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/126008
••••• I: Opinion ; ~ ~ . ~ Sex & the single cylinder ~ Comments cn'The Great AmericanMotorcycle' America already makes some of " e best motorcycles in the world. th At the present time nothing is really wrong with the vee-twin Harleys except the weigh tand the complication, surely. And before going an y furth er, one point to make is that this is being written 12 in England by a 47 -year-old who had been riding steadily from th e age o f well , for over 30 years anyhow. Surely, one of the first an d most imp ortan t items in thinking ab o u t any motorcycle, great or Ame rican or as the case may be: what is it required to do and how should it do it? To my simple ' m i n d this is not really too well appreciated th ese day s, perhaps as a result of years of fairly high-pressure advertising aimed at a public many of whom co uldn 't care less. ' - Th ere is an optimum speed at whi ch a motorcy cle is best and easiest to ride. Gran ted this depends to some degree on the type of country being ridden over. One wouldn 't cruise at 40 mph on a good, wide, main ro ad . But.then it can be hazardous doing 60 on a narrow, winding road up in the hills . In my experience 35 to abo u t 55 is the speed range in which almost any motorcycle is easiest to handle. Also, if one is going to b e unfortunate enough to hit something, as riders do once in a while, this is the speed range to be in if you want to get up and walk away afterwards. This has always struck me as a sound set-up , and that is based on hard experience . " In the present world situation, where the dusky, well-educated men of the desert lands are in the position of being able (and willing) to hold the rest of the ' world to ransom , the above assumption seems to make sense. As Will Shakespeare said, "Build it simple, and not too big," or was that one of the Velocette directors? ' Th ere is little point now in a f u e l-g u lp in g 80 bhp monster-of-many-pots, with at least four of everything, when something of about 40 bhp can do the job easily. A thing often quoted at me in my youth, when it was my burning ambition to own something with an overhead camshaft, was "if it won't strip-down with a hammer and a bed-key it 's rubbish fo r touring . " . This pearl of wisdom from rid ers of the pre-war era often comes to mind when viewing the " latest Oriental creations. Whilst these men would be, and are , very impressed, that is as far as it goes ; they still hang on to their old singl e-cylinder models built by long-gone factories. This ge m came from an old boy in h is 70s , wh en ask ed recently why he didn 't use something handier than the 1962 Norton he was ri ding, "Never needed another before , . don't see why I need one now. " He h ad bought the Norton new in 1926, and had ridden no other bike since then. He had done over 130 miles that day and was at least 50 miles from home when we met. Having rambled on at some length we now come to the crunch , the real point • behind 'this ' literary ' excursion. ' What type of machine is th is Limey guy driving at? The simple answer - th e simple single! Ve e twins are nice , but they are he avy and they are thirsty articles, and o ne cy lin de r with the co rr ec t thinking behind it can do all th at is calle d for. Most of th e really great , British motorcycles were designed during the 19 20's dep ressio n period, wh en any money spen t had to be well-sp en t. Th ese bikes, the 16 H Norton, M20 BSA, Rudge, AjS, Matchl ess " etc. were all built to the sam e specification. Th ey were in ahnost constant use, for one thing or an other, an d th ey were dead reliable in th is varied us age and lasted well in spite of it. Bein g very simple , th eir manufacture called for little in the way of exotica, eith er by way of tooling or assembly. This must be valid today, though few people seem to th ink so! Surely a strong point to consider fo r the G.A.M! Some of the side-valve (flathead?) singles will pull a sidecar and take four adul ts, Their exhaust pipes do tend towards incandescence in t he dark under these conditions , but they do it for years without problems. In the early 1950's a fri end bought an M21 BSA and fitted a huge sidecar to it. After being in co nstan t daily use for years as transport to and from wor k (12 miles) summer and winter, plus the odd annual holiday trip, say 1400 miles in a 'co up le of weeks, plus the usual weekend runs of abou t 200 miles, the en gine de veloped a harsh tapping. Inspection showed this to be a fair amount of clearance in the small-end bush area. A very strong letter was rushed off to The Birm ingham Small Arms Co. Ltd., advising them of the fact that their products were no longer up to the required standard, in no uncertain language . The Rudge , with four valves , will run on anything th at will go into the tank, from Scotch wh isky to p araffin . But still, things have changed a lo t, sin ce Honda invented four-valve heads fairly recently as we all know. ' Though it is difficult to be sure from 30 00 miles away, there seem to be definite signs that th e Great Ame rican Motorcycle project could get up off its back and start p erforming. When this happens, and it do es get up and go , it should do so in a big way. Please try to make sure it is pointed in th e right dire ction . C onsider wh at is reall y needed, and the simplest way to get it. Would someone perhaps like to put some time into a cost-exercise, ap ply ing modem techniques to the manufacture of a single? Many modem methods do apply very well . There is no need to stay with the methods of the late 19 20's now, either in des ign or in manufacture. Having been raised on a steady diet of long-stroke singl es the writer would like to see the type continue. There is once again a place for it, from the fuel consumption angle at the very least. The ambition of the writer is to put a single in to sm all-scale produ ct ion again, o r to be associated with this even if it turns o u t t o b e t h e Grea t A meric an Motorcycle. His present business is t he rebuilding o f these ol d ladies, wh ich is wh y this was written, in response to the article of june 17 sent