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/125874
Opinion Selling, buying and • • • trading? One ' of the more dubious advantages of ownIng a registered motorcycle In our state is that your name and address become available to anyon e with so mething to sell and enough money for post age. The stuff that comes in your mailbox is sometimes pret- 16 ty far out. About one......ry two or three months I get a catalog from an ou t fit ca lled J. C. Whitn.y and Co. , 40 pages of motorcyc le stuff in min iature type and o ut rageo us hype. Everything from sissy bars to socket wrenches, Need foo tpegs? They got "desert " p.gs for Suzukis, "moto-cross" p.gs fo r Hondas , and "triple-chrome-plated illuminated pegs with your choi ce of red or amber lenses " for any th ing you want to moun t them o n . Some of the stuff in th at catalo g might b. pretty useful, especially to guys who live a ways from th e sho p . li ke gasket sets, engine and c ar bure to r rebuild kits and re pl acemen t taillight len ses. Those are the things you r dealer seems to have c hro nically back-ordered, In fact, I co uld a lmost b. fo nd o f th at catalog were it no t fo r a few not-so-nice features, Want to s e t the s p o r t of motorcycling back abo ut ' four years in your neighborhood with a set of noisy glass-pa cks? They got them. How about a nice chea p helmet, on. th at will leave a Budweiser beer label on the mess that was your he ad. Only . $19.88 and it's appro ved by the American Assoc iation of Mo tor Vehicle Administration, whatever th e hell that might be, but not by Snell. Of co urse if you really want to do it to y o urself, you can order their 16" extended front end mad. of genuin e " cold-rolled stee l" If th ey ad ver tise things made of cold-rolled steel, it kind of makes y ou wonder wh at some o f the other stuff is made of. Now that motorcycling has com. of age (p rofita b le age, that is) , we can expect to see a number of th ese m ail order discoun t houses arise fr om the depths of merchantillia. If you decide to shop from them , b. careful and do so only for con ven ience , no t price, The Whitney outfit advertises " most item s 25 to 45 percent below dealer prices. " I chec ked a couple of items just for the hell of it. T heir price on a 4.00x I8 knobby of unspecified brand is $ 2 7.88. AI Fox in Burban k te lls me the list pri ce o n a Cheng Shin is $27.98 (and if you tell him you're a friend o f min e, h. '11 kno ck off 10 percent, but don't try th a t with all dealers, Some of them add 10 percent.] Whitney's sells "Spare Tire in a Can" for $2 .24. Pep Boys has it for $.99. There ar e so me apparent bargains. Whitn.y's advertises an ox yacetylene wel ding outfi t for 84.95 , between SI 5 and $3 0 chea per than yo u can get it at Monkey Wards. But since th ere's no brand name, the quality of the outfit is a gue ss. He y, ca n you dig this ? A helmet spe aker kit , o n ly $6.8 8. Mount four of those in your Bell Star and go motoring across t he desert digging Willie and t he Hand Jiv. in Quad ... Here's so meth ing e lse yo u wo n't b. able to resist : It 's ca lled Fr eedom Chain , and if th at little co n tr adic tion in terms doesn't completely blow yo u away, maybe you 're ready. Freedo m Chain is actually a me ss of severa l .chains d esigned to surround a helmet and lo ck it to some sta unc h ' p art of the motorcycle, The thing is carri ed in a plast ic p ouch , making it ab out the sam . size as th e p aperback edition of Th e G ulag A rchipelago an d s o me what heavier, in a non-met aph ysical sense, The manufacturer states, "Y ou'll never los. ano th er he lmet and the threat of theft will be eliminated. " Aside fr om making the sam. mistake of co un tless would-be tyran ts, thinking th at an idea can b• •liminated with a cha in - ask Solzhenitsyn abo ut that - it seems to me th at this gadget would acc o mpl ish exa ctly the o pp osite effec t, It looks e xactly like on. of those silly puzzles wher e the magician removes so me object from a network that no body else can figure out. An y n ormal, red-blooded individual would ab solu te ly hnue to see if h. co uld get the helmet out of the chai n network, Sin ce t his isn't supposed to b. a tric k, at least I d on 't thi n k it is, presumably h. would fail. What do es he do then? He stea ls th e wh ole motor cy cle , th at's what h. does ! A nd thus does the human spirit tri umph o ver $ 20 worth of paranoia. No t all mail, o f co urse , is o f the friendly co m mercial variety, Some o f it is almost sinister . T ake the let ter th at Pap a Weal.y go t re cently from T im Elliot. " Let '5 start an ugly rumor ," wrote Elliot, "Ron Schneiders was seen at the Rose Bowl Swap Meet with his typewriter and Bultaco for sale. Has the angry old man gone over to th e o th er side ??? And his tennis shoes loo ked like "hiking' tennis shoes." Naturally, Pap a called me in to explain th is vicious attack. J was st ill some wha t sha ken because I had never expe cted to get ca ugh t, but I remembered t he guiding principle o f our gr eat fo rme r president. ne ver tell the truth under an y c o ndit io ns, so I irnrnediat ely d en ied e very t h ing an d told Papa tha t [ had be en to an enduro tha t dav. Unfortu nately. it didn't take more th an t hre e da ys of car ef u l research for Pap a to fin d out th ere wasn't an y enduro. but this t im e I was read y . Before he could acc use me of lyi ng [ declared my pre vi ous sta tem en t inoperative and exci ted ly insisted that a cra ck team of Cycle News In vestigators sho uld imm ed ia tely look in to the disappearance of t he enduro . Obviously anti-motorcycle forces were at work here, Papa thought that one o ver for a few days and then told me tha t he had come to the co nclusio n that there