Feed Back
FEED BACK
Readers, as well as those involved in the motorcycle industry, are invited to have their say about motorcycles they own or have owned. Anything is fair game: performance, handling, reliability, service, parts availability, lovability, you name it. Suggestions: be objective, be fair, no wildly emotional but illfounded invectives; include useful facts like mileage on odometer, time owned, model year, special equipment and accessories bought, etc.
CAN-AM 175 T’NT
I enjoy your magazine greatly and look forward to its arrival every month. I was reading Bahir Salib’s letter in the October “Feedback” column and thought I would also make a comment.
I purchased a ’74 Can-Am 175 T’NT during the last of May in ’75. After five months of getting to know the bike, I am pleased to know I can go down the highway two-up in fourth gear, pull up alongside an XL250, put it into fifth and leave him behind, stick it into sixth and watch him vanish behind me.
Now, 1000 miles later, I have a few complaints.
Not too long after buying the bike, two problems came up. One, oil started leaking from the gearshift kickstart lever shaft, at first not badly, then pouring out. The second was that the left number plate heat shield mounts broke.
Soon afterwards 1 felt my bike wasn’t running right. Back to Houston and the problem was found to be the same as the one you had stated in the May ’75 issue-defective engine seals. This, (as well as the kickstart lever seals), was fixed, again, all under warranty.
Later, more problems arose. The most important was plug-fouling. We had adjusted till we were blue in the face. I have bought an extra plug, but even so, it is discomforting not to know how far 1 can go. Second is the light bulbs. First the blinker lights were the problem, then it moved rearward to the taillight. The stoplight works and I have a whole bag of ’em for backups, but a taillight is nice when the sun goes down.
But all in all I have been very pleased with my bike, and with being able to walk away from my friends and anyone else. I am convinced my months of hard work were and are worth the money I put out for the bike.
Perry Finger LaMarque, Texas
COTA CONTROVERSY
I’m just getting to read three old copies of CYCLE WORLD that I really had to shop for because I wanted the “Trials Notebook” articles written and produced through the cooperation of Bob Nickelsen and Mike Obermeyer. Elliot Schultz tipped me off to the articles at his trials school in Roaring Branch Motosport, Pennsylvania (the site of one National trials event). Yesterday I sent a check and subscription for your magazine.
Today I wrote Nickelsen a note of congratulations for his effort in your behalf and also for his part as Honda trials team coordinator.
Thumbing through the pages of the April issue of CYCLE WORLD, I came across “Round Up” and a picture of Malcolm Rathmell. Actually the VIVA T-shirt caught my eye. Very interesting about Rathmell’s choice of a 310cc bike. I hope to see him in Rhode Island this summei at the International.
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Now for the mind-blowing sentence, “Montesa Motors over here has in the meanwhile announced that the Rathmell replica will be called the Cota 348MRR, which suggests that it is larger than the 310cc. I object to your editorial comment: “which suggests that it is larger than the 310cc.” I bought a Cota 172 sight unseen. Dereck Edgar of Montesa Motors, Inc. sent me the first advertising I saw on the machine when I inquired about enlarging the engine on my Cota 123. The advertising did not say a thing about the engine on the Cota 172, except that it was a two-stroke. When I was in the hospital last week with something between a pinched nerve in my neck and cardiac problems, I read in the owners manual that I bought a 172-lb. motorcycle with a 157.5cc engine displacement. My daughter read it in Spanish and my neighbor read it in French, so this is much more than a misprint. I say it is fraud to sell a motorcycle by the pound rather than by the traditional engine displacement. Soooooo, Mr. Parkhurst, you better check your speculation out—completely—before you editorialize too favorably toward Montesa Motors. I miss the additional 14.5cc that I expected to get when I bought a Cota 172; and more than a few guys may also be disappointed if the Cota 348MRR is not all they were lead to believe.
My Cota 172 calculates out to 157.2cc the way I figured using the Montesa owners guide figures for bore and stroke, but I won’t argue that because I only multiplied two places to the right of the decimal point. I wonder how Ralph Nader and some of those hot to trot consumer advocates would handle this situation? The flack will fly because a lot of people now know about my experience; unless Montesa can buy silence. My dealer is a great guy and I have absolutely no squabble with him. He, and another Montesa dealer he talked to last Sunday, didn’t know about this displacement rip-off; so Montesa is sure hurting its people. Could it be that Whaley and Eggar left the Montesa trials team because of hanky panky or maybe an outright hosing?
I bought the Cota 172 from a dealer who broke his hump keeping my old Cota 123 running and ready for competition at every District 6 trials. I didn’t have a single DNF throughout the season. It earned me the unofficial Senior
class number one slot and I sure was proud of that. All four of my daughters ride and their mom wrenches, coaxes, and cheers them on at the Youth class trials. One of the kids’ bikes is a Cota 25; and a Cota 48 might have been in the offing, but now all I can say is—.
Ted Newmarker Schyler County, N.Y.
