Letters
LETTERS
STRANGE AMUSEMENT
I must say your letters in your magazine are quite something. The fellows that “moan & groan” about H-D and the AMA are the most amusing!
I have taken the time to take results from scrambles, race meets, hillclimbs, enduros and club events, and I don’t see one make of machine dominating the winner’s circle. H-D wins, but they get beat plenty, also.
This looks like pretty good competition to me. How can rules favor one machine if the results show many different motorcycles in the winner’s circle?
Of course, I have been around motorcycles since I was very young, and I know that the fellows that sit and complain about the rules of any association are all wrong, are far from the winner’s circle. The top competition riders could care less what the name on the gas tank says. If it is legal to ride, and they think it can win, they will ride it! The complaining and constant protest about rules and make of motorcycles is strictly “bush league STUFF.”
So man, if you don’t like the AMA, and can’t stand to see the H-D win once in a while, take a plane, boat, or crawl to Europe, where they won’t allow a Harley to bug you. If you take a boat, try not to complain too much about the motor noise, or the handling qualities, it is not powered by a H-D.
SAM ARENA Harley-Davidson Sales & Svc. San Jose, California
Again we mast cross swords with another well known and respected member of the elder statesmen of the motorcycle world. The “one-make” controversy is concerned solely with professional racing. We would like very much to see National results reading like sporting events where every make on the market is a winner at one time or another; instead we have an oversize machine that is not even available on the market dominating a category supposedly devoted to modified production machines. We have never yet met a competent, able, professional racer who didn’t care which machine he was riding. With all due respect, Mr. Arena, you haven’t been reading the right results. Ed.
...AND THEN HE WROTE
Please reduce our CYCLE WORLD magazines to one a month. Your letters section has become just too much. If your opinions are based on polished crankcases and obsolete innards, and they appear to be, then your opinions concerning HarleyDavidson and the AMA don’t count too much.
We sold foreign products for 9 years and Harley for almost 2. Harley-Davidson takes a back seat to none. Please dry yourself behind the ears and take another look around.
ALBERT THIBODEAU Tibby’s Harley-Davidson Sales Springfield, Mass.
It is beginning to look like we have drawn battle lines with every H-D dealer
we can muster. It appears this is so because we seem to be subjected to continued misinterpretation. Our remarks concerning the finish on castings was in answer to Mr. Don Pink and we are sorry he ever mentioned it as we pretty well agree how relative their importance is. As for being dry behind the ears, we think the magazine itself pretty well speaks for the abilities of our staff. Better you should ask us to STOP looking around. As for that single copy per month, we commend your desire to keep up with what is going on, but why deprive your customers of the same advantage? Ed.
GOOD OLD CHARLEY
Man. do I dig your mag ... I really like them little stories on them oldies, but goodies. And, talk about oldies, I got three Czechs, a 1947, a 1948, and a 1951. I would enjoy you copying my letter in your mag. If you done that I could really show guys in our city that I was important to you.
I got my first machine when I was only 8, it was a Harley-Davidson 1949 125cc, battery ignition. It was a real winner, if you know what I mean.
Adios and all that good stuff!
CHARLEY ORMSBY Casey, Illinois
HONEST APPRAISAL
I am doing something I have wanted to do for a long time; express my thanks and gratitude for your honest appraisal in road tests of motorcycles, no matter the make or model. In some quarters road tests may be a bone of contention and food for argument. However, as a reference for comparative analysis, I believe it is a necessity in that the average rider is better able to choose a machine to suit his needs and pocket book. I know your bread and butter comes from advertisers and there have been screams from the wings. Please retain your ideals of truth and honesty and you will be admired I’m sure.
Manufacturers and distributors and dealers that have any faith in their own products should not object to tests of their machines that are fair and that give equality to all makes and models. Due to the fact that most makes of motorcycles are mass produced there will be slight differences in performances between machines of the same make and model. I will close with the opinion that a little stronger constructive criticism might not hurt a bit.
EDWARD J. FLEMING Crescent City, Calif.