really wasn't any enduro , but since it was obviously impossible to prove the nonexistence of a nonexistent event, that he was going to take a different tack. He wanted me to tell bim exact ly where [ was on J uly 21, 1974, and prove it . Naturally, I couldn't recall where [ was on that particular day, but [ assured him that he could check with my wife, who keeps track of comings and goings. [ even offered to get her on the phone for him. ' "Hi, Stonewall," I said to her, "Papa Wealey wants to ask you so me questions. I wan t you to give him full and co m plete answers, full of truths and all that. " [ explained to Papa that Stonewall was just a term of endearment between us. Papa took the phone and said, "Mrs. Schneiders, a ll I want to ask . .." That was as far as he got. For the next four hours and thirty -two minutes he just sort of nodded as he gradually fell into a sort of paralytic trance . When there was no further sign of life, [ took the phone out of his hand and hung it up. My wife was giving him a recipe for a p eanut-butter an d zucchi ni so uffle. In spit. of this victory of words o ver truth, [ knew that [ was far from home free, and [ de cided t hat I had better do som e ca reful thinking. Actually , it sta rt ed innocently eno ugh , with an ad in the paper ab o ut, a "motorcycle swap meet." It so happened that at th at tim. I had five motorcycles, three of wh ich were Bultacos , and two of which were virtually identi cal Matadors, being a mere year ap art in age. Why not, [ thought, take Mat ador Number Two to the swap me et an d trade it for something that I really needed, like a small Stein wa y, a sailboat, a 200·watt Marantz amp , a cab in nea r KitsbuhI, a small Fiat or even money. I mean, real ly there's all sorts of th ings th at a person really needs that I didn't have, an d her. [ had t wo Bultacos, Even when [ was thinking abou t it , o f co urse, J knew [ had to be ca reful. [f Senor Bult o heard th a t [ was co n te mp lat ing the sale of on e of his fine mot or cycles to some un known stranger, at a swap meet, for God's sa ke, he would probably have me gr ound up an d used to sur face th e TIjuana bull ring. [ had never been to a swap meet before, so I thought over what [ had read about them. I seem ed to recall pictures of people has sling one another in the midst of inco mp rehensib le clu nero Did they customarily sit cross-legged on oriental rugs , or was J' thinking of something else? People couldn't really hassle each other much if they were sitting around discussing the price of something and taking periodic belts from a well-stoked hookah, but so mehow I didn't think that would make it in Pasadena. And my o ne 'mo to rcy cle would hardly clutte r my 20 by 20 foot space. Obviously [ needed something else, No t being much of a saver, [ coul d n ' t find m uc h t o create the prop er atmosphe re of clutter. [ had so me old sprockets, some discarded knob bies ("Side knobs aren't sharp, y 'know"), an old pair of boots, and a typewriter that had been honorably retired in favor of an IBM. Typewriters m ight be the last consumer item in the whole world that the U.S. still m akes best. An d if someone writes in to tell me that IBM typewriters are actually made in Taiwan or Nicaragua, ['II cry . Bright and early Sunday I took possession of my sp ace and tried to clutter it . I could see [ was a rank amat~ur at this business. A gu y across from me looked like h. had the entire co ntents of a San Fernando Road j un k yard spread out in front of him. The only person at the Rose Bowl with a cleaner ope ra ti o n than me was the ice cream sales man. . Swap mee ts o pe ra te on the Las Vegas principle: Put people in a boring, uncomfortabl e at mosp here for a long enough tim e and soon er or later they'll do something st upid. just for some " ac t ion. " After several hours sitting in the hot sun at the Ro se Bowl, staring at moun tains o f jun k, and could Ret to the po int of trading y our favorite kid for a bassoon. Except that people don't. seem to do mu ch trading. Such business as is transacted seems mostly to be in cas h and not much of that. I sort of had the notion th at if you turned everybody there upside down and averaged the money that rained , it would co me out to less t han five dollars per person. The Feds have asked us, but do they really want to know? By Lane campbell T he Depart me nt of Transportatio n (DOT ) and th e Environmental Protection Agen cy (EPA) have jo in tly as ked 'fo r public co m m en ts an d sugges tio ns on how to ob tain a n across-t he -bo ar d 20% improveme nt in vehicular fuel eco no my by [ 9 80 . Som e of th e ca tego ries for com ment (as outli ned in th e Fede ra l Register) o ug h t to be of particular interest to motor cycle enthusiasts : - Po tential ch an ges in new vehicles class mix fro m 197 5 through early 1980 's . (Tra nslatio n : wh at would happen to o verall n at ional fuel co ns u mp ti o n if th e co un try 's t ransportation mix co n ta ined a gre ater percentage o f sm all ca rs an d motorcycl es? How about mini-car s o r 3-wheelers powered by motorcycl e en gine s ?) - Potential cha nges in sales weig hted fuel economy. - "Fuel economy improv em ent standa rd " as a regulatory approach . (As k th em w~atever happened to tax relief for vehi cles t ha t gei 20 I\IPG or better . ) Public com m ents are d ue b y Augus t 23, must b e subm itted in qu int upl ica te (five co p ies}, and must referen ce OS T File No . 37. Address th em to : Docket Clerk, Office of the General Co unsel, TG C, Department of Tr an sportation. Wash ingt on . D. C. 20590. (Ed . Note - th e extra co p ies and f ile number may so und li ke a lo t of e x tr a hassle, but sin ce they 've asked: us, w hy not let th em ha ve both barre ls Y}