The Scene
THE SCENE
IVAN J. WAGAR
MOTORCYCLE action to nearly all enthusiasts is a scrambles race, an enduro, a desert run, a hillclimb or a road race, invariably under sponsorship of a motorcycle club. Well and good! Action requires responsible sponsorship.
It’s fairly obvious, through the penetrating power of hindsight, that too many motorcyclists have equated action with good times, friendly competition, and such activities as road runs and picnics. Club meetings too frequently have meant a couple of beers and an old BSA movie.
Times are changing a little late, but changing, and for the better.
There’s a group in the State of Maine that has organized not for kicks, but to take responsibility for influencing the Maine legislature, for motorcycle rider training to be introduced into schools, and for hiring legal counsel to work with legislators and legislative advocates, to promote the rider training program, and to advise at court hearings which involve members.
No midnight rambles, steak fries, TT races or observed trials here-just hard work.
The group, which calls itself the Maine Cycle Association, has enlisted, the first night out, 27 individuals representing four motorcycle clubs and 10 dealerships. The dues collected were $2 per individual. $10 per business. This makes a nice nest egg with which to pursue the causes enumerated above. The association plans a recruitment drivemore members, more money, more action.
So far, no one in the Maine Cycle Association has mentioned fun and gamesand this is all to the good, because the Maine gang’s hard work will help motorcycling to remain an enjoyable sport for all.
Anyone who’d like to get a piece of this action can send a contribution to G. L. Percy, President. Maine Cycle Association, P.O. Box 461. No. Windham, ME 04062.
How goes the action in the other 49?
THE purple prose of yellow journalism has done it again-to motorcyclists. Unfortunately, copyright law prevents CYCLE WORLD from reprinting material from This Week Magazine of March 31. 1968. In an article entitled “Wild, Wild Wheels,” by a person whose nom de plume is Jay Peake, the Sunday newspaper supplement has done a great disservice to the groups and individuals who are attempting to better the sport of motorcycling.
Peake’s report, yarn, story or whatever opens with a true tear-jerker, in which a suntanned, golden-haired boy of 14 crashes a motorcycle. The result, as wonder boy survives in this melodrama, is that he must pay his life long for this one foolish moment. Hankies soaking yet? Ensuing in the article is a series of battered bodies, cracked skulls and other grievous injuries distributed among blond, blue-eyed, highly intelligent boys, and slim-limbed, sub-teen models. The copy is rife with words such as danger, sorrowful, grisly, blood, scars, and similar loaded arousers of the uninformed.
I he article advocates safety helmets. Good!
I he article prescribes protective clothing. Great! The article urges rider education. TREMENDOUS!
I he article also minces gross generalizations with absolute untruths, particularly in regard to the relative stopping distances required for cars, as compared with motorcycles.
CYCLE WORLD recommends that, if readers have not yet perused this bit of journalistic jackassery, they accomplish the task in their local libraries. Then, CYCLE WORLD readers can relay their opinions to John J. O’Connell, Editor, This Week Magazine, The National Newspaper Magazine for a Better America, at United Newspapers Magazine Corp., 485 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10017. Write! A number of alert CW readers already have.
WHEN somebody does something 100 percent right, it usually is done with proper backing. Any cause that has the backing of the local sheriffs office, local and state police, the state auto club, the PTA, public school administrators, local administrators, local residents, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Methodist Church is likely to succeed.
In the particular case of Explorer Scout Post 981 of La Mirada, Calif., the cause, the doing of something, was learning to ride motorcycles (CW, Oct. ’67). And members of the post really did it right.
One young explorer decided he’d like to learn to ride; then others joined him in his wish. Once the initial shock had diminished, troop leaders did what leaders are supposed to do. They led the youngsters to contact parents, the various aforementioned agencies and BSA Motorcycles Western. The latter came up with a dozen 250-cc Starfire machines for training purposes-no strings.
