Moto What?

MOTO WHAT?

IGNITION

BIKE LIFE

WEIRDOS AND WALLFLOWERS OF TWO WHEELS

PETER JONES

There are motorcycles, and then there are motorcycles. What I'm getting at is this: There are motorcycles that appeal to a wide audience, and then there are strange choices to own, to love, and to ride. But I’ve come to appreciate a magical truth about life; for every weird thing out there, there’s generally some weirdo who needs it. As it turns out, I’m often that weirdo. But not always.

There are different levels of questionable choices when it comes to motorcycles. I’d have to put Moto Guzzi at the upper level of that scale, being a brand that normal people almost might want to own but not quite. Moto Guzzi has been trying to get into motorcycling’s USA kingdom of acceptability for nearly too years now, never getting farther than camping outside the castle walls, like a weird tribe of migrant serfs. Guzzi’s sideways-mouthed, shaft-drive V-twin is so peculiar that Honda once copied it.

There’s too much to admire about Moto Guzzi motorcycles to not want them to succeed, but they’re just a bit too strange for the masses. So, since we want them to survive, I think that you should buy one, while you might think that I should buy one. Neither of us will. Moto Guzzis are great bikes, but they’re bikes that only Moto Guzzi owners would own, and somehow we all know what I mean by that, even though I can’t explain it.

But then there’s Moto Morini. Most Americans haven’t even heard of this brand and don’t want to. The only US importer that Morini ever had was Hermy’s, a Triumph/BMW dealer in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania. Unless you live between Reading and Pottsville, you’ve never heard of that village.

The Moto Morini importer did a good job, all things considered, but the brand just wasn’t meant to be, even though I’m personally one of the weirdos who bought one. Okay, I bought two: a 500 Sport and the questionable 500 Camel. I have to admit, I’ve never met another American who’s owned two Moto Morinis.

The Camel was an adventure bike with a 500CC V-twin engine, with Heron heads. Heron heads are flat bottomed, without combustion chambers, which are instead in the pistons. It’s a design that Volvo has used, which doesn’t sound very motorcycle-ish. I just want to know why that bike always took at least 57 kicks before it would start, while this afternoon my lawn mower started in one pull while its carb was hanging nearly half an inch off the manifold. Anyway, starting the Camel was itself the adventure—always full of mystery, risk, and doubt.

The Moto Morini company closed. And then it was purchased and reborn with new, bigger models. No Heron heads. Why? I don’t know. Nobody knows. It’s once again gone. Just this spring the editor of this magazine alerted me to a Camel for sale. He’s an enabler.

Popular brands have even had weird bikes from time to time. Such as the Ducati 500 GTL. I accidentally owned one of those too. In the mid-’70s, Ducati had the idea to make a small twin. But not a V-twin and not desmodromic. It was a parallel springer. As the story goes, it was such a bad idea that Ducati’s legendary designer, Fabio Taglioni, refused to design the bike. So it was designed by some Spaniard, and the bodywork was stolen from Due’s ugliest V-twin, the 860 GT. It was a bad design. I doubt that a single one of them is still running today. If you find one for sale, don’t buy it. And don’t call me.

Which reminds me, that new Guzzi V7 Racer is pretty dang cool looking. Hmm...

BY THE NUMBERS

zero NUMBER OF MOTO MORINI CAMELS ON US EBAY ATTHIS WRITING

1 NUMBER OF CAMEL FRAMES FOR SALE

$3,400 BUY-IT-NOW PRICE OF A DUCATI 500 CTL ON EBAY. IT DID NOT SELL.