Indholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2018 i Motorcycle Classics

It may have just been bad timing on our part, but our online search for a 1986-1987 Gixxer turned up just one in the U.S., and another in the U.K. The U.S. listing on cycletrader.com was a first-year 1986 model with 19,000 miles and offered for $5,000 (at left). The seller claimed it was a solid running “99 percent stock original bike,” and the photos supported that claim. The original paint looked very good and the stock blue seat was clean and free of any tears or evident wear, suggesting a bike that’s been well cared for. The U.K. bike was a 1987 model offered by bridgemoto.co.uk for £4,495, or approximately $6,300. A recent import from Japan, it showed just over 18,000 kilometers, or around 11,200 miles. It looked good,…

Popular culture has given us more than a few great book and movie trilogies, including Lord of the Rings, The Matrix and Mad Max—amazing stories told over a series of three books or films—or, in some cases, both. Twisting the metaphor slightly, Greg Hageman of Hageman Cycles (hagemanmc.com) has produced a unique motorcycle trilogy of commissioned Yamaha builds for enthusiast Mike Martens. Will Hollywood come calling? Not likely, but the first two custom Yamahas have been feature stories in Motorcycle Classics. The first, a 1982 Virago 920, appeared in the May/June 2012 issue, followed by a Seca 900 café racer in the May/June 2015 issue. Completing the trilogy is this now-stunning 1982 Yamaha Seca 400, a bike that Mike asked Greg to build for his girlfriend, Sally Everhart, to ride.…

Triton. For those who remember it first time around, the name flips the on switch in the memory bank, and the images start rolling onto your mental screen. Jailhouse Rock, Bill Haley and the Big Bopper. Brylcreem on your hair, white chin scarves, mods and rockers, jukebox jives … and anyone who rode a bike that wasn’t British needed their head examined. A Sixties hybrid created by marrying a twin-cylinder Triumph engine with a Norton Featherbed frame, the Triton was the arche type café racer of the period, delivering ultra street cred because you couldn’t buy one from a dealer—you had to build your own. Dave Williams built the Triton shown here. It took him four years, building it in his spare time from his job as a fine surface…

Springtime in the Lone Star State typically brings fields carpeted with wildflowers, but this year something special has popped up in the middle of Central Texas: a new museum full of classic bikes. The Hill Country Motorheads Vintage Motorcycle Museum in Burnet, Texas, had its grand opening on April 14, 2018, after a dozen years of planning and more than two years of hard work. The museum is the brainchild of Pat Hanlon, a baby boomer who first fell in love with motorcycles in the 1960s and 1970s. Not surprisingly, the bikes from that era are prominently featured in the new museum, and if you were riding motorcycles during those years, odds are good the museum will induce nostalgia. Pat raced motocross in the early 1980s, and when he stopped…

The last decade has seen an explosion in handcrafted, artisanal products, including craft breweries, craft distilleries, artisanal coffee, farm-to-table organic food—and now, motorcycles. In the current climate, the idea of production, craft-built motorcycles seems a natural. As consumers gravitate to products that promise quality and a level of exclusivity, the market for goods that are something more than just another widget extruded from a factory pipeline continues to grow. The indie build movement is an obvious reflection of this, a turn away from the boring, overhyped, hyper tech, cookie-cutter motorcycles cluttering the mainstream market. As individual expressions of what a motorcycle should be, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to extend that aesthetic beyond the single, owner-built special. In the small Midwestern town of Goshen, Indiana…

Travelling light: Joe Rocket Rapid Transit Recon 19 tank bag Finding the right tank bag can be harder than you think. Over the years, I’ve used just about every type, from small day bags to huge expandable tank bags big enough to carry a week’s laundry. The problem is, they all seem to have built-in limitations. A small tank bag is great if all you’re carrying is your wallet and a few necessary items like keys, phone, glasses and the occasional extra from the store, but you can run out of room so fast a small bag suddenly becomes as much hassle as help. Big tank bags are great for long trips, or when you need to transport groceries—or laundry—but they’re usually bulky and sometimes less than secure, especially large…

What: The Flaming Gorge-Uintas National Scenic Byway, running from Vernal, Utah, to Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. How to Get There: From the south, grab US 191 anywhere in Utah or Arizona and go north. From the north, grab US 191 anywhere in Montana or Wyoming and head south. You get the idea. Best Kept Secret: Watch for a sign on the right halfway between Vernal and Flaming Gorge near Red Fleet State Park. A twisty narrow road leads to a 2-1/2-mile hike that takes you to actual dinosaur footprints frozen in stone. Avoid: The winter months. The weather and the elevation can be tough! More Photos: californiascooterco.com/blog/?p=26437 More Info: flaminggorgecountry.com/Flaming-Gorge-Uintas-National-Scenic-Byway…

The goal was to beat Harley-Davidson at its own flat track game, one the folks in Milwaukee understood well because they’d been playing it for decades. The challenger stepping forward in 1980 was American Honda, and at stake was the most coveted trophy in flat-track racing, the AMA’s Grand National Championship, at the time called the Camel Pro Series. But as the saying goes, before you can run you must first learn to walk, and Honda had a lot of walking to do before their flat track entry eventually made its first run at a Camel Pro Series title in 1984. Actually, the path to victory began with a crawl: Honda was starting with a bike based on the most pedestrian of its street models, the CX500, with its liquid-cooled…

