Roundup
ROUNDUP
VOL. 17 NO. 9
FRIENDS ON THE ROAD II
Two issues back we left our friend Robert Runyard, Yamaha's technical writer, after the first 1000 miles of his planned ride to Tierra del Fuego. In this communique, we learn that while he's made it to South America, the motorcycle hasn't. Not yet, anyway.—Ed.
They told me this would happen. I'm waiting here in Medellin, Colombia, for the air freight arrival of my 650 Yamaha, which should have been on the cargo plane a week ago.
First, let me go back to where I left off. in Baja California. We (Buddy Parriott and I) took the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan. only to end up sleeping on deck during the overnight crossing.
We passed through Guadalajara, where I had gone to summer school nine years earlier, then on to Mexico City with its outrageous traffic. The Latin rhythm extends to driving too. You must sort of hustle into the traffic dance and try not to bump.
Buddy returned to the U.S. and I continued on alone. Soon 1 was rocketing across the landscapes of coffee plantations. smoking volcanoes, and smiling iguanas.
Cróssing the 1 1.000-foot pass of Cerro la Muerte in Costa Rica. I nearly froze, but soon it was steaming lowlands again.
Panama. After a week alone and in need of a good rest. I stumbled into the Canal Zone and a little bit of home away from home. Actually, it was an oasis in the form of the armed forces motorcycle clubhouse: For a week I stayed at the facility of that group, the Road Knights, while I arranged for transportation. Anyone heading in that direction would do well to contact the club at Albrook Air Force Station in the Canal Zone.
The Panamerican Highway doesn't go very far beyond the Panama airport. From there to Colombia is a never-never land of jungles and swamps and Indians still in control of certain areas that the government respectfully leaves alone. About the fauna I was told stories like. “There are 1 1 varieties of coral snakes, and anti-venom available for 7 of those.” Fortunately. I thought. I can fly the motorcycle over the jungles for only $75. My military friends had seen many such travelers come and go.
They cautioned me about being so certain. I should have listened.
Now I've just come back from the airport here in Colombia. The bike is a week overdue, and so I searched out one of the cargo line pilots with the help of the local Yamaha parts manager. The pilot appeared more distraught than I when he explained how the plane had taken off from Panama and soon suffered an engine failure. When the plane neared the last mountain range another engine started to sputter and lose altitude. The order was given to jettison cargo, which included my bike. But at the last minute one of the failing engines revived, and the cargo plane returned to Panama.
Well, there is a bright side. I've met some fascinating people here in Medellin. There are these American teachers, an artist, some architects, the son of the former governor, and this particularly charming English-speaking young woman who works at the foreign-language bookstore. And just now I don't care if that motorcycle never gets here.
BENELLI HEADS WEST
If you've been hungering for news of the arrival of the new 900cc version of the Benelli Sei. jot this address down: Rivlex Industries, Inc.. 301 E. Stevens Ave.. Santa Ana, Calif. 92707, telephone (714) 5408814. In a recently concluded deal. Rivlex has assumed U.S. distribution rights for Benelli's motorcycle and moped lines.
Rivlex expects to be marketing some of the new bikes, as well as established members of the Benelli family, by late summer or early fall.
Benelli’s former U.S. distributor was Cosmopolitan Motors of Hatboro, Pa.
XS11 FAIRING
Yramaha’s new XS11 super tourer is going to be seen wearing all sorts of fiberglass up front, but few setups will be as well mated to the bike as the one you’re looking at here. That’s because this fairing, drawn up by British designer John Mockett, was done specifically for the XS11.
Mockett began the project before the XS11 was even out of Yamaha R&D, opening his wind tunnel testing program with one-fifth scale models before producing a working prototype. This was mounted on an XS750 until a test version of the XS11 was available.
The fairing is said to reduce overall drag by about 20 percent from the naked bike, and reduce high speed front wheel lift by 30 percent.
Production versions of the fairing will bolt right up to stock XS11 bars and is designed to mate with stock headlamp and turn signals.
The setup is currently available as a dealer option in Europe. No word yet on American availability.
COMING FROM HONDA
Several news items, official and otherwise. Official is that the CBX, introduced earlier this year as a 1978 model but not actually put into production, will be an early 1979 offering, within weeks after this appears in print.
What happened? Advertising and marketing got ahead of the production department, as happens in the best of companies. The engineers weren’t sure they had everything right and they refused to turn loose until it was right. Details? There have been some changes to the engine, for sure. And there will be some trim changes. We won’t know about suspension and chassis details until the first actual production bikes are on view.
The people at Honda are as sorry for the delay as they can be. All those ads and no product cost Honda sales. In the long run, though, the CBX will be better for it.
Still officially, the CR250R is winning races and all the year’s production is sold, but there have been running changes. There are now optional fork and shock springs, for racing and play riding, and you can buy a silencer/spark arrester to make the CR forest and enduro legal. (The Honda enduro team is using kitted CRs in the 250 class. And doing well.)
Honda officials say the four-strokes used in the open enduro class are modified XL250s, leading to a prediction that the bigger thumper isn’t far off.
Strictly unofficial, our friends within say there will be a new sports Honda for 1979. It will be a 750 Four, inline across the frame, with four-valve head, narrowed engine and jackshaft, like the CBX. It will have the stressed-engine frame, and the first ones are en route at this writing. >
BMW ENDURO
There’s a new class in European trials and enduro events for 750cc and up this year, and this is Herbert Schek’s response: a BMW R80-based dirt bike.
Schek's BMW Motorsport company plans to assemble a limited series of these machines for use in the big displacement classes.
Although particulars were sketchy at press time, we know that Schek. a veteran of some 25 years of trials competition in Europe, has managed to get the weight of his package down to 282 lb. dry. which ought to make it competitive. They’re understandably happy at CanAm with the quarter-million dollar British Army order for military motorcycles, but at the Cotton works in England the cry is “Unfair.”
THE COTTON CONTROVERSY
Cotton has also cooked up a military bike, a 250cc machine that company spokesmen claimed was developed in accordance with information supplied by British Defense Ministry officials.
According to Terry Wilson, Cotton's managing director, his firm developed the bike using British materials and parts wherever possible.
“We were told the British content of the machine would be vitally important,” said Wilson in a Motor Cycle News interview. “Now we have been told this was never the case.”
The Cotton is about 75 percent British while the Can-Am machine (engineered in cooperation with NVT), is about 15 percent.
Wilson has enlisted some members of parliament in an attempt toget the contract renegotiated. Meanwhile, at CanAm, they’re busy ordering the olive drab paint.
