Notes From Seat 21a

Notes from Seat 21A

UP FRONT

David Edwards

MISCELLANEOUS RAMBLINGS FROM 35,000 feet above Thunder Bay, Canada, eastbound on a British Airways 747-400, headed for Munich and the start of Cycle World's fourth-annual GP Euro-Tour...

This year’s route takes us through the Alps into Italy’s Tuscany region and the roadrace grand prix at Mugello, 20 miles north of Florence. Thirty-two CW readers signed up for the tour this year; counting editors and guides, we’ll have 36 bikes on the road. Several repeat customers will be joining us, including Paolo Santin from Lima, Peru, who’s made three of the four Euro-Tours. Leading the group once again will be Josef “Fuzzy” Hackl. Fuzzy (“Foot-zee” the Bavarians pronounce it) not only is a rapid, skillful rider but a gourmet chef, which means he knows the best roads and the best places to eat lunch-two vital ingredients of any Cycle World flog. Besides, if an appropriate eatery can’t be found, Herr Fuzzy stocks the Edelweiss luggage trailer with local nosh and whips up a four-star repast roadside...

In railing against the demise of the all-around performance bike in last month’s Up Front, I somehow neglected to mention Triumph’s Sprint 900, which certainly qualifies. I should have known better, too; a Sprint is currently winding up its stay in CWs long-term fleet. We’ve racked up 11,500 mostly troublefree miles on our likable Triple, and it continues to win friends and influence people. Look for a wrap-up article on the Sprint in next month’s issue...

Speaking of Triumph, the company has revived the old Transatlantic Match Race concept (now called TransAtlantic Challenge), pitting U.S. riders against Brits on hotted-up versions of its 900 Speed Triple. Cycle World was asked to participate, so we’ve deputized Dave Aldana as our entry. Aldana, now 46, rode in the original 1970s Match Races. He’s remained active, though, and still teaches at the Team Suzuki Endurance roadrace schools. Aldana’s overseas adventures will be chronicled in September’s Race Watch-and, yes, we’ve asked him to wear his infamous “skeleton” leathers...

Still on the subject of Britbikes, remember the “Fifty-Buck Beezer” I wrote about in March’s column? The goal was to take a derelict B44 Victor 441 and transform it into a vintage road-

racer for $1000. Yeah, right; I’m not going to get close to that figure. Things started out well, though. CW subscriber Garniel Putnam (great name, sounds like it’s from the pages of a detective novel) read that I was in search of a late-’60s BSA/Triumph twin-leading-shoe front brake for the project and offered up the binder from his dad’s old Lightning 650, which had been jettisoned long ago in the bike’s conversion from stocker to chopper. He asked only $20 for the brake and mailed it to me still laced to an increasingly rare Dunlop rim.

Unfortunately, the brake wouldn’t match up to my BSA’s fork tubes without major surgery. Later-model Victor tubes had the required lugs, though, and I was lucky enough to score a pair at a garage sale. At the same place, I picked up two oily, unloved B44 motors-total bill $100. Of course, counting the beat-to-hell motor in the original bike, I was now the proud owner of three non-running BSA Singles, but budget-wise, so far, so good.

Fate then intervened and sat me next to one Peter Davidson at the Team Obsolete banquet during Daytona’s Speed Week. Davidson, it turned out, races BSAs. Not B44s, mind you, but the later B50 models, based on the Victor but with a better-breathing cylinder head and pumped up to a full 500cc. Davidson turned me on to Stan Millard, who runs Horsepower by Stan in Janesville, Wisconsin, and specializes in (any guesses?) speed-tuning BSA B50s. As soon as I see Stan’s parts list,

I’m a stone-cold goner: titanium valves, mod-conned Porsche 911 pistons, special cams, competition headwork, improved crankcase breathing, etc. Of course, I am now looking for a loose B50 motor that can be UPSed up to Janesville. Anybody wanna buy somefixxer-upper B44 motors cheap...?

Back to the present-well, the future, actually. Rumblings of 1997 models are already upon us, led by much speculation about a gaggle of new Hondas. Artists’ conceptions in the foreign moto-mags point strongly to two, maybe three, sportbikes: a liter-class VTwin suitable for Superbike racing, a ZX-11 killer alternately being called the “CB-XX” or the “Black Bird” and, just perhaps, a radical CBR600RR intended to plant Honda’s pennant firmly atop the 600 class. Also look for a big, bad Magna-style V-Four of 1200ccplus displacement; earlier this year, Honda officials strongly hinted that the Valkyrie 1500 wasn’t their final shot in the mega-cruiser conflict...

As reported in Cycle World earlier, Yamaha has seen the sportbike light and will definitely bring in the YZF600 and YZF1000 (without those goofy “Thunder Cat” and “Thunder Ace” monikers the Euros are stuck with, thank goodness) as early-release ’97s. If it comes at all, our friend the TRX850 sport-Twin won’t make the show until sometime in the new year, courtesy of the EPA’s exhaust sniffers. Your tax dollars at work...

Let’s see, over at Suzuki, decisions are being made about a new-style GSX-R600 and maybe a GSX-R900, or will it be a full-on 1100? If we’re lucky, arrangements to import the brilliant Bandit 1200 tested in this issue have already been worked out...

Nothing official from the Harley folks, though a good guess would be an updated Buell S2 based on the new Lightning’s frame but with a half-fairing and (please!) wider, longer seat. The parent Motor Company may have something up its sleeve, too. Envision something retro, a Harley-Davidson’s Harley-Davidson, but I’ve probably already said too much...

Oh, yeah. That Honda CB-XX Black Bird thingie? My sources at Kawasaki say the engineers there can’t wait to retaliate with a maximum-force rocket sled of their very own, an Ultimate Ninja. Shall we all meet at, say, 200 mph...? □