Leanings

LEANINGS

Does your bike have character?

Peter Egan

LAST WEEK I WENT OUT AND BOUGHT A great big brand-new Japanese bike, black in color, that is reputed to be the fastest production bike on Earth, according to all magazines and the kid at the gas station.

A Japanese bike? Moi?

Yes. I have decided to dip once more into those deep Eastern waters of technology, and in my mind I have already named this magnificent beast “The Land Shark.” No doubt some kind of column will come out of this ownership experience, but I want to withhold judgment until I’ve broken it in and ridden it more.

In the meantime, my many Europhile friends have expressed both concern and trepidation. They worry for my sanity, yes. But more than that, they want to know if the bike has “character.”

There is no easy answer to this question. There are only symptoms and signs, some obvious, some cryptic, that collectively add up to either a motorcycle with genuine character or a bike that should be sold to someone else as soon as possible, lest you lose your immortal soul.

With so much hanging in the balance, I have decided to help others, as well as myself, by putting together a simple guide to character. Under this scientifically correct system, a bike with complete, fully formed character will score 100 points. Maybe more. A bike without character can go hundreds of points into the red. Here goes:

1) If your bike is now, or was at any time in history, the fastest production bike on Earth, give yourself 50 points. (Ha!)

2) If your bike, or one very much like it, has ever won its class at the Isle of Man, score 50 points. Ten more if Hailwood, Surtees, Woods or Duke were riding.

3) If the workers who built your bike drink espresso or grappa during their lunch break at a small trattoria across the street from the factory, add 10 points.

4) If your bike has a fake gas tank, or false air scoops, subtract 40 points. Sixty points off for chromed plastic anywhere on the bike.

5) If your bike’s name uses any three initials of one or more dead Englishmen or any defunct British arms company that made military rifles during the Boer War, give yourself 75 points.

6) Fifty points for springer or girder front forks.

7) If the girder fork on your bike is made of aluminum from melted-down war-surplus P-51 wing spars and Spitfire propellers, give yourself 95 points.

8) If your bike was designed by a non-motorcyclist car designer who thought he would step in and “revolutionize the look and concept of motorcycles forever,” knock off 30 points. Then take back ten for sheer weirdness.

9) Twenty-five points for any twostroke Triple. Ten more if it wheelies out of control and hits things with no particular provocation.

10) Forty points for any V-Twin, any Four that revs beyond 13,000 rpm and all Sixes.

11) If Lawrence of Arabia owned a bike like yours, give yourself 100 points.

12) If Lawrence of Arabia actually owned your very bike, give yourself 700 points and feel free to buy six other bikes with no character at all.

13) If your engine was originally designed for a light Italian military vehicle, award yourself 40 points.

14) If you died tomorrow and no one else would ever be able to start your motorcycle, add 50 points.

15) Subtract 40 points for any motorcycle that appears to have been designed by a cartoonist who saw a Harley once, but then forgot the exact details.

16) If the ad-taker in the classified department of your newspaper never heard of your brand of bike and you have to spell it out more than twice before he or she gets it right, award yourself 40 points. Then subtract 45 for selling the bike.

17) If your insurance agent absolutely refuses to consider insuring your bike, even though you are 46 and have never had an accident, add 60 points.

18) If the owner’s manual specifies either bean oil or mineral oil of a viscosity higher than 60-weight in the crankcase, add 10 points.

19) Add 10 more if most of it leaks onto the floor.

20) Ninety points if the bike is so difficult and cranky to start and operate that you almost never ride it. Ten more if the seat causes actual prostate damage.

21 ) Twenty points for hairpin springs or any external oil line to the cylinder head; five more if it has banjo fittings with copper washers that “mist.”

22) Forty points if Steve McQueen rode your bike in a movie.

23) Ten points for each square inch of visible engine surface.

24) Fifty-five points for magneto ignition. Fifty more if it has a sticky advance mechanism that causes the engine to kick back, nearly breaking your leg.

25) Seventy-five points for a broken leg.

26) Thirty-five points if your bike runs noticeably better on miserable, damp days with pockets of thick fog, as seen in The Hound of the Baskervilles, with Peter Cushing as Holmes.

27) Fifty points if your clutch adjustment procedure is so arcane and complex that only a taciturn hermit machinist and former RAF Gloster Gladiator mechanic named Alistaire who lives on a farm in Vermont is able to make it work correctly.

28) Twenty more points if Alistaire requires a “gift” of strong Stilton cheese and Isle of Islay single-malt Scotch before he will even consider working on your bike.

29) Ten more if Alistaire is said to have murdered a man who brought the wrong kind of cheese.

30) One hundred points if you think

your bike has character and no one else does, except other owners who are in on the secret.