by a cus to me r in the U.S. inviting comments. Sh or tage of cap ital p reve n ts my p lan fro m ge tt ing st arted but th ese co m men ts m ay help yours . I h op e so. With a l o t of eff ort " and lu ck so me thi ng co uld happ en along th e lin es of th e real clas sic British sin gle, a reall y good all-ro un der. With a bucketful of assorted cams, pistons and spro ck ets it co ul d be used for almost an y thing fro m ride to w or k through trials, h illclimbs, scrambles and even road raci ng. Not to the present-day standards of course, but it was more fun years ago an yhow. A. H. Bucknall FREE WHEELING I had to write this after re ading A. H. Bucknall's comments, since he and I arrived at th e same conclusion fro m quite opposite directions. He went on ,at 'great len gth (which I edited down) to apologize for th e classic single 's lack of speed, as if to say the thumpers so meh ow lacked t he sex appeal of the multis, (All depends on wh ether your taste runs to broad bottoms or lean flanks.) I've ridden on them and I've ridden against them ; I say that in the pl aces where bikers re ally love to ride, far from freeways, far from hassles , the fastest, sweetest ride is st ill on a sin gle. Th e onl y thing be tt er . is a V-twin , and economics prices the good ones fo r high -rollers only . We've h ad enough dream stuff. For most of us , reality is sti ll priced at $1 200 or less. So , in our low-b ucks reality , how fast is fast? Let's fac e it , except for a few care f ull y- s elec ted desert roads and bac k-co un try straights (which are rare any more) any pl ace you can top 100 mph for more than five sec o nds at a crac k, you 're going to get busted doing it. And any place else . the turns are so close togethe r th at a go o d sporting single is King. Af ter you've hand-wrassled a bulky mul ti up a ti ght mountain ro ad, forced to hang off radically at both sides to avoid grounding something exp en sive (e ven a BMW has better corn ering clearance t ha n some of the japanese threes an d fours ), yo u could really app rec iate th e virtues of a single , if you co uld just ge t y our hands on a good one. The last sin gle cy lin der motorcycle I rode for any length of time probably do esn 't even "classify as a "good one n in many ey es. It was a 230cc four-speed Ossa Wildfire , so ugly only a mother could love it. Th e ligh ts seldom worked, the horn was a joke, the co bbled- up exhaus t pipe weighed 20 pounds and drooled two-stroke oil from its perenniall y le aky join t. It sounded like it was ab o ut to fall apart most of the time, and the gas tank drummed in time to the engine. . . . .. . But Lord, wo uld th at m other run. It weighed 21 5 po unds wet in st ock form; " stripped " for racing, it weighed 19 5 (we took the fenders and lights off). I raced it on ce (m y firs t an d last ro ad race - sigh ) at Dade Cit y 's Pasco County Fairgro unds trac k in flo rida . I wish all ro ad circu it s were like th at o ne - it packed 10 turns into a little over, th ree-quarter s o f a mil e. The fas test part of th e track Gust under 100 mph for th e fast guy s) was in the m iddl e of an ess at the top of a h ill where you came off th e ground just as yo u p icked it up fro m th e lef t-hander and laid it o ver ri ght. Boss sin gles track! Th e club ran sh or t track Saturday night, th en all the trackers would ch ange geari ng an d suspension an d mix it up with th e clip-on and cro uch se t on Sund ay. Like 01' A.H. said, things used to be m ore fu n . We set up the Ossa by chan gin g the p lug and th e fork oil. To ok it out to a bootleg circuit in the orange groves for a little testing, and saved a n ice to othy grin for t h e Sheriff who cruised by just as we were lo ading up to go home. I fell off in practice, trying to pass some guy when I should h ave been learning the co urse . One of my buddies had to tak e me b ack out and lead me around to re-es tablish my rhythm and l e arn th e smooth line. I was still su fficiently detuned that I chose to start dead last of 17 bikes in th e 250 class qualifier . Three laps later the chec ker fell and I'd worked up to 12th, not quite sure how, except that I'd managed to be on the fast line past the con fusion when somebody fell off in tum four. _ Luck. . Starting 12th on the grid in the 250 Final , I co uld n ' t even hear my bike - it still had the stock pipe and muffler. Green flag and we all s cooted; surprisingly I was pulling a bunch of people off the start. Went around tum one past a few more on the outside, tucked in behind a pair of. identical Bultacos, then passed the Bultacos when somebody fell off in tum four again. The next five laps 1 spent chasing some 01' boy on a DT-l short tracker, steel . shoe and all. When I final ly passed him, I was sixth , but blew it all by going off of tum three and letting three people pass while I scrambled about in the weeds. Sic transit gloria . . . I fin ished ninth. I've spent the intervening years tr ying (u n s u ccessfully ) to get the money, the bike, the opportunity and the wife 's good will to come together so I can go racing again. If it ever happens, I'd prefer that it be on a good taut sin gle at a tight, twisty circuit. Yo u guys who ride the dyno tracks like Ontario may h ave forgotten (nor never knew) that fun need not carry a $4000 price tag. But Dave Garoutte knows, and so do a lot of guys who ride 350 Ducatis and resurre cted British singles in the canyo ns . On e of these days, all those ol ' thumpers are going to wear out (though it m ight take 20 years). It 's ironic that the j apanese manu facturers, wh o h ave some goo d potent two-stroke and fou r-stroke singles in thei r inventories, haven't adap ted at least a portion of their unsold dirt bike inven to ry to the ro ad rasher market. What 's more bitter to swallow is the fact th at we Americans, who can do it cheaper than the japanese (witness the Lincoln Kawasaki plant) haven 't already done it ourselves. Like Mr. Bucknall said, a well -thought-out sing le w ith an asso rtmen t of top end co m ponen ts can do everything from trials to road race. And I agree with him wholeheartedly the thumpers made it a lot more fun. Lane Camp bell