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Policemen, sheriffs deputies and auto club people, all experienced riders, were roped in-to the point of volunteering to train the kids to ride.
Members of the Explorer post spent a total of 32 hours, eight in the classroom and 24 on the saddle, during Saturday morning sessions learning the ways and means ot motorcycling. Classroom instruction included sections on the state vehicle code, mechanicals and electricals, and repair and service. With safety helmets in place, the Explorers learned to manage the controls with the machines on the center stands; then they undertook dual instruction, with the teacher riding two-up behind the student. Next came the solo hop, with the instructor riding close beside the student. Once all members of the post had soloed, the fledgling riders engaged in precision follow-the-leader drills to firmly fix the newly learned manual skills. A ride at moderate speed around a stadium parking lot preceded a graduation exercise which was a road tour from La Mirada to a Scout camp high in the San Bernardino Mountains, a round-trip distance of some 250 miles.
And, there was a graduation dinner, complete with formerly skeptical, now proud parents, guests and speakers. Among the latter was L. M. Jofeh, managing director of Birmingham Small Arms’ motorcycle division. He told the Explorers his firm had made a gift of 12 machines, 175-cc trail machines, named Bushman for export to Australia, renamed Explorer expressly for Post 981.
At this point, it might be well to say that the Explorers took their new machines and rode happily off into the sunset. Can’t do it. The Explorers have taken it into their heads that the little BSAs would make wonderful vehicles for members of a youthful, energetic search and rescue team. And, that’s what Post 981 has set out to do. The group already is starting to master the techniques of off-road riding, and has embarked on a course in first aid. Eventually. La Mirada, Calif., will be able to offer the services of its Explorer post to aid other agencies in search and rescue services in the nearby Sierra Madre Mountains.
The Explorer post has done everything so correctly that even the Los Angeles publicschool system is talking about incorporating the Explorers’ motorcycle training course into its driver education program.
Anyone who’d like to sec how it’s done right can obtain a film, produced by BSA, and entitled “The Critical Hours,” which documents the Explorers’ training from winning community support to that final joyousand safe-graduation tour to camp. Simply write: BSAWestern, 2745 E. Huntington Dr., Duarte, CA 91010.
POR every 100 “We gotta do somethin’” types, there is one who actually does something constructive for motor-
cycling. One in 100 is Thornton Cooke, a vice president of Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., Kansas City, Mo.
At his job, the actuarial evaluation of information the computing of gamblers’ odds for insurance purposes, Cooke learned that in a recent year, when 2160 motorcyclists died in accidents, deaths by firearms were 20 percent greater in number, and that more than three times as many people died by drowning as died in motorcycle accidents.
Thus, he said, “Much of the fear that people have concerning motorcycles is illfounded. and is based on misleading information. Some is based on fact. A motorcycle, like every motorized form of transportation, has its dangers. Safety can be designed in to a motor vehicle up to a point. Beyond that, we must depend upon the intelligent use of the machine.”
To further the cause of intelligent use of two-wheeled machinery, Cooke has created a “Motorbike Driver Education Program Instructor’s Kit.” The kit is comprised of a guide for instructors the how-to-teach part of the business-which includes lesson pláns for classroom sessions and practice rides, a diagram for a practice driving course and diagrams for safe riding on a variety of highways. Supplied in the kit, enough material for 40 students, are safety quiz sheets, and scoring tables for evaluation of riding proficiency.
The great thing about the materials in the kit is that they’re straightforward, not in the least preachy, and should be totally acceptable now to the generation of teenagers that will make up the hard core of knowledgeable, responsible motorcyclists in the future.
The kit is available to all, at $3 per, from Robert W. Elliot, Universal Underwriters Insurance Co., 5115 Oak St., Kansas City, MO 64112. Checks and/or money orders may be made payable to Management Services, same address.
A lew ones in 100s out there probably will take advantage of Cooke’s offer and train some kids to be motorcyclists good ones. ■
