stroke trailies. True to the company’s heritage, Honda stuck with a 4-stroke engine, in spite of the dominance of 2-strokes in the popular 250cc enduro/trail category from Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Can-Am, Ossa, Bultaco and Montesa. To compete, Honda created the first massproduced overhead-cam, 4-valve motorcycle engine. The compact and over-square 248cc…

In May 1958, Buddy Holly and the Crickets — Joe Mauldin and Jerry Allison — had just returned to Dallas, Texas, from a world tour. That’ll Be The Day was tearing up the charts, and they decided to buy three Harley-Davidsons to ride the 320-plus miles back home to Lubbock, Texas. The story might have ended there, because the Harley dealer failed to recognize Holly and his band mates, and, thinking they were just time-wasters, refused to sell to them. Instead, the trio ended up at Ray Miller’s Ariel-Triumph dealership on West Davis Street in Dallas. Miller knew who the teens were, and sold bass player Mauldin a Triumph Thunderbird and drummer Allison a Triumph Trophy TR6A. Holly chose a new 1958 Ariel Cyclone 650cc twin. Whether or not he…

Is the Harley-Davidson JDH the first Superbike? When motorcycle magazines started talking about Superbikes in the late Sixties they were big-bore motorcycles with speed and panache, bikes that broke quarter-mile times and turned heads with equal ease. The implication in the excited magazine articles was that this type of machine was a recent development. As Exhibit A in the “It Ain’t Necessarily So” department, Motorcycle Classics presents the Harley-Davidson JDH, the machine that helped the Twenties roar. The JDH The JDH has been the stuff of legends for over 80 years. It weighed about 408 pounds, was powered by a 74-cubic-inch V-twin and was good for 85mph in standard trim — 100mph if you matched the manifold to the cylinder heads and knew how to tune the beast. Based on…

Last issue, we told you about plans for our next build project, a 1970 Honda CB350. But “build” isn’t quite the right word, conjuring up as it does images of a one-off custom café or street scrambler. Instead of going the custom route, this time around we’re going stock, taking a tired and neglected CB350 and returning it to original — well, almost. Almost, because our goal isn’t a restoration, per se — think sympathetic rehab, like our very first project back in 2007 when we returned a tired 1971 Triumph TR6C Trophy Special back to road-worthiness. With that project, we focused on making our Triumph a solid runner. Originality only mattered to a point: We weren’t hung up on making the bike perfect, because the end goal was showing…

At first blush, David Holden and Krishna Hanns seem unlikely candidates for vintage sidecar racing. Before launching into the sport, neither of them had much of any experience in motorcycle competition. Krishna came closest, having worked support for the South Africa Motorcycle GP in 1999, while David’s track time was limited to racing in the single-seater Formula Ford 1600 series. Their involvement in AHRMA’s sidecar series seems even more unlikely when you learn the pair hail from Midhurst, West Sussex, in England. For David, the motivation to go racing came from a simple desire to do something with his brother, Miles, who lives in Canada, and has been sidecar racing for six years or so. “He suggested we race in the States. He had access to people who had rigs…

9/4 This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Bonneville Vintage GP at the Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah. Saturday will feature the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Bike Show, with Norton as the featured marque. Rounds 15 and 16 of the AHRMA CPL Systems National Historic Cup Road Race take place on Saturday and Sunday. Sunday will also feature the Salt City Builds Custom Bike Show. On the web at bonnevillevintagegp.com 9/4 Join Kansas City’s Heart of America Motorcycle Enthusiasts (HoAME) for their First Friday Vintage Ride-In Party and Show, Sept. 4, at KC Brake in the Crossroads area of Kansas City, Missouri. Saturday, Sept. 12, will feature the Tiddler Tour, a 100-mile, giro-style timed riding event for vintage, smalldisplacement bikes. Historical and tourist classes offered. Open to all motorcycles.…

Rider: David Fruhling, southern Oregon Age: 60. David’s been riding since 1965, starting on a 1963 Honda Trail 55. Occupation: Retired mechanic Rides: 1979 Yamaha SR500, 1976 Yamaha TT500, 1970 Steens Taco 99 mini-bike David’s story: “Back in 1982, my late best friend and Yamaha TT500 riding buddy had an engine built by Hi-Per-Kinetics in Paramount, California, for his 1977 Yamaha TT500. He was going to replace his somewhat hopped-up 540cc engine, but never got around to it. Another friend bought the engine and put it in his stock SR500. He rode it until he got tired of tickets or something and put it in his storage just outside Santa Paula, California, in a converted milking barn. There it sat for over 25 years, until I found out about it.…

