Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125727
"We have created a monster••. Maybe ... we can domesticate the beast. " In attempting to answer the questionnaire in your April 27, issue, I realized that you were asking the wrong questions. You ask who is the reader, how deeply is he committed to the sport, what are his tastes in bikes and types of competition, and what does he like to read in your paper. I believe you already know the answers to these questions; if not, you know where to get them without requiring an answer sheet. You know quite well that your paper is printed extension of conversations, bench-racing sessions, weekend rides, races, attitudes and aspirations found in millions throughout the sou thwest. That is a bad thing, for it perpetuates the conditions which now exist in California. At least it is bad if not accompanied by an equal measure of warping that all is not right. Cycle News has done a lot lately to play the Cassandra role; if it weren't for you I doubt that M.O.R.E. would exist. Your public service editorials, your pleas imploring attendance at land use hearings, your exhaust silencer tests are all noble efforts. But they are not enough by one-tenth. Nothing less than a full-scale devotion by Cycle News to finding solutions will be adequate. Here is why. The history of American motorcycling can be studied in minutest detail simply by reviewing what has happened through the years in Southern California. Everything we have done here since about 1950 has been subsequently replayed by a cast of millions throughout the country. I say this not out of chauvinistic pride, but out of a feeling of horror for what may yet occur. Reflect on our problems with the cities, counties, state and BLM; you see the prototype of a nationwide problem certain to develop within a year or two. The cyclists in my generation are responsible for the explosive increase in technology within the sport. In the 1950's we advanced the development of English street and dn-t machinery by our discernment as buyers. We caught scrambling fever in a big way, and the rest of the country followed our lead. formulated and supported We cross·counlry racing in a big way. In the 1960's we in the southwest purchased more Japanese bikes than the rest of the nation. We communicated our likes and dislikes to these manufacturers by our actions in the marketplace. And the whole world became the beneficiary of our astuteness. \Ve educated our wives and children too. In ten years we rotated the biker image 180 degrees, and started a whole wave of junior bike freaks off in the righ t direction. There were some pretty bad mistakes made also. Remember Catalina? After the 1957 races a crowd of people were roistering on the afterdeck of the good ship Avalon. Somebody tied a flag bag to the cable end of a windlass, and winched the bag over the side. Within the next minure 600 yards of cable had reeled off, pulling the windlass, binnacle, and two feet of railing behind it. The Checkers and the Aces were in stitches. (Frank Cooper says he used to pay the Avalon street urchins a penny a can to clean up the town after the races. Who do you suppose paid the steamship company for damages to their vessel?) Remember Big Bear? By the time I was a good enough rider to make the part where you go up the mountain to Fawnskin, they had deleted that part. I drove a car up the hill in 1958 to watch the survivors finish the race; only to learn a whole lot (in advance) about why we would soon be banned from Big Bear. It wasn't the racers, they were barely touching the ground. It was the bikers, clubbers, groupies, trippers of all varieties. They were methodically trashing anything of value between Lucerne and Fawnskin, as though someone had offered to pay them a penny a cabin. I mention these incidents for two reasons. First, I would like to think that we are all above that sort of thing these days. And we are, if the behavior of thousands of celebrants at Elsinore is any index. The town wasn't exactly cleaner after the races than before, but it wasn't a total loss by a long shot. No, 1 believe that somehow we ICllTned-· 'our - rna.,.".,.,....." ·A'ftd--we-......., bringing our children up to learn theirs too. But the vandalism problem could reoccur someday, if we're ever again honored with a Catalina or Big Bear type affair. We must be prepared to stop bad conduct before it occurs. Secondly, I'm sure that the victims of our past excesses have clear memories of those days. Now who do you suppose those folks are? Well, who lives in Avalon or has a yacht tied up in the Bay? Who owns cabins in Big Bear? Upstanding leading citizens, officials, landowners, stockholders, that's who. People who finance conservation drives, who breed and ride horses, who take a protective stand for this land's heritage and beauty. In a word or two, our opponents. We must find a way to tell these people that motorcycling is trying to be different now, that attitudes have improved, and that we share their concern for enduring values. To do this we must understand something about our opponents. I am about to characterize a certain type of person,. not necessarily rich or famous, who wields a disproportionate degree of influence in the political affan-s of our country. An awful lot of political privilege is being given today to the spokesmen for Ecology. Beneath much of thencontention is the idea that we must stop the industrial revolution. Their fear is epitomized by the tendency of everything man-made, from babies to bombs, to proliferate exponentially. It's only a theory, but a fat lot of good that does because it's also plausible. Philosophical liberals have adopted the notion,. using it