Redemption? Misjudged? I was lucky enough to attend the 2017 Barber Vintage Festival and go by the Motorcycle Classics booth and show. While there, I saw all of the beautiful Nortons and bikes there for judging. Everyone in the crowd was stunned by the beautiful Honda 836CR. I heard what Mr. Cathcart said about the 836CR and was surprised. He told the builder/owner to “bring it back next year when it had more miles on it.” What does that mean? Bring it back when it is dirty, shows more wear, and has some dings and scratches? Ridiculous. I was in one of my local bookstores and was surprised to see the Honda 836CR on the cover. Redemption/misjudged? I am so pleased to see Mr. Boone and Bill get the recognition…

1985-1991 Yamaha FZ750 Were five valves better than four? Yamaha thought so, fitting three intake and two exhaust valves to its FZ750. The 20-valve Genesis engine churned out 85.3 horsepower at 11,500rpm on Cycle‘s dyno. It also tore up the quarter-mile strip in 11.4 seconds at 117mph in their 1985 test. “It’s hard to conceive of this level of power from an over-the-counter 750 engine,” Cycle’s editors said, adding, “The engine is remarkably tractable, too.” The drivetrain slotted into a square-section steel tube perimeter frame with the cylinders canted forward at 45 degrees. An air-adjustable Kayaba front fork with 39mm fork tubes controlled the 120/80 x 16-inch front tire by a steep 25.5-degree rake, while a single, multi-adjustable spring/damper unit and swingarm held the…

In reality, the Ducati 750 F1 is a 1980s motorcycle, the first examples rolling out of the Borgo Panigale factory in Northern Italy in 1985. But in truth, the F1 is a child of the 1970s, its DNA traceable to blueprints originally penned by famed engineer Fabio Taglioni (aka Dr. T) for a 499cc air-cooled L-twin using a belt-drive desmodromic valve train. That engine eventually powered Ducati’s 1980 Pantah 500SL, a bike touted by Cycle magazine in its May 1981 issue as “the first genuinely new European bike in a long time.” Of more historical consequence, though, Taglioni’s design served, in various displacements, as Ducati’s bread-and-butter engine platform during the coming years. As Cycle’s editors pointed out in their road test, the Pantah’s half-liter engine “has room for further development.”…

The 1960s were an era of emerging youth fashion and style. Actor Sean Connery (aka James Bond) was teaching the boys how to drink martinis while designer Mary Quant was teaching the girls how to wear miniskirts and hot pants. Conventional design was being challenged everywhere, and an unlikely German moped, the Hummel, joined the Swinging Sixties party. It might have been part motorcycle and part moped, but its designers wanted it to be neither. Originally a utilitarian commuter that had been around since 1956, for 1961 the Hummel—German for bumblebee—was reinvented with futuristic body panels and a large cowling over the engine. They were hoping it would reinvent the styling of personal transport for an emerging youth market. In reality, it looked as fantastic as something out of the…

Thirty years ago in 1988, Moto Guzzi’s hi-cam, 4-valve-per-cylinder engine made its public debut in the U.S. Battle of the Twins competition, finally reaching production for customer sale in 1992. The saga of American dentist Dr. John Wittner and his Moto Guzzi racers is a motorcycling fairy tale that put the mercurial Italo-Argentinian Alejandro De Tomaso, then owner of Moto Guzzi, in the unlikely role of a fairy godfather. In his spare time from dentistry, Wittner had played with tuning Harley-Davidson engines, mainly for road racing around the northeast. But in 1983 he decided to buy a Moto Guzzi Le Mans, if for no other reason than he thought it looked neat, and also had a pushrod engine like the Harleys he was used to. Trained as a mechanical engineer…

For bikes lacking a centerstand, simple maintenance like tire inspection and cleaning and lubing the drive chain can be a real chore. What to do? In the March/April issue, we tried out the SnapJack V2 from Tirox Products (thesnapjack.com). A simple device, it lifts the rear wheel while your bike’s on the sidestand, letting it spin free for servicing. We liked it, and looking for other options we landed on the Wheel Jockey. Designed by veteran motorcycle tour operator Bill Kniegge, the Wheel Jockey was Bill’s response to the hassles of prepping and maintaining bikes in his tour fleet, especially out on the road. Simple in design and operation, the Wheel Jockey is really nothing more than a miniature set of rollers. Center the wheel jockey in front (or behind)…

7/6 AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days returns to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, July 6-8, 2018. Enjoy the AMA Vintage Road Racing Grand Championships along with motocross, hare scrambles, trials and flat track racing. The event includes America’s largest motorcycle swap meet, the Wall of Death, bike shows, stunt shows, demo rides, seminars and the Motorcycle Classics Vintage Ride and Show on Friday. Join us in the infield starting at 10 a.m. for the show. Then at noon we’ll head out for a 50-mile ride on lovely back roads to a lunch spot. After that we’ll return to our show grounds for an awards ceremony. More info: MotorcycleClassics.com/vmdride and amavintagemotorcycledays.com 7/13 Visit the New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, New Jersey, July 13-15, for the 6th Annual AHRMA…

