Up Front

UP FRONT

Allan Girdler

ONE VOTE FOR PROGRESS

Early on a frosty morning I walked out of the house, all wrapped up for a brisk ride to work on one of the newest and most advanced motorcycles on the market. (Not named here because this could have happened with most new bikes of the type described.)

I turned the key and the lights on the instrument panel flashed on, then went dead. Dead as Jacob Marley. I made all the usual early-morning checks, that is, 1 had turned the key on, the kill switch was on Run, the problem wasn't with a clutch lever-starter button interlock. Then 1 checked the main fuse, one of those fancy numbers held in place by two phillips screws. Burned out.

I recalled that the other chaps had been doing some fiddling with the wires inside the headlight shell so I removed the bulb and there was one wire that could have brushed against the metal shell. I carefully moved it aside, put the spare fuse into place, and turned the key. The lights went flash and out.

There I was. Being a modern motorcycle, it had no kick start. Worse, with electronic ignition and an alternator you get a system that has to have sparks going in or there won’t be any sparks coming out. Even if I’d wanted to push the bike down the street and around the corner so I could coast down the hill, it wouldn’t have done me any good.

Rage.

Frustration.

But not helpless rage and frustration. I had an ace up my sleeve, or rather, in the garage. Two days before this my ’72 Single carried me across the desert. It’s hopelessly outdated. Its electrical system is to a 1979 model what a crystal radio set is to Space Control Houston. I rode it for two years with a dead battery. Total electrical gadgets are three lights and a coil.

So I rolled it out of the garage, put the switch on Run, gave it full choke and two kicks and away I went.

Spage age electronics? Phooey.

Rows of cylinders? Who needs 'em?

Black boxes and micro-circuits? Tell it to NASA.

That evening I took the company truck home and hauled the dead bike to its distributorship, a quick check having determined that the trouble was indeed in the mysterious black box, with which no mortal man better tamper.

Then I sulked for one full day, except for when I was being pleased with myself because my old nail had proven more reliable than this newfangled contraption.

What I was suffering from was an Attack of Progress.

There’s a lot of that going around. 1 think it begins with the nature of the average bike nut, that is, you and me. We are mechanically inclined. We like machines. and there are few objects more mechanical than a motorcycle.

We have emotional relationships with our machines. I talk to my bike, I rely on it, I take care of it and I expect it to take care of me.

This has been going on for years. Bikes are the most mechanical form of motorized transport, and the simplest, and the only form that’s more sport than transport.’' We are used to understanding our machines, and taking care of them.

And we’re used to coping with them.

What we're not used to is not being able to cope. When that fancy new bike turned-* into a 500-lb. lump of iron, it really bothered me. When I won the game by using* my old bike. I felt in some obscure way as if I had beaten the system. j

Even if I never use the kick starter, it comforts me to know' it’s there, and I take ¡ some pride in being able to work it right. J

Progress seemed to me to be a threat. As motorcycles become more complex, with* more cylinders and miles of wiring and air injection and recirculation, as they lose their kick levers and adjustable carb settings. many of us have the feeling that we’re losing as much as we’re getting.

Upon reflection. I wonder if I’m giving us the credit we deserve. .*

First, we each have a different definition of when a motorcycle becomes too complex or too easy.

But while we all would reject a fully enclosed motorcycle with automatic transmission. roll-up windows, power-assisted brakes and air conditioning, so would we not buy a 600-lb. bike with sidevalve en-"* gine. 15 bhp and a rigid rear end. Maybe all change isn’t progress, but some change is welcomed by all.

Next, working within the middle ground, there is no coercion here. If we can safely define the purist bike as a Single or Twin with kick starter permanently at-’’1 tached, then we have a fairly good choice. Three or four factories will be happy to sell* you just such a bike. There are a couple models for which there is no choice; it’s kick start or nothing. So none of us lose classic simplicity against our will.

Then I began thinking about the im-plications of my ability to cope. I have a long list of times when I did cope. When’’ the points lost their gap, for example, I set them by eye and got home. When the float" needle lost its seal, I rode I think 25 miles on the petcock; run with the petcock" closed until the engine begins to sputter. open it for the count of 10, close until it sputters. and so forth. When the CB360 blew three fuses in three miles I stopped and traced the circuits until I found the~ problem. a wire rubbed raw by motion of the tank. Then I pirated a strip of tap~ from some lesser section of the wiring and went on my way. I've gone through traffic with the clutch cable broken, I've made it through the woods tugging on the bare end of the throttle cable, when the light switch~ went out (Right. Lucas.) I rode the brake for a taillight and tailgated my buddy so 14 could see with his headlight. On that par ticular machine I even carried a ready made re-route, a short piece of wire with two alligator clips, so I could wire around the switch when it collapsed inside, as I knew it would.

Ah, memories. Great stuff to recall now4 What was it like then? Did I enjoy trouble shooting that 360 in the middle of an industrial park while dinner was on the table at home? No. Was I scared riding down the Interstate with the engine stop ping at unpredictable intervals, dashing4 through the dark on a strange road two fee~ behind my pal? Yes. I was scared.

Consider the electric starter. One day a big Single got temperamental and time after time I pushed it up the hill. rolled down, popped the clutch and had to push it up again. I would have paid double the money for that little black button. When the jack-wired 650 got fussy and there P was in the middle of the road, kicking and kicking and kicking while the scores of carp behind me hooted and cursed, I would have traded the entire bike for a button.

And when I had persuaded Cycle World, while still a struggling contributor, that I was just the man to do a Vincent profiles and talked the owner into letting me ride the fabled Black Shadow. and then couldn't make it run. I would have pre ferred to quietly die, or at least sink from~ sight.

"Okay, motorcycling isn’t supposed to be easy. Equally there’s no reason to make it^ more difficult than it is.

All this complication is a trade. When j¿ breaks, you're helpless. Thing is, we've just done one full year on four modern bikes, Suzuki GS550, Kawasaki KZ1000, Yamaha IT250 and Yamaha IT400. They, didn't break down. Not once.

If progress means complication, and* complication means I can’t fix it, but that I won't have to fix it . . . If instead of patching by the side of the road, at night, in the rain, I can maintain it w hen I want to, then I vote for progress.

(Of course I can afford to take the chance. I still have my old bike in the* garage.)