as a general-purpose argument for doing everything their way. Just think, they say, stop making babies and we'l all have enough of everything. Ban engines and we'll have clean air. Ban bombs and we'll have no wars. Bm motorcycles and we11 have virgin forests. (Stop breathing and we'll have no sickness or poverty, and nature will once again be free of the destructive human race.) If this vignette is offensive to your own political views, let me give one warning word. Liberalism as a philosophy of humanitarian, planned progress has long warred with the . political force called uberalism. What .finer thing, Issak Walton would say, can there be than a trail bike which would open the woods and forest to the enjoyment of all? What more repulsive thing can there be, says the professional liberal spokesman, than a trail bike fouling the pristine forest air? Liberal ideology, which had until recently become the reedy gasp of old failed philosphers, is now stridently sung in the brand new language of ecology. But the meaning has changed. The goal is no longer 'help us help ourselves'; it is now 'protect us from ourselves'; or (worse) 'protect mother nature from us'! The implications are ominous.~. Back to your questionnaire. Had you asked questions that I consider important, here are the answers I would have given. Yes, your paper is outstanding in general. You have an enthusiastic audience and a clientele of happy advertisers. Yes, you fill a tremendous gap just beautifully, by pleasing racers and fans alike with prompt coverage of competitive events. Yes, with the exception of proofreaders (whom I doubt you even employ), and the staff illiterate scrambling around each week, your crew is top-notch. No, you are not writing about enough of the right things. At this moment, the right things are (in approximately chronological sequence): Forming a National Rifleman's sort of body, Association comprising everybody on two wheels; Hiring 50 or 500 or 5000 lobbyists if necessary; Naming names regarding the good officials and the bad officials, for reference at ejection time; Organizing demonstrations, resistance marches, all those horrid but effective attention·getters: Assisting the media (who will inevitably cover any demonstration) in interpreting our goals; and, ultimately, articulating our goals as "f~people C'an'",-weJl-a ·yo",,· .. ~.... Finally, I believe that the goals of MORE and MIC and of you and me have become somewhat confused. 1 contend that we have three basic, separable goals to espouse and fight for. You editorialize about each of them quile weU, and in such a manner that, each editorial taken apart from the rest, your points get across. The problem is that the shotgun effect of all the issues being aired at once leaves the reader with an overall feeling of helpless pamc. Remember, we the readers are maybe the last of the rugged individualists; it's difficult to teach us anything, much less a whole philosophical attitude, much less overnight. The three basic goals which I contend we must aim for are: (1) Personal freedoms on the roadparity with other motorists - freedom from restrictive legislation directed at us only. I'm thinking of helmet laws as I write this, but they are not exactly what I mean. 1 approve of helmet laws and goggle laws personally, but only for the same reason that 1 approve of all cars having windshields. I believe them to be an extension of the vehicle. More precisely 1 mean crash-bar laws and seat-belt (!) laws and modular enclosure laws, and all the fignewtons· of the bureaucratic mind which will begin appearing after the last automobile has been filled with jello. (2) Freedom of the public lands, within reason and granting s.ome concessions on our part. 1 refer here to freedom to ride the trails as do the horsemen and hikers, not freedom to run Elsinore down the middle of Los Padres. Trail riding, like packing a revolver, is one of few freedoms the defense of which is difficult at best; but essential for the preservation of the individual human. I referred earlier to the need for an NRA type organization. It's essential if we are to get a fiscal base and a political popular front established. So is a group like Ducks Unlimited, to foster the development of new riding areas (Trails Unlimited?). So is a government body at the state level, similar to the Department of fish and Game, whose purpose would be the preservation and policing of trails. In fact, almost every aspect of the sports of hunting and fishing have counterpart aspects in the sport of trail riding. And the sooner we admit this to ourselves, and submit to the ideas of trail licenses, trail rules, trail trail preservation and seasons, husbandry Uust as have hunters and fishermen), the sooner we can formulate policy for ourselves. And wouldn't it be better for us, let's say through Russ Sanford or 50 Russ San fords, to draw up regulations and policies for the state governments, than for assemblyman Foran to do it for us? (3) Freedom to race on private lands, subject only to civil statu tes defining order and quiet; and freedom to race on designated public lands existing for the purpose. Bob Bailey was screwed by the Carson City Mothers out of a charming little cycle park. It would have been sandwiched between a foundry, two junk yards, three machine shops and a pet cemetery. Which of those neighbors do you suppose objected to his idea? What the hell difference did it make to Carson? I live about four miles from Carson, and some nights I can't even hear the foundry over the roar from the residential chicken coops. Sure, Bob would have had to rent his patented silencer to all customers, but he could have learned to live with it. The point is