Letters
LETTERS
AND, IN THIS ARENA...
The last letter written to you was misunderstood. it was written by myself. Sam Arena Junior, not my dad. Also, it was not aimed at your fine magazine.
However, in answer to your answer, I have not been reading the wrong race results. I agree. H-D does win the big share of National events. The H-D people try very hard to do well in these events. Why. because it is the only thing we have. Let’s face it, where do you think sportsmen's events came from? From people slowly trying to choke off Harley-Davidson! Go ahead, go to the sportsmen’s events and count the Harleys. See any?
The only thing I am trying to say is, I think all motorcycles are good ones. But let’s include H-D in that group too. You would have a hard time trying to get a foreign motorcycle fan to say H-D was a good bike.
You see. the only thing we can't understand is first, they laugh and call the Harley all sorts of names (some arc pretty good though), tell us the foreign bike is faster. Í repeat, they say they are faster, then when they get beat by a H-D. OH BOY! Then all of a sudden everything is unfair! How dare they run that thing with all those inches! It was this type of cry baby that I wrote the first letter to. I have many close buddies who ride foreign bikes and they are tops with me.
Where did you ever get the idea you can’t buy a Harley Dav like they use on the track? Come on in to our place, we would be more than happy to sell you one. Our overgrown motorcycle as you call it was racing when all the makes were the same size. Then the foreign bikes came in. the AMA didn't bar them, they let them come in and race. Since that day to right now. they have pushed their way into the rules, pushing out some American machines with their prices and now H-D is the only one left.
I think H-D has done a fine job with a fine motorcycle to stay and welcome competition. As for cubic inches, we were here first, so I think it is up to the foreign bikes to change their engine sizes if they don’t like it! NOT us! Once again, we really enjoy your magazine. It is the finest to come out, keep up the good work.
SAM ARF.NA, JR. Harley-Davidson Sales & Svc. San Jose, California
Sorry for the misunderstanding, and ire are happy to know you have some friends riding other makes of machines; shows you are normal since the other guys constitute the majority. We appreciate the fact the Harley-Davidson was first and that they became outnumbered by the competition, and that only H-D has survived the foreign invasion, and in one sense has even joined them (many hundreds of Harleys are made in Italy, a point you conveniently by-passed), and that things have been changing as they always do. We are patriotic enough to feeI badly about the state of the American motorcycle industry, but facts are facts and they must be dealt with as such. Foreign hikes comprise the overwhelming hulk of our industry and dominate virtually every facet of it. Talking about the "old days," a homely habit often heard in the motorcycle industry, will solve nothing. Tragic as it is to some, it is our industry that must how since if it were not for foreign motorcycles, there would not he any motorcycle sport in this country. AT ALL! As for our finding a KR H-D on your showroom floor, with full road equipment, you are either extremely naive, or have been saving one for ten years or so since they were last built in true quantity production. Ed.
(Continued on page 24)
THE COLLEGIATE VIEW
I have witnessed the respectability revolution in action in greater Boston this year, with the cycle population of M.I.T. just about doubling. Your magazine has become a fixture in our dorm, with at least five of my friends as avid fans and readers of my mag! I am a junior in Aeronautics and own a Ducati Monza which I have ridden about 1 (),()()() miles.
Your letters column has brought great mirth to us this year; your wry comments probably make you the David Brinkley of cycledom. Some of the letters are so fantastic I wonder if they really reflect the mail you actually get. We have followed the ape-hanger, Duo-Glide wars with bated breath. I agree with your stand on the former; from a safety, physics angle, they must be uncontrollable. The individuality, right or wrong, attitude is obviously fallacious; no one has the right to endanger the lives of fellow motorists.
The Harley battle is much more complex and confused; you. and most of your readers are anti-hood, the more articulate (?) hoods are strongly pro-Harley, and thus they, and regrettably H-D also, have misconstrued this into an anti-HarleyDavidson attitude. I firmly believe you are not this, but are being objective only.
I find your magazine a real marvel; having some experience with the M.I.T. humor magazine, Voo Doo, I can appreciate the job you do each month. I am especially pleased by your lay-out; it is much better to have an article run continuously than to have to “turn to page etc.” I agree with the letters that have said CYCLE WORLD is the best sport-enthusiast publication around. I am really delighted by the graphs and figures and the technical articles.
With all of the race coverage and the sun-sets-over-our-handlebars touring stories there is painfully little about just plain old how to control the damn thing when the rear wheel locks up. or howto “put down” a moving cycle, etc. In other w'ords, what is desperately needed is a comprehensive series of articles on how to manage a motorcycle in and out of abnormal situations. One may assume your readership can start, drive, shift, corner, and bring himself home in one piece 99% of the time. But, that last time, when you are leaned over and you must stop quickly, there is little to guide you.
In your test of the Lambretta 200 scooter you mention something about crossing up the wheels in a panic stop. Now I have been riding two-wheelers for three years and I don't even know what the hell the term means! I think this type of information should be disseminated as soon as possible or you are going to lose some of your skinny kids due to accidents that could have been prevented by some knowledge of a bike’s limits and capabilities. I also humbly suggest a glossary of terms for the uninitiated (I didn’t find out what TT and ISDT meant for a long time).
