Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

A LOOK FORWARD INTO THE PAST And Doing It Clean We hav~ the beginnings of environmental control, wherein man seeks to solve the problems raised by his technology with more technolOgical gadgets. We will see more of this mindless trend in the future as motorcycles are enveloped and filtered to control noise and exhaust emissions. That the consumption of resources, to produ~e the sound deadeners and chemical filters, outweighs the cumulative benefits will not occur to the officials who set the standards. We will see glass.bodied motorcycles and perhaps. alcohol engines before the decade is ou t. • If one were to believe the alannists of an impending "energy crisis," we would be turning our refineries into distilleries righ t now. If the armchair ecologists really wanted to save the wilderness and the seas, they would be pushing alcohol as a motor fuel. But no one except Class A speedway racers is ready for that, yet. Maybe next year... by Charles Clayton Stereotypes Die Hard Since the early 1950's, motorcycling in America has struggled to break the image cast by Stanley Kramer's classic movie ''The Wild One." That ninety minutes of celluloid sealed for a generation the role and fate of us whose tastes in transportation resemble those of "Chino" and his girlfriend ("Britches," I think was her name). To citizens and cops throughout the nation, The Movie dictated their reaction and when motorcyclists met with in reality didn't always resemble Kramer's depiction, mass society was confused and bewildered. American Honda Motor Co. invested, legend h .... it, $5 million dollars a decade after the move to convince America that uYou met the nicest people on" a cute little two-wheeler with a western sounding name. That slogan, in its ambiguity, was one of the finest phrases in the history of advertising. That it was only half tT\!e merely added the ironic dimension that a good ad campaign can thrive on. Surely 'if the people "on" the cute two-wheelers were nice, those that they met were not always so. Then, after twenty years, another movie altered the image. Son of "Wild One" or, ClEasy Rider" with Peter Fonda. More downbeat than Kramer, Fonda's Capt. America depicted the death agonies of a young generation bum t out with drugs and privilege. Meanwhile, for 26 weeks on television an escapee from that 1960's generation advised grownups to "Hang in there." while he wen t abou t finding the America that Fonda overlooked. Jim Bronson was his name and he was neither straight nor freaky. "Then Came Bronson" was as close as mass media has ever come to a depiction of a motorcyclist that society can tolerate. Twenty·five years have passed since Chino sttu tted on the scene - a full generation. Motorcycling has just about lived it down. The new image mo~orcycling is putting across, in spite of media, is neither that of the worst of people nor the nicest. While unable to propagal'dize, we have merely revolutionized, the country. We mul tip lied un til now there is hardly a citizen in he U.S.A. who does not know a motorcycle enthusiast personally. One out of ten households now owns a motorcycle or two and by 1975 there'll be a bike in one out of seven families. In all but the highest places, which are slowest to respond to change, motorcycle buffs have merely outnumbered our "image" Stereotypes are hard to kill, but ours, thank heaven, if finally dying. New Look on the Street - Doing It in the Road / Queen Victoria is alleged to have said that she didn't mind what moral precepts her subjects practiced in private, "as long as they don't do it in the road and scare the horses," I'm glad that the old girl isn't living in America this coming year, for the motorcyclist is going to be practicing his pleasure in the streets as never before. With the continual suffocation of off·road (dirt) riding as the preservationists have their way, some million or more new riders are going to take to the pavement on motorcycles bred for performance and agility. The "superb ike" engine in a good.handling frame will gradually replace the awkward chopper as the movie image continues to fade. The trend all along in motorcycling has been toward the ultimate road burner. Culminating in the Brough Superior of the 1920's, the Harley·Davidson 74's and Indian Fours of the 1930's, into the European and Japanese multis of the 1970's, the age of the street roadster is perennially here. Police will find it hard to fault a machine that outperforms and outmaneuvers their own motorcycles and the modern equivalen t of Queen Victoria's horses, the prisoners of cars, will inevitatly be startled. What this will lead tO,1 hope, will be an accommodation on the part of government, allowing the motorcycle to benefit society as a daring form of rapid transit. While other citizens trundle along in their safety cars in their private lanes, the speedy, efficient bike.s, operating in a lane for them only, may go about ~heit: business at.a higher speed Lonesome Saddles in the Old Corral - Doing it in the Dirt This is the image that motorcyclists of all types carried for nearly two decades. Only with a new generation is it beginning to change. limit than the one set for cars. At presen t, bikes could be permitted to travel five mph faster than the posted limit with a demonstrable improvement in safety, but the bureaucratic tendency to treat apples as oranges still insists that two wheels equals four. The racer image is beginning to be the street custom replacement of the chopper: performance combined with appearance. Look for some improvement in the off·road motorcycle situation this coming year. Instead of where we can't ride, the emphasis will be on opening dirt where we can ride. Some public land will be made available over the objections of outraged protectionists, and a flock of private "Motorcycle Country Clubs" will be opening around the country. These private reserves will provide not only limited acres of tracks and trails, but will be linked, via trail networks, with public forests and other parks. The benefits of privately.operated motorcycle parks to 'the dirt rider will only begin with making riding land more accessible. Campgrounds, security, and recreational easement will be permanently available both for organized and casual riding recreation. Already. there are two companies endeavoring to affiliate motorcycle park operations across the country in to a kind 0 f franchise network. The individual parks will get experienced rnanagemen t counsel, lower insurance rates and co-operative purchasing and promotion programs, among other things. The motorcycle rider and the industry which depends on him will have a greater variety of terrain and events to expend their energy upon. Even the ecology will benefit from having an alternative to overdevelopment of valuable real estate close to urban areas. Diversified recreation reserves of this fu ture kind will produced 10 to 15% dividends on investm,ents up to two million dollars. Those who still prefer the unmarked wilderness will fmd those places less inhabited on weekends than they used to be, as riders, given a choice, opt for the relative comforts of the cycle parks. In line with this relatively new concept of designated riding dirt, I anticipate a growing trend toward absentee maintenance (for lack of a better term) and even leasing ownership of dirt bikes. Executive Services Company of Garden Grove, ·Calif. is the f""t and only organization (to my knowledge) that stores, maintains, and even disposes of dirt bikes for its rider-clients. For $30 a month plus parts, ESCO guarantees to have the client's motorcycle ready to ride any time he wan ts it. l.keep one of my bikes there and, for my money, it's worth it. Proprietor Ed Wight even brings his customer's bikes to his C.E.R.A. enduros at no extra charge, if they wan t to ride there. . I envision services similar to ESCO's 'at modern cycle parks. The average dirt rider, as our surveys show, is well above average economically. He's young and busy and usually a family man. He rides Ior exercise and recreation. He's got quite a bundle invested in his &:iotorcycle hobby and much of it is spent for tools and means of transporting his scooter. I suspect that a sizeable number of·dirt riders would just as soon reduce their investmen t by leasing their equipment and/or storing the bikes where they ride them. In a 'way, I guess, what I envision will be similar to yachting, as opposed to boating. You would dock your toy where you sail it for maximum fun with minimum toil. This old thing of hauling your dirt bike around behind you is becoming passe.. CIl ;: w Z W ..J U >U

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