Cycle Round Up
CYCLE ROUND UP
JOE PARKHURST
CYCLE WOLRD’S NEW HOME
By the time most of our readers have received this July issue of CYCLE WORLD, we will be well installed in our new home in Long Beach, California. For those who are not familiar with the huge, sprawling Los Angeles area, Long Beach is a quite large city famous for its port, Naval Base, oil wells and Miss Universe contest. Our modest (but all ours) building is the new permanent home for CYCLE WORLD. Readers in the Los Angeles area desiring to visit the Motor Racing Book Store will find it at its present location. 1029 North La Brea Ave., Inglewood, in the same quarters with Karting World Magazine, the former CYCLE WORLD Publishers.
The new address is 745 West 3rd St., Long Beach. You can’t miss it; just look for our parking lot, full of motorcycles.
12,000 MILES ON A SCOOTER, FOR LOVE
An international love affair that blossomed in the Kentucky Blue Grass country will start moving toward Santiago, Chili, this month — on a scooter. 21year-old Jim Owen will take off on his motor scooter for a 12,000 mile journey to keep a Christmas Eve date with his girl in Santiago, Chili. Owen met the Latin lass. Señorita Ximina Villarroel when she was a two-week exchange student at the college he attends, the University of Kentucky. It was love at first sight he said, but she had to return home.
To prove the depth of his affection he quit school and promised to ride the
12.000 miles over jungle and mountain roads to meet his dark eyed señorita this December 24th in front of her house. Owen, a Lexington dentist’s son, has packed his scooter with 75 pounds of gear, including 22 pounds of books, clothes and camping equipment. He figures the round trip will take about 15 months. A scooter company gave him a free machine and a large oil company has donated enough gas and oil for the round trip.
MODERN HELMET ART
Chalk up another score for safety progress in racing. The Bell 500TX helmet has been selected for ‘excellence of design’ by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and is being shown in an exhibit there entitled — Design for Sport.
The exhibition, which is jointly sponsored by Sports Illustrated magazine and the National Sporting Goods Association, opened on May 15 and will be on view through July.
MOTORCYCLES ON THE MIRACLE MILE
The beautiful show windows reflect the satisfyingly growing trend of acceptance for motorcycles. They are the main display windows of one of the newest, and most unusual, department stores in Los Angeles on the fabulous “Miracle Mile” section of fashionable Wilshire Blvd. The store is the beautiful Siebu, a branch of the tremendous Seibu Corporation of Japan, a vast corporation comprised of railroads, department stores, housing projects, etc., in Japan.
The motorcycles are Suzukis and they are tied in with a display titled Fun In The Sun. The Ken Kay Distributing Co., in North Hollywood, Calif., distributors for the Suzuki line of machines, arranged the show and assisted in the presentation. Kay tells CYCLE WORLD that he is taking orders for bikes as fast as he can write them; does this give any other cycle dealers ideas?
MOTORCYCLING NEWS WITHDRAWS
A recent, and unhappily received, note was the announcement that Motorcycling News was no longer in business. To our Eastern readers, MC News was an excellent California cycling newspaper devoted to the Western competition scene. Don McCall, the Publisher and Editor, strongly desired the Publishers of CYCLE WORLD to take over its circulation and continue its publication as a subsidiary of CYCLE WORLD. We honestly gave it a great deal of thought, but as much as we hated to let such an excellent cycling publication go by the boards, we felt that CYCLE WORLD was serving the Western scene as extensively as it could be.
Rumor has it that someone has plans for continuing publication after a few weeks lapse. We wish them the best of success but cannot offer much in the way of hope. It is difficult enough to try to satisfy our readers in every corner of the country. We are constantly pressed for more local coverage, from almost every State in the Union. Quite obviously we cannot serve them all as well as each area most certainly, deserves. There just aren’t enough pages available, and worse, when we satisfy one section, we dissatisfy hundreds of others.
One day there may be demand enough for one national competition paper or magazine. If and when that day seems at hand, CYCLE WORLD will do its utmost to please every faction.
ASSOCIATED MOTOR CYCLES LIMITED
As of May 1st, Associated Motor Cycles Limited will be operating as the Group Holding Company, with Mr. A. A. Suger and Mr. J. F. Kelleher as Group Managing Director and Executive Director respectively, under the chairmanship of Sir N. J. Hulbert, D. L., M.P.
A new subsidiary company, Matchless Motor Cycles Ltd. will continue the manufacture and distribution of Matchless and AJS motorcycles and all other trading activities of the Woolwich, England, factory. The board of Matchless Motor Cycles Ltd includes Mr. W. J. Smith as Managing Director and Mr. W. J. Martin as Works Director. Other appointments are Mr. John H. Loweth as Sales Manager and Mr. R. Duncan as Export Manager.
IMAGE IMPROVEMENT STRESSED BY AMA
The American Motorcycle Association has announced a new campaign that will work towards advancing motorcycle activities by working with the 1350 AMA clubs across the nation to improve the public image of motorcycling. AMA clubs are being encouraged to elect a club publicity director and a club photographer to represent their club in a favorable light in the community and to work with local charities in helping their communities.
The clubs are being urged to send news and information to the AMA Club Newsletter. From this information, suggestions on how to get new members, club improvements and general news of activities can be spread to member clubs. The AMA states that a disciplined performance by the individual rider is the best way to improve motorcycling’s image in the public eye. They urge all of their members to look neat and ride carefully, an excellent suggestion for all motorcyclists — we concur.
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NEW LAMBRETTA DISTRIBUTORS
Innocenti Corp., Lambretta Division, has announced that the Northwest Bicycle & Supply Co., 437 Harding St., N.E., Minneapolis 13, Minnesota, are now representatives for the Lambretta motor scooter and three-wheelers in Western Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Eastern Montana and Northern Wyoming.
With their Lambretta 175/TV, Series 11, in the accompanying photograph are, left to right, W. C. “Bill” Stedman, President, M. A. Nichols, R. H. Bleskachek, E. A. Caudill, M. W. Nelson, Manager, and G. H. Hoff.
AROUND THE WORLD CYCLISTS
T. C. Browne and Leane Nordquist have completed crossing the United States, San Francisco to New York, and are now on their way to Tangiers, Europe and Asia. Not too unusual a jaunt, if done in the normal manner. However, the entire trip, except the ocean crossing portions, of course, is being undertaken on a pair of Honda 50’s.
San Francisco gave them a royal sendoff with TV interviews, news flashes every 15 minutes, and a press conference dinner. Gordon H. Martin, prominent sports columnist with the San Francisco News Call-Bulletin, is arranging further interviews with such personalities as Walter Cronkite and Rene Dreyfus in New York before they sail. International News Service is covering their trip throughout the world. The publicity and interest shown the pair has amazed all concerned, for they have received a great deal of commercial publicity (unpaid); however, more astounding, as they progressed across the country, people in cities and towns everywhere turned out to meet, with envy, the two adventurers.
Mr. Browne is a student of sociology and political science, Miss Nordquist is a Nurse interested in Eastern medical practices. CYCLE WORLD will publish further news of the progress of these two motorcycle pilgrims in future issues.
NORTONS FOR THE TENNESSEE POLICE
The Johnson City, Tennessee, Police Department has added two 45 cubic inch Norton “Atlas” models to their motorcycle
squad as shown in the above photograph. New Norton Police models were equipped with windshields, front and rear safety guards, police sirens, and two-way radios by Jim Hayes of Johnson City, the area Norton Distributor.
