Great Expectations

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

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One of the more popular themes gleaned from our daily mail call is the one in which the writer lists the features he wants in his next bike, as in four valves per cylinder, kick start, six speeds, light weight and so forth. Some of these features border on contradiction and our office cynic says this is because what the dreamer really wants is an excuse not to buy. If they wanted new machines, he says, they'd be making payments instead of lists.

I don’t think so. My initial disagreement came because I buy motorcycles all the time, more than I need or can take care of and I too sit staring out the window designing motorcycles the factories should build.

Seems to me we live in a good time for blue sky design. There are something like “200 models on the market, of more sizes *hnd types than ever before. We are being offered motorcycles we literally hadn’t even thought about yet. It’s logical therefore for some of us to imagine combinations of technology that could be built, that we’d like and might get if only the engineers knew what was in our minds.

Having read several of these lists, I set out to formalize my own. I had worked out the engine and suspension and was about to begin on the electrics when I realized I was going in the wrong direction, so I tore up the list and began again.

More precisely, I was going in two wrong directions. First, although my intention was blank paper, no holds barred, no limit, what I was actually doing was specifying the bike I am building for myself. I mean, it turns out I want a Twin, let’s make it a V-Twin, with more than 500cc and less than 1000, round it off to 750. Light, less than 400 lb., only the basic instrumentation, seating for one . . . Tight, it’s a Harley-Davidson XR750 and the only reason I’m not riding it is my own lack of mechanical skill. Nothing to do with factories not having my well-intentioned advice.

The other wrong direction is less personal and more subtle. I sense some sort of watershed, a major point in motorcycle history taking place as we won’t know exactly what to watch happen.

The motorcycle has basic limits, as in two wheels and an internal combustion engine. Demands of the modern highway require maybe 20-30 bhp, say 200cc. The bigger the engine the bigger the bike, so the upper limit is proving to be 1300cc. Within those limits, science and creativity can roam freely. Which they have, witness the assortment of ones, twos, threes, fours and sixes, of turbochargers and fuel injection and anti-dive and rising rate and shaft, chain and belt and fins and radiators and black boxes and liquid crystal displays . . .

. . .which brings up something else. As we add model to model, pile feature upon feature, replace everything in the lineup with something like it but better, I wonder if we maybe lose something else at the same time.

The factories can build anything we want. What they don’t know is, What do we want?

I don’t mean to be critical here. But the truly tough part of making bikes work has been accomplished. If I had to head for the other coast right this minute I could pick any bike in the shop and go, with better odds on making it without mechanical failure or ergonomic mishap than the odds on not being bumped from the airplane or of the bus air conditioning breaking down.

The factories are acting on the reasonable premise that what’s new, sells. They are invading the other guy’s turf. They are providing a bewildering variety of choice.

Speaking as a bike nut, one of a loosely-wrapped collection of motorheads and romantics, I think this is where those specification lists come from: if we can get a V-Four from Honda, turbocharging from Yamaha and belt drive from Kawasaki, why not a turbocharged V-Four with belt drive?

Here’s what I see as the second mistake. We list-makers are looking at the wrong sort of new. Just because we can have four kinds of engine, four kinds of suspension, four kinds of transmission and four kinds of body doesn’t mean we should multiply them infinitely. We don’t need as many choices as we have, any more than we need a turbocharged motocrosser or a kick-start V-Eight.

Allan Girdler

Instead, we need to keep the engineers busy. It wouldn’t hurt if we could establish some sort of direction for the Motorcycle of Tomorrow, and it would help us all if we got bikes we could ride after we’ve bought them.

Thus, my second list. Instead of specifications, it consists of items to be brought to the attention of whoever makes these decisions:

Ban permanent handlebars, the cast jobbies that can’t be moved, can’t be used for accessories and can’t be replaced except by bars just like them, assuming the dealer has some in stock and don’t bet on it. If the round shiny ones of my youth are hopelessly out of style I’ll accept the replaceable and adjustable bars seen on the Honda CB1100F.

Re-invent the flip-up seat. I hate not having a place to put the bolt-on seat after it’s unbolted almost as much as I hate wrestling with the bolts or catches.

Allow a fuel gauge or a fuel warning light, but not both. If I’m not smart enough to know I need gas every 200 mi., then I’m too dumb to be helped by even a blinking light telling me that the needle is into the red zone. Better still, if we must have a warning light, why not one that comes on when you switch to reserve?

Require petcocks to have a reserve position.

Enlarge all batteries. The kick start is gone, and when I say I miss it the factories say cars don’t have them either. But cars have batteries that will crank all day, and bikes are good for maybe a minute.

Put batteries where they can be topped up without tools.

Put tool kits where they can be unstowed without tools.

Put mufflers where they don’t block removal of the rear axle.

Interchange parts. (I heard that snicker!) Why can’t all motocrossers from the same factory have the same levers and pivots and throttles? Why can’t all the street bikes have the same light switch, turn signal stalk, mirrors and so forth? Why must I wait nine days for a petcock because the 44 street bikes for 1981 had 44 kinds of petcock so the dealer can’t afford to stock any of them?

Whew! I feel much better having got all that off my chest. To make amends, I offer at no charge an idea that will make a million bucks for the first man who does the work:

Jumper cables for motorcycles. Q