that you and Bob know who had their palms out for tribute; who the witnesses for the prosecution were; and who finally turned their thumbs down on his license. Why not tell us, the readers? And tell us and tell us, until at election time we can have our turn too? We need the ability to get laws and lawmakers jettisoned, until we are finally treated as standard human beings. But until we have the right to kill and marrn ourselves on Bob Bailey's property, I doubt that Uncle Ronnie or Uncle Sam will allow us to do it at Red Rock Canyon. That's the second half of the freedom to race: the freedom to organize events to be run on public lands. (It is essential to read this goal completely apart from that 0'£ trail riding, for several obvious reasons - I won't go into that, and anyway you have alluded to the two goals as individual topics often in the past.) It's one thing to convince the government that San Gabriel River Wash, for example, is useless except as a race course. It's a whole 'nuther problem to convince the San Gabriel Valley Racers dub that every one of their 'desert' runs must be a 'wash t run in the same wash every time. But if what myoid aunt from Peoria says really is true, and California really is just a lot of dismal places all jammed toge.ther, maybe we can get the state to declare about 200 different places dismal enough for our use. Do you see my point? What purpose is served by devoting Cycle News to news about cycles, when doom is so near? I'm afraid you underestimate either the enemy's abilities, or the cycling fraternity's strength .. They (the liberals) managed to turn most of the world into a gigantic collectivist funnyfarrn. Now their world is getting out of conlrol again, so they are bound to change it some more. That's their philosophy... We the cycle crazies have created a monster. Maybe if we use a little 'Gung Ho' (which means 'work together' in Chinese - but you editors know all those things) we can domesticate the beast. We need the help of your staff. GREG WEISSENBERGER Wilmington, Cal. M ~ '" Q. .... en It) N > '" :;; \@ w Z w ~ U >U THE PUBLISHER ANSWERS... One of the purposes of our Reader Profile Questionnaire was to pry loose additional comments like you have so generously provided, Greg. I agree that California is the proving ground for many new trends in motorcycling (though not all. U.S. motocross started in New England circa 1958 and enduros, for example, were popular in the east years before they caught on in the west.) Unless California can solve its problems of land use, those problems will multiply nationwide in a very few years. We'd encourage the formation of some kind of pressure group on the order of NRA. But please realize that the National Rifle Association is subsidized to the tune of several million dollars a year by the U.S. Government, in exchange for training shooters, supposedly for national defense. A National Motorcyclist Association would have to operate without the benefit of gbvern ment subsidy. The AMA is actively concerned with achieving the first and 3rd basic goals that you describe. At present the MIC Land Use Committee is seeking answers to the freedom of public lands for casual motorcycle recreation. It is hoped that this concern can be assumed eventually by the state and regional dealer associations, once techniques have been devised. MIe is also concerned- with the freedom to race on private land, for the reason you mentioned. Our problems are not entirely ecological, as you have said. But our dismal reputation as hell'raisers and undesirables have helped the ecological extremists tie the can to our collective tail. Our image is much the same now as the image that the lone horseman held in the public mind about the turn of the century. Seventy years ago, the I1'lan on the horse was often a drifter and meant trouble to the more sedentary burghers of the community. Horsemen had to wort... hard to chaoee this image, and it has taken a lol'lf" time. Now people only identify horse riders with good things - community puades, leisurely recreation, the "sport of Kings." We have taken the first steps toward laundering our image by overwhelmingly outnumbering the undesirables in our ranks with nice, average people. Now we have to help the general public identify motorcycles with good things. It will take lots of doing, on the smallest local level as well as at the state and national end. Motorcycle enthusia,sts should participate in community projects, drives and activites AS MOTORCYCLISTS, letting it be know that they like bikes and do good besides. How often I have spoken to politicians who don't believe there are so many motorcycle people in his district because he had never met one of us, until a threat to our existence arises, and then there we are! We've got to make our presence known in a positive way before our enemies move in on us. It's not who yOl.,l know, but who knows you as a motorcycle enthusia.st, that saves our sport's bacon every time an anti-motorcycle question comes before a community. "Gung ho" is the right attitude, all right, but in this case we'd all be better off workins together with the non-motorcyclists in our schools_ communities, service clubs, political parties, YMCA, churches, Charities, et cetera AS MOTORCYCLISTS. This doesn't have to be a drag. Community service is fun, almost as much fun as motorcycling. It's a gas to blow their minds by talking up motorcycling when they thought they had you pegged as a "normal" human being! MeanWhile, we'll keep pointing out the pleasure of motorcycle riding, racing, modifying and maintaining. "And that's what it's all about," as the toothpaste commercial says, "isn't it?" -- Charles Clayton .; :":;