It is just a coincidence that the Cota 1 72 weighs 1 72 lb. The machine started out as a 1 72cc trialer, but testing at the factory indicated that the 157.5 size was much better for trials work. As to the 348 being only a 310, there were some 348s running around about a year or two ago but, again, testing showed that 310cc was the best for trials. Unfortunately, the name 348 stuck, as did the 1 74 on the smaller machine. In either case, the purchaser is not getting gyped, but is receiving what the factory engineers consider to be the finest overall package. — Ed.
QUICK TRADE-IN
I’ve been reading CYCLE WORLD for just over a year, and have always enjoyed “Feedback” and the opinions of others. I purchased my first bike, a 1972 Yamaha Enduro, about a year ago. I had nothing but headaches and problems with it. I bought it from Jermoos House Of Wheels located in Mauston, Wise. They deal in Hondas, and since I purchased a Yamaha from them, they said if anything went wrong with it, they’d fix it. Well, plenty went wrong, and I was given a bull rap about “We’re sorry, but we don’t deal in Yammies, so there’s not much we can do.” Although they did replace the kickstarter. But that’s all!
The battery went dead the first half-hour I’d even owned the damnable machine; it fouled out a plug; gas started leaking; the float was forever stuck in the carb; and the engine blew up. After much money spent and the half-assed “Sorry, we can’t help you,” from Jermoos, I finally got the thing running. Two or three weeks later, somebody stole it. Four months later it was recovered by the Waukesha Sheriffs Dept. Then, the wire running from the engine to the spark plug fell apart, so I hung it up and put it away for the winter. This spring I started riding in April or so; the spokes started falling off or breaking from the back tire, the headlight shorted out, and on a crossstate trip I got 40 miles from home cruising with a friend on his Honda 100, when mine once again blew up.
That was the last day I ever rode it. I put it in the trunk of the car, hauled it to LaCrosse, Wis., and traded it in on a 1970 Suzuki T200.
I rode the Suzi from LaCrosse to Milwaukee, stopping in Madison for the night. I purchased the bike from Bill’s Cycle Inn in the downtown area. Even though he deals in Yammies, he threw in a warranty on the engine and transmission. I won’t hesitate to say that the Suzi is a fine piece of machine. I believe it will be an extremely long time before I decide to trade it in. I just hope nobody steals it.
Nancy Ewers Milwaukee, Wis.
IT’S THE RIDERS NOT THE BIKES
I just received my November issue and read with great interest Mr. Fischer’s letter. It has occurred to me from time to time while reading “Feedback” and letters of a similar vein in other publications that many of the complaints are rider induced. Certainly no manufacturer can produce, at a price any of us could afford, motorcycles or anything else without turning out a lemon from time to time. Some are involved in citrus production more than others too.
But all in all, the motorcycles available as of late are strong and reliable, especially considering the level of nonmaintenance usually given them. No break in, using a bike for purposes for which it was not designed, improper lubrication, and/or improper operation can and frequently do lead to failure. Then the rider screams “junk” when he lunches the engine or breaks the frame. Anything made by man can be broken. In fact, I’ve figured out how to bugger up most every mechanical contrivance I’ve ever owned. However, I’ve also learned to place the blame on the proper individual —usually me.
In the interest of fairness to dealers, manufacturers and riders too, I would suggest that all riders obtain a factory shop manual or other good service manual and read it. This is especially true of dirt riders. It’s far cheaper to do things yourself, and most servicing can be done by the rider. Obviously those who have zero mechanical ability are in a tight spot. But I find it hard to believe that changing plug and oil, adjusting and lubing the chain, adjusting the clutch and its cable and the brakes is beyond anyone’s ability. Anyone who is more than a very casual dirt rider had better know how to do all of these things and more, or be prepared for a lot of grief and expense.
As far as Roger Rainbow is concerned, I only hope that for everyone else’s sake he quits riding and driving both. Anyone who can run into a parked car will probably do something worse sooner or later. I’m not worried about him, but all the poor innocents who might be in his way.
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Keep up the good work. CYCLE WORLD has improved vastly in its nearly 14 years of publication and has improved the quality of every other motorcycle publication because of their efforts to keep up.
Larry Willet Seattle, Wash.
A SIN OF OMISSION
Em not writing this letter to down any product, just the distributor for the product. In March of 1975 I purchased a Pacifico Battery Eliminator from Cycle Accessory World, Gainesville, Fla., which receives this product from Rocky Cycle Co., 1250 Elko Dr., P.O. Box 1431, Sunnyvale, Calif. This was purchased for my 1974 RD350 Yamaha. Nowhere in the advertisements or installation instructions did it state that the B.E. was not suited for my bike. Other bikes were listed, but not an RD350.
After finding that the B.E. would not work on my bike, I tried to return it for a refund. The shop said it could not do this because Rocky Cycle would not reimburse them. The B.E. was sent back to Pacifico and tested and found to be in excellent working order. Now I am out the full purchase price and have a B.E. I cannot use.
I am hoping that this letter may save other owners of RD350s the expense that it cost me when I tried to save a little weight on a bike I plan to race in the near future.
William A. Davis (Si Gainesville, Fla.