OBJECTIVITY ACCLAIMED
I wish to compliment you on your objective viewpoint and comprehensive coverage of the current motorcycle situation. I am an old timer, having first ridden an opposed twin Harley-Davidson in 1927, and afterwards some Indians and British makes as well. I have lately returned to the game.
In reviewing the present resurgence of motorcycling with the use of really advanced examples of lightweight machines, mostly foreign, by large numbers of people who ordinarily would not be motorcycle riders, an old theory of mine is borne out; domestic manufacturers too long ignored the lightweight motorcycle as an entity of utilitarian transportation, and foreign makers too long neglected lightweight development as sporting machinery.
(Continued on page 52)
At least today we have such machines, and they are indeed capable of most amazing performance when one looks on the lightweights of the immediate postwar period. It is at long last good to see ordinary citizens buzzing about happily on two wheels, and it is nice to have really good machines that offer something to the beginning rider, as well as for us old timers who just aren’t sharp enough anymore to cruise at 85 mph or agile enough to manhandle heavyweight machines, but who still like to feel the breeze going by.
It is too bad that we still have with us the echoes of the roughneck namebrand element, but as in all things, time conquers all. In the next ten years it is not too visionary to look for some five million Americans enjoying the economy, transportation, and the sheer fun of motorcycling. Good publications, with a broad point of view, will do muclf to bring this about.
HARRY V. SUCHER, D.V.M.
Garden Grove, California
PEN PALS WANTED
I wish to find a pen-friend in America who would be willing to exchange English and American motorcycle magazines, catalogs, etc. I am 17Vi years old, I ride a 250cc Francis Barnett and work as a motorcycle mechanic. I think CYCLE WORLD is the tops.
ROGER C. COCKS 73 Highams Hill Gossops Green Crawley, Sussex England
May I thank you for a first class magazine; many hours of my life are spent reading it and admiring your custom machines, we don’t have many over here. I am lucky as I can obtain CW easily from an American-type store; Dick Wyler’s in Worchester Park.
I hope soon to build an American-type cvcle with a lot of chrome using a Norton 500cc, I hope to start a trend in my area. Could you put me in contact with an American motorcyclist living in California who wants an English pen-friend. I look forward to many more enjoyable hours reading a first class motorcycle magazine. RICHARD CARTER 15 Winkworth Road Banstead, Surrey England
SOONER, BUT BETTER
I have just two complaints:
1. How come you don’t cover the desert events? Is it too rough for your photographers and reporters to get out and report on these events? I wish you would give the desert events just one quarter the coverage you give road racing.
2. How come the local cycle shop and the newstands get CYCLE WORLD before I do? I know people who subscribe to other magazines that get their copy weeks before the magazine racks do.
Other than these two small complaints you have the best magazine on the stands. Thank you for listening.
JERRY H. HAWORTH Fontana, California
They ARE pretty rough to cover, but our reasons are simply that the interest is shared by too few of our readers. We try to cover the more important events and will continue to do so. Road racing participants and enthusiasts outnumber you by much more than one quarter. Thanks though for the kind words and endorsement. Ed.
STILL OUTSPOKEN
The “outspoken criticism” of Norman L. Gruber (CW Letters, July ’64). is commendable and, on most points, well taken. An improvement might he the deletion of “of motorcycling” from the second paragraph. He states the necessity of finding someone with “enough guts, brains, influence or whatever the hell, etc.,” and then announces his intention to lend financial support to an organization he obviously detests. It ain’t reasonable.
Now, what do you suppose would happen if all the Norman Grubers sent their two bucks to the A.F.M., or the A.A.M.R.R. instead of gritting their teeth? Also, the possibility exists that Norman is persona non grata with whoever it is that’s getting fat. in which case he’ll end up with a loose deuce with potential use. (Maybe someone could rework that last into a crusade motto).
The attitude of “if you can’t heat ’em, join ’em” has probably been one of the predominant reasons why dictatorships can survive in spite of minority, and occasionally majority, opinion. If all of the Norman Grubers would bust out of their selfimposed acceptance of subjection, the heads counted might number in the “steens.” And “steen” people are all that’s necessary for a helluva good argument.
