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/141045
l!l '" '" '" e, M .... ~ O· • N .ci w u. ~ w Z W .J o >o . . . Quick, strong, reliable, made in the good 01' US of A, and' a whole lot of fun. Mmmm, BOY! by Paul Boud reau Ph o tos by Larry an d Nancy Grov es This w hole th ing started as a favor. Shady and I were goi ng to In dian Dunes, so I stumbled into the edito r's office and sai d, "Hey, Sha dy an d I are going to Indian Dunes. Anyone w ant we should take a test bi ke?" "Su re! Take th e Hold er." "The wha t?" "The HOLD ER !" "What 's a Hold er?" " I t's a mini. " Small fry like Dennis Frizne r fit the Holder w ell. ....... " A MINI! You wan t me , Bazo ok a Pe te, winner o f th e 197 1 Annual S outh ern New Je rsey A mate ur Mo tocro ss an d'Terro r o f th e Moj ave, to tes t a m ini? Fo rget it! " HAw , c o m e on. You can take it on the mini-bik e co u rse and bl ow o ff all the littl e kid s." "Hot d og! I'll tak e it !" We spen t th e firs t p art of o ur day a t Indian Dunes assa ulting Moth er Nature with o ur b ig, he-man type bi kes. Sh ad y w as hi s usual self, try ing d espera tely to haul up' th e fro n t end of his DT -2 so he co uld d o whee lies like Ha te lev , wh ile I, on th e o ther hand. displayed a skill an d gra ce that entertaine d t he lim it s of m o to rcy cl in g expertise, as we know it. Arou nd n oo n , we un loade d the " Mo lder" (by this time we ha d nickn am ed it "M older" because we figure d it wou ld be so slo w, the tires wo uld m old . Ge t it?) and dro ve it over to the mi ni-bike course. T he first thing I no ticed about the Hol der was it didn' t have any gears. No gears, no shift , no clutch, n o n u t tin ", Just gas an d b rakes. Very b asic. The mo tor has a be lt wh ich tu rns a two stage torque c onverte r wh ich is connec ted to th e d rive sprocket. The fin al drive is KCM 420 chai n and a big 01' aluminum sp rocket. All ya d o is w ick it o n an d off she goes . The engine was a 125cc Tecumseh fro m Wisconsin . If Tecumse h knew, he 'd tum over in his grave. It is b asic ally a law n m ower e ngi ne. Pure and sim p le. It go es p ut-put-put ! When I gassed it, it cam e on like a slee py Panda bear . T he revs clim be d to about 4 ,000 an d levelled o ff. Oat's it . The Ho lde r is n ot wh at yo u wo uld call a tiger. The h o rsep ower (all five ) comes o ut in a flat curve. 'What' s a flat curve? A rotc -till er, for examp le, has a flat power c u rve. A t th e en tr an ce to th e mini -bike course . I paused to size up th e co m pe tit io n . Ther e were th e usu al number s o f sq uids and three or four kid s wh o wer e re ally hanging it o u t. Th ese littl e m on st er s lo ok ed to b e all of 8 o r 10 . Infants. I w o uld crush th em . T he n Shady p ointed o u t one little nipper wh o was doing full lock ers in th e t urns . He bet me a d ollar I couldn't tou ch th e kid . Haw. It took a few lap s to ge t used to the mach ine . I've never really go ne fas t on one. I fou nd I could, obvio usly, h old the gas on fairly fa r into the turn s before things go t exciting. I also foun d th e b rakes w ere b ad. A heal thy pull was need ed to get them to work at all. I d on ' t th ink a litt le kid w ould lik e that. What I ended up doing was gassi n g it all the wa y down the straigh ts and st uffing it in to th e turns like Hal f-mil e. T his s ty le required so me degree of co-operatio n fr o m th e machine. T o my surprise, the Holder handled quite wel l.