“Sportbikes will soon be divided into two categories: before the GSX-R and after,” gushed Cycle World in March 1985 of Suzuki’s new hyper bike. What made it so special? It was the lightest bike in its class by a country mile. When Cycle magazine compared the latest batch of 750s in July 1986, they recorded full-tank curb weights of 505 pounds for Honda’s VFR750, 524 pounds for Yamaha’s FZ750, and just 465 pounds for the Gixxer. Suzuki claimed a dry weight of 388 pounds versus 489 pounds for the GS750 it replaced, the engine alone being 24 pounds lighter. Designer Etsuo Yokouchi was obsessed with minimizing mass, so he decided on air/oil cooling rather than adding water jackets, a radiator and a pump. By 1986, though, he was swimming against the…

Alan Cathcart joins Motorcycle Classics for the 3rd Annual PA Getaway Alan Cathcart, unquestionably one of the—if not the—best-known motorcycle journalists in the world, will join us as our special guest for the 3rd Annual Motorcycle Classics Ride ’Em, Don’t Hide ’Em Getaway at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, Aug. 10-12, 2018. A recipient of the Guild of Motoring Writers Journalist of the Year Award, Cathcart, a longtime motorcycle enthusiast who started out pursuing a career in law and then working in the travel industry, has been an influential voice in motorcycling since diving head first into the scene as a journalist and test rider in the 1980s. An accomplished rider who’s raced against some of the best at circuits including Daytona and the Isle of Man,…

This story starts with a man named Bubbles Horsley. Yes, that’s his name, and yes, this story is about a motorcycle—a very rare motorcycle—built in England and called the Hesketh. Bubbles wanted to race Formula One cars, and persuaded a pal of his to join in the effort. The pal was The Right Honorable Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, Third Baron Hesketh, or Lord Hesketh for short. The pair had a great time and, after Lord Hesketh hired James Hunt to drive for them, considerable success on the track, winning the 1975 Dutch Grand Prix. “The best way to make a small fortune in racing is to start with a big one,” NASCAR driver Junior Johnson once famously said. As the cost of keeping the team going began to exceed even Lord…

Putting one maker’s engine in another manufacturer’s frame became popular in Britain in the Sixties. First choice was usually the very tunable Triumph 500cc or 650cc twin in a Norton Featherbed frame. The result was called a Triton, a blend recognized as almost a model unto itself. So what do you call a Matchless motorcycle with a Norton engine? A Matchton? A Nortless? Well, according to Associated Motorcycles, the owner of both brands, it was either or both a Matchless and a Norton, depending on which badge you preferred. Confused? You have a right to be, and there is an explanation—but first, some background. Consolidation in the British motor-cycle industry after World War II saw many brands absorbed into larger companies. When BSA bought Triumph in 1951, it became the…

Why do we always wish we were elsewhere? A group of vintage motorcycle riders in Chicago answered this question by starting the “TWALD” ride 17 years ago. It stands for “Two Weeks After Labor Day” or, “The Week After Labor Day.” It’s about finding “elsewhere,” geographically and spiritually. “Escape to Wisconsin” was the Wisconsin Tourism Department slogan from 1980-1985. TWALD means escape through spirited riding, productive carousing, frequent breakdowns, occasional crashes, the odd marriage proposal and everlasting bonds between fellow riders. It’s the best riding experience you’ll ever have, made possible by the most questionable decisions you can make. “Organized chaos. Really fun chaos.” Bob Burns: The first TWALD was in Galena around 2001. The idea was to find a place someone with a CB350 and a backpack could make…

Seized cylinder Q: I have the chance to buy a reasonably nice Suzuki GT550. I believe it is a 1976 model—one of the later disc-brake bikes—but the center cylinder on this triple is seized and I wondered if you have any thoughts on the best way to free it up? Peter/via email A: You can do a simple test to see if it is the piston seized in the bore (somewhat common and fixable) or a seized main bearing (unlikely, but probably a deal killer). If the seller will let you, take off the left side engine cover, and with the appropriate size wrench gently turn the nut at the end of the crankshaft back and forth. If there is some movement you can assume the main bearing is free.…

Dinosaurs. Thunder lizards. Fossils. Prehistoric creatures that disappeared millions of years ago. If you want to retrace their steps and ride where they wandered, it doesn’t get any better than Utah’s Flaming Gorge-Uintas National Scenic Byway. Most folks have heard of Dinosaur Diamond Scenic Byway (a 512-mile loop through Colorado and Utah on I-70, US 40, US 191, Utah SR 128, and Colorado SR 139 and SR 64), but our ride is more focused. It’s a northern tangent along US 191 called the Flaming Gorge-Uintas National Scenic Byway and it runs between two great destinations: Historic Vernal, Utah, and the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. US 191 runs all the way from Mexico to Canada and I’ve ridden nearly all of it. It’s a glorious road, and the stretch from…