I find your road tests most interesting and accurately done. I respect the trouble you take to arrive at your data. Your write-ups are marvels of wit (crouched elephants, low-flying birds, etc.), but certain points bug me. The first is the reference to the elusive neutral, leads me to wonder just which machines do have elusive neutrals. The second is the habit of mentioning the obvious points, such as swing arms and telescopic forks. Anyone who knows what the words mean surely could see for himself from the excellent pictures.
In general, your tests seem a little too good to be true. The closest you have ever come to really criticizing a bike was the Junak, and perhaps the 74. In order to get a more realistic appraisal, one must interpret the reports more thoroughly. In any case. I think your Pollyanna approach “no matter how bad the bike is, there must be something for which it is suited,” could be stiffened a little.
(Continued on page 26)
I think it was a poor move to road test the Super Hawk again; it is furthermore foolish to retest it when no improvements have been made (vs. the Ducati Diana which now has more power and five gears). I have been waiting a long time for a test of the Norton 400, a bike that could be a real winner. Of course, it is fun to play editor for a while, and I realize you have responsibilities and problems I am not aware of. I hope you keep doing the excellent job you are now doing, and am looking forward to bigger and better things for CYCLE WORLD, and especially G. Jennings. Any time you run short of advice, just drop me a line and I will try to help.
BILL DEL HAGEN Cambridge, Mass.
Considering such weighty advice without our having requested it, we just may call upon you one of these days. We re-tested the Super Hawk for the benefit of our newer readers and the popularity of the machine, and you must have noticed the Ducati in this issue. A test of the Norton 400 Electra is in the works; we have delayed testing one until the current models, considerably improved over the initial prototypes, were available. Ed.
CYCLING FOR A GOOD CAUSE
The Saint Louis Motorcycle Club has undertaken the sponsoring of a little league softball team for the 1964 season. The team is presently tied for first place, having won their last game by 15-2.
ROBERT R. CHILDERS Lemany, Missouri
AMEN
A continuous, tiring, and space consuming bickering between devotees of both domestic and foreign motorcycles has been featured in the pages of our motorcycle publications for the last twenty-five years. This might happily come to an end once and for all. if those concerned could forget blind and unthinking prejudice long enough to look at the historic background for the reasons why the two types are so divergent in engineering concept, and why one cannot readily be reconciled with the other.
The cheap, mass-produced model T Ford and cheap gasoline sounded the death knell of the motorcycle as a utilitarian transportation media fifty years ago in the United States. The casual buyer of transportation could have fair weather protection and carry four or five people for substantially the same price as the cost of a good motorcycle. This soon relegated the latter to those who employed a twowheeler for the sheer sport of the thing, plus limited use for police and highway patrol work. The fast and durable machines that subsequently developed domestically in the decades of the 20's and 30’s for this specialized use won worldwide renown as being the best of their type.
In foreign countries, economic conditions in the contemporary decades created a vastly different circumstance. The lack of low cost cars and the low wage scales for the average citizen brought the small light motorcycle into its own as a logical means of getting about. Its high state of development and its efficiency with small cylinder sizes and extreme economy came about through natural evolution and factors of sales competition. Its existence in large numbers kept it in constant public focus, with the early day interest in road racing, offering spectator sport and secondarily the advances that came in this critical school of trial and error for more durable machines. The small numbers of machines produced in this country during the same period did not exist in numbers sufficient to keep alive such interest.
That domestic manufacturers did not at once develop good lightweight machines was not entirely their fault. Too many * early day attempts at selling light utility machines foundered in the face of the massive production in Detroit, and the consequent glut of cheap used cars. For this reason too, domestic light machines never had the technical benefits from the maker’s putting out large continuous runs of models through the years.
Domestic manufacturers have further been hampered in their efforts to produce sound machines at low cost by inflation, excessive taxation creating artificial costs, plus the costs of feather-bedded labor penalties stemming from creeping socialism and the welfare state concept.
The gulf between domestic and foreign types is being bridged lately by some imports that approach homebuilt models in size, weight, speed, and power that cater to those who like high speed touring types for heavy duty use, not to mention cost.
In place of starting a battle, if one is so inclined, when a brand name is mentioned, it would be more mature to analyze the particular machine in the light of the intended use.
For a fast coast-to-coast trip, the knowledgeable rider would choose a 74" H-D over a Parilia. A twenty-mile round trip made daily to work could be made most economically on a Cushman or Vespa scooter. A lavishly equipped scrambler would be way far out for weekend pottering on country highways, and on ad infinitum.
Let’s grow up, two-wheelers, and look first at the other rider’s point of view. It’s still a free country. Let’s give the editor more space for more articles on new machines, road tests, and technical data that has worthwhile interest for all. Personal preference being what it is, the more types and makes we see, more and more riders will swell our ranks as time goes by. What with an ever-shrinking world, each make of machine has some features to contribute for the technical advances of all.
HARRY V. SUCHER Garden Grove, Calif. I
