Thinking Small
LEANINGS
Thinking small
Peter Egan
MY OLD RIDING PAL FROM CALIFORNIA, Hank Murdoch, has owned a lot of different motorcycles of older and newer vintage, but he once told me his standard of excellence in handling is still the Bultaco 250 Metralla he had 20-some years ago.
Why the Metralla?
Quick, extremely light and narrow, he told me. Nice steering geometry; effortless, instinctive response to the will of the rider, etc. All of the usual reasons you hear from people who remember their early (or recent) smaller bikes with affection.
Hank is a mechanical engineer and, like a lot of engineers, he has definite ideas on how things should work and how they should be made. He told me there is no current mass-produced roadbike that meets his expectations; they are all too heavy, too complex or just too big. If he could afford it, he said, he would probably buy a handbuilt street-legal Single, such as the Wood-Rotax, or build his own bike along similar lines.
I’ve been thinking about Hank and his Metralla recently, for a couple of reasons.
First, I just came back from a twoweek Beach’s guided tour of New Zealand, which I took with Editor Edwards, Rob Beach himself and seven other American tourists (lavishly illustrated touring story to come). On that trip, David and I had a new Triumph 1200 Trophy and a BMW F650, sometimes unfortunately called the “Funduro,” but essentially a liquid-cooled 650cc street-enduro Single with a Rotax engine lightly re-engineered by BMW, built by Aprilia in Italy. We swapped bikes every day for two weeks, so we got a lot of seat time with both.
The Triumph, I must say, is a magnificent piece. Beautiful dark green (BRG) paint and fairing, bone-deep quality of detail, good standard sporttourer handling, superb brakes and an engine that pulls like a freight train from any rpm. It's a big noble beast of a bike, good for sweeping across continents two-up while still being able to mount a pretty good assault on the twisties. It’s also a real crowd-pleaser; people gathered around it, admiringly, wherever we stopped.
And then there’s the BMW F650, which attracted less attention (save a few raised and curious eyebrows), but with which I nevertheless essentially fell for big time-on purely functional grounds.
Which is to say the stylist’s arrow, in this case, has not only missed my heart, but sailed straight over the roof and landed in the back field. The F650 tank and fairing look, to me, like a guppy holding a flashlight. But this is a personal matter of individual taste and I won’t say any more about it. Maybe it’ll grow on me. Maybe not.
The point is, this bike is so enjoyable to ride, I told David if it looked a little more like a classic BMW or British Single, I would disassemble the thing and take it home in my suitcase, willingly facing theft and smuggling charges at a later date.
Why is it so good?
Well, for all the same reasons Hank liked his Metralla: It’s quick, (relatively) light, narrow and instinctively follows the will of the rider. It’s also the first modern street Single I’ve ridden that pumps out real torque and horsepower, right now, and sounds good doing it.
And, most significantly, on any kind of even moderately winding road, I was almost able to keep up with the rapid Mr. Edwards when I was on the BMW and he was on the Triumph. When we swapped bikes, I couldn’t even begin to stay with him. On all but straight roads and fast sweepers, the BMW is simply easier to ride; more gathered up, user-friendly and able to change line. Put another way, it’s more fun.
This is not to put down the Triumph, which handles as well as any ; sport-tourer in its size and displacement class (the Speed Triple is the Triumph for cafe-racers, anyway). It is simply a comment on the advantages of smaller, lighter bikes for sport-a simple lesson in physics.
Dirt riders, of course, have known for years that excessively large and heavy bikes ultimately slow them down, so their bikes tend to have these minimalist attributes built in. Or, more accurately, built out.
Read any comparison test of dualpurpose bikes in any magazine, and at some point one or all of the editors will mention that these relatively lowhorsepower Singles on semi-knobby tires are as fast on a twisting road as most “pure” sportbikes, and are easier and less intimidating to ride. Their reasons?
See Hank’s Metralla.
It seems to me that modern streetbikes, with rare exceptions, have been chasing their own tails, weightand size-wise, almost since the late Sixties. They’ve needed more mass to handle the horsepower and more horsepower to motivate the mass. Bikes we used to consider huge (Norton Atlas, Vincent Twins, Honda 750 Four) now look quaintly compact and spare. Our standards have changed.
This does not mean (Lord knows) that I don’t like big, fast modern motorcycles. There’s nothing quite like coming over the brow of a hill, seeing the road sweep off into infinity and cranking some throttle into your favorite roadburner.
Big bikes have comfort, stability and their own special kind of magnificence-properties I prize on a long cross-country tour. But smaller, simpler, lighter bikes are more enjoyable everywhere else, which covers a lot of territory. They are more fun in the corners, and the corners are where most fun is to be found.
If you don’t believe me, try an F650, when it finally enters the U.S. later this year. Or just put some new rings in the old Metralla.
It’ll make you wonder if we’ve outsmarted ourselves once again. □
