Cycle Round Up
EARLS COURT AND SPAIN
MY MONTH WAS brightened considerably by a visit to the Earls Court motorcycle show in London, and a side trip to Barcelona, Spain, as the guest of Montesa Motors to see the factory and a fascinating group of machines now in the prototype stages. Under the guidance of CW’s manabout-England B.R. “Nick” Nicholls, I spent a hurried day at the show examining all of the new British machines for 1965. Among the truly new are BSA’s 441cc Victor, the production version of 500cc moto-cross world champion Jeff Smith’s machine, and the intriguing new Bultaco 250 mounted in the Rickman brothers’ frame and to be sold by Bultaco. I had a brief visit with Britain’s Bert Greeves and took a close look at the new Silverstone racer, now fitted with all-Greeves engine. Triumph displayed their Goldmedal winning International Six Days Trial 650, Royal Enfield flaunted their newest prize, the 250cc Continental GT.
I spent a delightful time with Stanley Schofield, whose booth was being mobbed by English motorcycle fans picking up the latest pressings of Schofield’s motorcycle racing recordings of sounds of the 1964 Isle of Man TT. D. Lewis set up a complete motorcycle clothing store and was doing a land office business; even I succumbed to the buying fever and came home with a new pair of racing boots and a set of hand-tailored racing leathers are following. Velocette’s fascinating 500cc Venom Thruxton replica was previewed; it will soon be available in production form. Mitchenall laid out their entire line of fairings and other fiberglass motorcycle accessories, including the glass parts of the Métissé and Cottons.
Pete Colman from Johnson Motors, Triumph Distributors in the 19 Western States, Long Beach Triumph dealer Norm Reeves, and Berliner Motors’ Walt Von Schonfeld were among the many Americans viewing the products of the British cycle industry. Berliner teased the British by showing only the engine of the Ducati/ Berliner 1200cc four. Time did not allow us to prepare a full report of the Earls Court Show but we will make up for it in detail in next month’s issue.
Part of my short stay in Britain was spent in the West of England at the Chard Motorcycle Club’s annual scrambles, attended this year by Belgium’s 250cc world champion moto-cross expert Jeff Smith and his fantastic 420cc BSA, Greeves exponent and 1962 world champion Dave Bickers whose image graces the cover of this issue, and several other notables of the scrambles International set such as Bryan Sharp, Chris Horsfield, Dave Nicoll and J. Giles.
My traveling companions for the days were Montesa importer Kim Kimball and his partner in business, motor racing’s Dan Gurney, himself a motorcyclist to reckon with. Kimball and Gurney were no less speechlessly impressed with the racing demonstrated by Robert, a private in the Belgium army on leave, than I. Robert rides with a skilled ferocity like none I have ever seen with the machine rarely on the ground in a conventional manner. BSA’s Jeff Smith and the almost immortal Dave Bickers battled with Vic Eastwood, now also riding the new BSA Victor, but could not catch the charging Robert. Joel will be visiting the U.S. after the first of the year and plans on racing his 350cc CZ on the West Coast, an event that will not go without notice.
After a short hop on an Iberian airliner to Barcelona, Gurney, Kimball and I were received like visiting royalty by the Montesa factory. Montesa operates a well organized and modern manufacturing complex in the suburbs of Barcelona. We were guided by Modesto Solé and Alberto Sierra, of the Executive staff of the firm, and were entertained in a truly royal style at lunches, dinners, and even an evening at the glamorously beautiful Barcelona Opera as the guest of P. Permanyer, Montesa’s Director.
Montesa will soon offer a 250 production road racer, an extremely attractive trail machine, and a flexible sports/enduro model, all three of which we rode around the factory test tracks. This far-sighted, modern minded firm is gearing up for machines to satisfy the fast growing U.S. motorcycle market.
Our day was further enhanced when Montesa’s Spanish champion moto-cross rider Pedro Pi, along with Otto Valz and Fritz Belzlbacher of Germany who both ride Montesa in International motocross events, demonstrated all of the new machines for us. Special fun was had on a Montesa trials machine that could hold its own in any International competition. We felt right at home with this great bunch of enthusiasts and sportsmen, and though most of us could not understand a word the other was saying, the rapport we reached in our enjoyment of motorcycles was good fun. Several of the mechanics and machinists from the elaborate racing department joined in the fray and were riding the trials course, an important affair routed over rocks, packing boxes, ditches, etc., with two, three and even four men on one machine, all laughing so hard they were almost falling off.
Jorge Sirera, who with his brother Enrique led the Thruxton production race this year on a modified 250 Montesa, tore things up on the road racer around the course. Should Montesa decide to seek fame on the road racing scene, the Sirera brothers appear to be well qualified to represent them. My presence through all of this as the guest of Kimball and Dan Gurney was desired to seek my opinion of the new machines, recommend changes, etc., for which I was extremely flattered.
My visit was a pure delight, the results of which, I hope, will be an expansion of Montesa’s efforts and a widening of the line of bikes they offer the American rider. Viva Montesa!
Just prior to my departure, CYCLE WORLD was visited upon by two of England's leading motorcycling journalists, Vic Willoughby, Technical Editor of The Motor Cycle, and Brian McLoughlin, Editor of the leading weekly motorcycling newspaper, Motor Cycle News. We showed the boys around Southern California on a hurried two-day visit that ended with a short trip through Disneyland (they have little in the way of motorcycle displays by the way).
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Our fast tour of the city, confined to one afternoon, was limited to a stop at Harman & Collins Cams where they got a good look at what we do to such things as Triumphs in this country when they examined the H&C bike ridden by Clark White and tuned by Gary Robison of H&C. Shell Motors opened their doors so our guests could analyze the Enfields they keep running for Ascot stars Elliott Schultz and Guy Louis Jr. A party at my home proved that Englishmen are not all the straightlaced and dignified types our motion pictures paint them to be. The month of November was indeed an entertaining one for me.
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CYCLE WORLD'S THIRD ANNIVERSARY
Birthday time again for us at CYCLE WORLD, and now we are three! Technically, and we do like being technical about things, we were three years old with the December issue, our 36th. But, as before, we chose to celebrate our birthday with the January issue since our first efforts were dated January, 1962. It seems like a much longer time than a mere three years. Even funnier, we too have now seen motorcycle publications come and go.
CYCLE WORLD’S monthly issues now contain more pages of editorial and advertising than most of the cycling publications in the world and our leadership is marked by an ever increasingly wider gap. Our circulation, now over 60,000 copies sold per month, is still the greatest in this country. This figure, I must add, is not a figment of my imagination designed to pull the wool over the eyes of our advertisers, but a true figure that will be verified with our next Audit Bureau of Circulations audit. We continue to be the only motorcycle publication with a true and verified circulation audited by ABC. Sixty thousand incidentally, is CYCLE WORLD’S circulation, NOT the number of magazines we are printing. Virtually anyone can print magazines by the truckload; it is important only to know the number that are being bought and read, not used for packing in shipping crates.
The simple explanation of our reasons for being number one are still crystal clear; CYCLE WORLD is published for motorcycle enthusiasts, in an honest, independent, straightforward manner. No hankypanky with any advertiser; the simple truth. Our sincere allegiance to our readers is our success story. We do not claim anything particularly unusual in the field of human relations, but something quite different in the area of publications, particularly those devoted to motorcycles. 0
