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/125822
- o i ,... M '" - N ~ <{ ~ w Z w -' (.) > (.) Once upon a time, long, long ago, nice little motorcycles with names like Testi, Yamaha, Yamaguchi, (names of far away damn furriners),. BSA Starlight, and Honda (those are nice Limey bikes, aren't they, son?) decided to solve their loneliness problems by hanging out with the mean, nasty, and dirty Desert Sled gang. Ugly soon, every little inherently two-wheeled motorcycle around had an "upswept", (read, "High"), pipe, and thus became instantly transformed from an indestructable (read "Lead") frame, chrome-side~panel-tank Turkey into a real dirty, indestructable frame,_ chrome-side-panel-tank Bear (read "Big"). Before you could seize your Tohatsu twin, medium boys and old men were discovering that these little wonders were easier to throw around than Harley 74s off the road, and they sold like Hot Hats.. • Before you could get a replacement barrel for your no-bore-tolerance Tohatsu twin, these same people discovered that side case screws on their new toys would .loose screwdriver slots real fast, that the fork tubes weren't consulting each other on directional decisions, the EXGelio shocks couldn't handle cigarette butts calmly, the fenders were made of surplus war trucks, and the brakes locked up at. the merest touch, throwing the riders into the next county. So a need was born, and, in the true American tradition, an accessory industry was formed to fill the need. The medium boys and the old men brought money, and took away Allen head screws, fork braces, fancy-<:lancy shocks, plastic fenders, and compression releases. The accessory people made big bucks. As time came and time went, the nice little motorcycles went away into junkyards, swap meets, and the hands of little boys. Better motorcycles hit the shores of good 01' America, followed by newer, better motorcycles, followed (at last) by real motorcycles, motorcycles like the SS350, Honda Elsinores, and the Suzuki 125 rapid racer. Regular motorcycles weren't good enough anymore. . So some of the motorcycle companies decided to get into the accessory bucks act, at a time when only a real motocrosser, or a real enduro, or a real trials bike, or a real road racer would do. Since a lot of people didn't have these things, they started to try to make them. People like Chuck Campbell w.ere turning motorcycles into things they weren't meant to be (like a Suzuki 400 road racer). The accessory business became big business. Now, 1973, Nippon Gakki has added, (to its pianos, organs, musical instruments, skis, audio components and speakers, sAowmobiles, and motorcycles), Yamaha Parts Distributors, Inc. They make all sorts of stuff, more, and more, and more than you ever thought. Kind of like CMC motos, the new product releases just keep comin', and comin', and comin', on and on forever. It all lives at your local Yamaha dealer, and if it doesn't, tell him to call up good old Stuart Sadikoff at Yamaha Parts headq.uarters in Buena Park, California, and get some. • Hmmmm•..nice MUtlIr,~, old Virgil_n llize Big...Hmmm_.nice pentI too•••whooPl, Stull't isn't selling thoII. Shocking! To think you _ it in I femily n_ vel"'. How screwy. Tune in the next time I feel like doing this frammis time consuming section, (I could be doing other stuff, like crashing into shampeo bushes, ya know), and see the little company that made good get into the act with some good pleasantly quintessence stuff. In the meantime, meet Bizorro's Blatantly Unusual Section, new this week, maybe dead next week, featuring: Just whit you need when thet TohItsu twin, (The one you fitted with the Vemehe shocks, fork brec:e double disc, oil cooler, etc) blows up in Em CowbungIIend.... lUrYinI kit. Jim Devis Centurion FICI milk. Designed by I dentist with "bl'leklWllY" protection Ind h ~ to goodness breethinll openings. Vecuum formed ABS plastic, complete with III herdwere for $6.96 from ell Webco dNIen. Shock your sister next Helloween. DU-ALL P/'Iflight inspection tool. Just whit you need to open III your cowlings .Ind coven, rell,_ saews, dzus (lren't they releted to gnus?!, cemloc festellen, wing nuts (does thet IIMII1 rldicll ceshews?), oil CIPI, Ind quic:k-dreins. MIde of __ reinforced p1lstic ..t rustilfOof tempel'ld steel, end fits in I shirt pocket. Itnplrtill, equllly heppy with or 747. $4.95 from Air-Tech West, Dept. Why-Oid-WlH;et-This, 15737 Hesby St., Encino; Ce. 91316. eessnl