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/1523461
M otocross, as defined by the wise journalist- turned-Catholic priest, Paul "The Bazzer" Boudreau, is like a phonograph. The earth, he said, is God's LP, a vinyl land- scape of sorts, and when we are on our motocross bikes, we are the stylus, playing the music of the Creator's terrain. The melody may be a ring- ding ditty or it might be a suck, squeeze, bang and blow bal - lad—but it is a composition that has been playing a beautiful melody for many years. It is also a chorus of many nations: Japan, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Canada and even the USA have all sang in the choir at one time or another. For a brief time, our brethren to the south in Mexico lent their voice to the anthem of motocross, with their brand called "Carabela." Were the Mexicans on pitch? Off key? That depends upon the ear of the listener, the personal taste of the racer. As a philo - sophical Cycle News scribe wrote in the November 20, 1973 issue "One man's motorcycle may be another man's bilge pump." It was in that same issue that Cycle News put a '74 model Carabela 125 to the test. CN, it seemed, had taken exception to a monthly magazine's (Dirt Bike) "thoroughly negative opinions" on the Mexican machine in a recent test. The staff had seen the bike in action at local tracks, with solid results, and decided that the motorcycle deserved a chance to redeem itself. In those days, the motorcycling media carried a very big stick; a bad motorcycle, along with its manu - facturer, could be pounded into history by an unhappy magazine staffer. Carabela's 125cc MX'er, ac- cording to CN, was "a high-strung racer that needs judicious break- ing in and proper tuning" in order to compete in a rapidly growing field of 125cc machines, includ- ing Honda's Elsinore, Yamaha's MX and Suzuki's TM 125 mod- els, along with European offer- ings from Bultaco, Sachs and Husqvarna, all lining up behind forward-falling gates at tracks across America. Like some Euro bikes, frugal engineers at Carabela saved pe - sos by sharing the 125's running gear with its bigger brothers. The little Carabela really wasn't so lit- tle, at least when compared to its competition, tipping the scales at over 200 pounds. The Carabela rider had better be a flyweight fighter, because they had spotted their Honda Elsinore competitor CNIIARCHIVES P138 HECHO EN MEXICO BY KENT TAYLOR THE 1974 CARABELA 125 MOTOCROSSER According to a review by Cycle News staffer in 1973, the Mexican-made 1974 Carabela 125 motocrosser had improved over the previous year's model.