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/126065
Meet the. protagonists MOTORCYCLES - A privately-owned 750cc MV Agusta America leads off, in terms of price: $6500 and you can have any color as long as it's red. Experimenting to see if a $6500 motorcycle could be improved on, the owner had fitted Marzocchi gas shocks and a Michelin 4.00V18 rear tire. A 4.10 x 18 MTll Pirelli graced the front. The engine was still tight, and the owner enjoined the testers to hold a 6500-RPM redline, A 750cc Ducati Desmo (S4,OOO-plus, used) Super Sport was ' next in the lineup, by way of price and visceral identity. Shod with Merzeler Block Pattern 3.50V18s front and rear, it alm ost didn't get out the shop door in the morning. Dead battery. With some judicious hot-wiring, it made the ride, _t h o URh not without , occasional complications. A Moto Guzzi 850 Le Mans - the blue tank model - was available as a lucky break. A Texan had ridden into the Rickey Racer shop and traded it on the spot for a Laverda. Some rich people have a very short attention-span. It was box-stock in every detail, with a Metzeler Rille (rib) 3.50H18 front tire, and Metzeler 4.10V18 Block Pattern rear. It's not supposed to be as fast as the red-tank model, and costs less $4100 vs. $4500. A pair of Laverdas from the Rickey Racer stable rounded out the group. One was a standard 1976 I,OOOcc triple shod with K815 - a 4.10 x 18 front and a 4 .25/85 x 18 rear. It had a couple thousand road miles on the clock. The other was a J ota the factory "breathed-on" version of the 1,000. With a season of racing under its belt, it was - ah"": well bro ken-in. The fron t wheel held a 4.00H18 MTII Pirelli on a WM3 rim. The rear was a I20/90H18 (new hybrid metric designation) MTI8 Pirelli on a \VM5 alloy rim. RID ERS - Lance WeU is proprietor of Rickey Racer and generally responsible for gathering this many exotic flash bikes in one place at one time. Articulate, strong-minded, he's a veteran of several seasons of English club racing on • 500 Singles and on a 750cc Harley-Davidson which he rode to a fifth in class at the Isle of Man. That feat still ranks as one of the best-ever efforts by an American on the Island. Bob Crossman, racer and entrepreneur, has been associated with road racing most of his adult life, and currently works/rides out of the Rickey Racer shop. Jim Vialovos is an outgoing, . _ cheerfully aggressive privateer racer, . regularly seen on his "Team Mexican" .T Z2 50 in So Cal club events, holeshotting the better-known front runners and /or harassing them from the rear, never quite out of the hunt as long as his bike hangs together. Jim Haberlin has sprung himself on the So Cal racing scene riding a pair of Mr. _ Jag's Triumphs. He showed up for the test wearing a porridge-bowl 10M helmet and riding a 95 'Y0"0riginal clubman Gold Star. The author, whose reputation has a tendency to precede him, was admonished, "If you crash one of these babies, pray that you die instantly." It's nice to have confidence. Hardly your standard magazine test. Rather, it was an experience - a brilliantly clear, beautiful experience, in which five men with distinctly different personalities rotated between five motorcycles with equally . distinct personalities. It's an experience worth sharing, a learning experience all the more real due to the individual flaws of set-up or preparation that helped pinpoint the inherent strengths and weaknesses of these super-exotica motorcycles in the hands of a less-than Godlike owner, Being able to afford one is only the beginning. Let's get into it. 13