Somewhat to our surprise, it turns out it’s pretty easy to find a vintage Honda XL250. Given their offroad pretensions, we anticipated slim pickings, figuring the lion’s share had been ridden hard and put away wet, long gone to that great boneyard in the sky. Yet it didn’t take much digging to come up with over two dozen possible bikes, the cheapest (and roughest) at $350 and the most expensive (and most perfect) on offer for $2,600. Showing a claimed 3,000 miles, this 1973 model on eBay was a nice example. The original alloy rims were clean and straight and the original exhaust was in place. Claimed original tires were a detraction for us (we think this could be a rider, and you really don’t want to ride on 40-plus-year-old…

Forty years ago, a Honda 450 was easy to find. Thousands were built for people who wanted to get to school or work. They were well made and sold for a reasonable price to people who, as often as not, didn’t keep up the maintenance schedule. Most were used, abused and put away wet. Today, what was once a common bike is becoming a rarity. This story starts with an email written by Mark Dickey in Tennessee to Don Stockett of Vintage Motorcycle Rescue in California. “Mark was looking for a mint 1968 Honda CL450 to purchase, and his intent was to ride it,” Don says. “He said he wasn’t a collector. His only other motorcycle was a mint condition 1967 Triumph Bonneville that he kept in his kitchen because…

The tasty Texas Bultaco featured here isn’t served with salsa and chips — it comes with one cylinder, two wheels and a boatload of grins. The United States was Bultaco’s largest market in the 1960s, but beyond the offroad world of trials and motocross, the Spanish company was not well-known and never attained more than cult status here. That’s a pity, because as the lovely Metralla on these pages proves, Bultaco also made exceptional street bikes. Bultaco’s beginnings Francisco Xavier Bultó, popularly known as Paco Bultó, cofounded the Montesa motorcycle company in 1944 and helped develop the company’s 125cc race bikes that were so successful in the 1950s. The Spanish economy hit a slump in 1958, adding to the financial strain Montesa was already experiencing following its recent move to…

Just as little children should be seen and not heard, perhaps classic and vintage bikes should be viewed and not judged. Who’s to say that any motorcycle of a specific vintage or pedigree should be deemed more worthy of our affections than another? For that matter, who among us can vouch for the authenticity of a restoration that, according to a designated team of judges and insiders, matches the assembly line criteria of its day? I know that I can’t make such distinctions. However, as a motorcycle junkie I know a nice motorcycle when I see one, and with apologies to the late humorist Will Rogers, I never saw a motorcycle that I didn’t like. And so this last spring I headed to Carmel, California, for The Quail Motorcycle Gathering…

The clutch: Always used, often abused, it doesn’t get the respect it deserves. That’s somewhat ironic, given the clutch’s role in ensuring you get from A to B. Yet it’s somewhat understandable, as clutches are typically undercover and out of sight — and out of mind. The typical motorcycle multiplate wet clutch is made up of two sets of alternating discs; a fiberfaced set driven by an outer clutch drum and a set of metal discs keyed to an inner clutch hub. A springloaded pressure plate bolted to the inner clutch hub clamps the discs together, coupling the clutch drum and clutch hub together to transfer power from the engine to the transmission, and then the rear wheel. When you pull on the clutch lever, linkage pulls or pushes the…

Nestled in the extreme southern tip of Nevada where Nevada, Arizona and California converge on the Colorado River, Laughlin’s history of human habitation starts 3,000 years ago with the Patayan and Anasazi peoples, later followed by the Mojave Native Americans. In 1540, Melchi Diaz explored the region, and in 1776 Franciscan missionary Francisco Garcés arrived. Garcés gave the Colorado River its name, but his story did not end well (the Quechan Indians killed him in the Yuma Uprising a bit farther south). Colorado River steamboats, U.S. Army exploration, extensive mining and the Davis Dam followed. Once construction on the Davis Dam finished in 1953, South Pointe (as Laughlin was known by then) fell on hard times. South Pointe’s hard times changed in 1964 when Don Laughlin started buying property. Major…