Keep the magazine coming in the present form. There ain’t none better.
LE ROY J. DUNCAN Hamilton, Ontario Canada
IMAGE PROBLEM IN CANADA TOO
I only got into the two-wheel game in 1959, on a borrowed Triumph, but the bug caught me and since I’ve owned an old BMW, two Hondas, and now a new BMW R-69-S, which for my money does far more than it is supposed to. I have admiration and respect for the big machines since here in Canada everything on wheels is taxed (we don’t have a cycle industry), hence the tax on all machines coming into Canada whether they be American, Japanese, German, or what have you. British machines are favored by our government in regards to duties, hence the extreme popularity of them here.
The point of all this is that the same type of creep as Woose Fisher and King Leith exists North of the border too, especially in Quebec Province and from around Toronto. We do have “clean” men who ride Harley-Davidsons from Hamilton and they make an impressive sight in sharp uniforms and clean machines. But, it is always the fink group blasting through town that undoes all the good work of the quiet ones. And, it is not black leather that determines the calibre of the rider . .. I always head out in full set of Langlitz leathers, plus a clean skid-lid (helmet!) and polished boots. From the general reaction I receive, people dig, but they don’t know why.
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I average about 12,000 to 15,000 miles per year and have never had trouble being admitted to the better hotels or restaurants on the BMW (!) when on a long tour. Now that Laconia is no more and Watkins Glen was out last year, it’s time to take stock. What is going to happen to the sport in the Eastern U.S.? Now that we have so many skinny little kids riding around on Hondas, Nortons, Yamahas, Triumphs, etc., champing at the bit to ride out and see what Laconia and the Glen are like, we don’t have the opportunity to show them, thanks to the Woose Fisher types.
Five years ago I didn’t notice much hostility among riders of different machines; rivalry yes . . . but now that the market is flooded with machines of very advanced design, being enjoyed by guys
who would normally never have thought about owning motorcycles, it seems too bad that some of the really great gettogethers around which whole vacations were planned . . . are gone.
This skinny little kid (155 lbs. 5' 8") intends to keep riding. Two years ago I visited 10 states and covered 10,000 miles in 3 weeks; last October I made a circuit of Germany, mainly on two-wheels, and made a lot of good friends who keep faith with letters. I really believe you see the country and get a totally different .perspective when touring by cycle; it is about the last chance for adventure in our highly civilized and regulated lives. ART COLLINS CFRB Radio Toronto, Ontario Canada
FAMILY MOTORCYCLING
After reading your road test of the Ducati Monza I went to the nearest Ducati dealer to see it. Results were that my wife and I traded our 1962 125cc Ducati Bronco on a 1963 Monza as she found the Bronco just didn’t have tjie speed she wanted while we were riding in traffic.
After a few months I ended up selling my 200cc English machine and bought a Monza for myself. We now have a matched set! I would like to welcome all
bike riders to come to see our beautiful country and ride through it. Whether he rides a 74 or a little 50cc machine it doesn’t matter, just as long as he conducts himself in a good manner.
DEAN A. RANDALL Omak. Washington
HONDA CUSTOM
I own this slightly modified Honda C-110, you con customize those little
“lemon squeezers.” I converted it to a 55 enabling me to cruise at 45-50 mph quite easily. I cut the fender so I can easily unbolt it when I race in the 50 to lOOcc class, also a megaphone was installed. Then came an oversized 2.75 x 17 tire, finally a custom seat I designed was added. Total cost: $34.53. That is one thing
big bikes can’t offer, low cost. I wish to thank my tuner George Orno, and Honda Oxnard (Calif.) for their help.
ALBERT ESCALANTE
Port Hueneme, Calif.
PRAISE TO THE EAST
I found your article on the Norton/ Vincent an excellent one, but do not like
to see all the praise placed on one individual. Here in the East, an ingenious young man by the name of Peter Ness has just completed his Norton/Vincent combination. Mr. Ness resides in Milford, Connecticut, and has spent many long nights toiling with his machine.
CHRISTOPHER D. RYAN
Albany, New York •
