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/127174
By Dibblee Hoyt A Russian war hero (above) ponders the American flag. The Edelweiss Soviet Union tour group (Ieh) poses in f r ont of St. Basirs Cathedral in Red Squsre. s our tour group neared the Soviet Union, I began to spend much of m y riding time thi nking about what the term "enthusiast" mea ns. Is it the person who reads a ll th e mo to rcycle magazines, co mbs the ads and co mes up wi th the best colorcoord inated a pparel? O r is it the race fan who know s the nam es of a ll the racers a nd thei r career h istori es? No, I fin ally defined a mot orcycle enthusias t as simp ly a person wh o enjoys motorcycling. Knowledge of racin g, possessing th e lat est goodies a nd keeping up with the wh ol e of th e motorcycle industr y is just icing on the cake. T o the real enth usiast, mo torcycli ng isn 't a fin an cia l compromise, or a lack of choice. The en th usiast is the perso n who takes the bike o ut purely because he feels like riding for the joy of it. Once he has that , A he can invent all the excuses necessary to get out the door for a ride. I had booked onto the Edelweiss Soviet Union tour, a ride roughly 4000 miles long fro m Munich (Germa ny), throug h Austria and H ungary into the U.S.S.R. We wou ld ride from th e so ut h western portion of the Ukra ine up and th rough Byelorussia, and th en in to Ru ssia proper Moscow and Lenin grad. My assignment was to in vestigate the sta te of motor cycle enthusiasm in th e Sovi et U nion. T his seemed easy eno ugh. After all, th e Soviet Unio n produces mor e motorcycles th an any o ther co un try in th e world excep t J apan . In 1985, for exa m ple, more th an two million units ro lled off production lines. Furtherm ore, Soviet racers have dom inated or been a stro ng reckon in g force in mot orcycle raci ng for years - speed way, ice rac ing, Inter- national Six- Day events, even motocross . Rememb er Guennady Moiseev, 1977 and '78 250cc Motocross World Champion? Indeed, these were a people deeply involved in motorized two-wheel sport. Sure ly, I would see my sha re of ent husiasts . .. How ever, everyone I talked with prior to the trip painted a gri m pi cture of motorcycling in the Soviet U nio n . Ma ga zine ed i to rs, sh o p ow ners a nd o ther ent husiasts who h ad j u st retu rn ed from si m i la r journeys ca tego rica lly sta ted that everyone in th e U.S.S.R. rod e the same kind of bikes and viewed th e mot orcycle as a 1001 for in expensive tran sportation - a chea per alte rnative to th e autom obile, As we rod e acr oss th e Hungarian countrys ide, I saw kids on small d ispla cem ent Simpson a n d MV motorcycles - both East German marques. They wore shorts. Some wore helmets , some didn't. T h is made me wonder what I would be abl e 10 report on, in a positive vein , when I reached th e U.S.S.R. .Bu t mos tly I wondered if I wou ld meet any ent h usiasts .. . I was told th at the motorcycle in the Sovie t Union represented a tool hardly.more appreciated than a cow . This comment co ntained mo re tru th than I first rea lized, but then, cows have a different mean ing for the Soviet ' peo p le. Cows are a revered species in a pragma tic way, not put o n a pedesta l as in India; we often saw people o ut wa lki ng their cows along the h igh way. People's com ments worried me. I kne w th at th e ent husiasts would be overwhe lmi ngly o u tn u mbered by peo p le who did just ride for th e excuses, mostly eco nom ical. Would the more distant, serious types who rode wit hout expression be approachable? Willing to be interviewed? It scared me to think tha t I might ret urn emp ty-ha nded. Th is fear was soo n p ut 10 res t a t the Soviet fron tier. One of the border guards spoke a little En gli sh and approached us wit h questions abo u t o ur bikes and gear. Before I knew it, I was interviewi ng him. lI ya wo uldn' t give me his last nam e, nor allow a phOIO~ph photos are stric tly forbidden at bo rder sta tions. H e was 19, blond and ga ngly, with a coup le of go ld teeth right in the middle of hi s upper row . lI ya proudl y told us that he also owned a motorcycle, a 350cc JawaCZ two-stroke. (I .later .learned that th e J awa-CZ is a co mmon choice ' among Soviet riders. Although th e Sovie ts make a number of motorcycles, I saw more Czechslova kian and Ea st G erm an m ach ines than Russian.) I asked lI ya if he was an enthusiast. H e didn 't understand the term. I asked him if he sm iled when he rode and he lit up and showed me those prominent teeth in a way .that told me wit hout words that, indeed, he