Feedback
FEEDBACK
Readers are invited to have their say about motorcycles they own or have owned. Anything is fair game: performance, handling, reliability, service, parts availability, funkiness, lovability, you name it. Suggestions: be objective, be fair, no wildly emotional but ill-founded invectives; include useful facts like miles on odometer, time owned, model year, special equipment and accessories bought, etc.
COMMANDO VS. HONDA
May I add my two cents to what Richard Kennedy and Robert Bausch have said about the Norton Commando (February issue)? I own a Commando and have put quite a few miles on a Honda Four, and would have to admit that in any objective analysis the Honda is the superior machine. But, as Bausch’s letter demonstrates, the Norton can hold a tremendous emotional appeal for some people. Me, for instance. I own one of the long-stroke, oil-leaking beasts and love it in spite of all its British-engineering-at-its-worst vices. True, the engine is as archaic as a stone ax, but it still manages to put out as much power as you can ever use, and that combination of flat power band and unexcelled handling make it one of the easiest bikes to ride hard ever made.
In the end either liking or disliking a machine like the Commando is simply a matter of personal preference. You either like it for what it does well and ignore the faults or else you hate it and look for something that suits you better. What could be more human?
Robert M. White Houston, Texas
HAPPY GUZZI OWNER
I periodically grab a back issue of a cycle magazine off my shelf at random. Today 1 happened to pick the January 1968 issue of CW and read your test on the Moto Guzzi V-7. I happen to be a lucky and very happy owner of a 750-cc Guzzi.
In your article, it says:
“The V-7 arrives from the factory with a pair of bars forward which are designed to protect both the protruding cylinder barrels and the rider’s legs in the event the machine tips over. Whether these bars would withstand a crash of any great severity is a matter for speculation, but not test.”
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I happily am able to report, “They do.”
Incidentally, I also own a 500-cc BMW, and anyone who says that the vibration of the Moto Guzzi V-Twin is anything more than negligibly greater than that of the BMW opposed Twin is out of his tree, or should live in an incubator: they’re both all-day ma-
chines.
Dan Jopp St. Paul, Minn.
LETTER TO MANUFACTURERS:
When, if ever, are you going to provide built-in wheel locking devices for both the front and the back wheel for all those expensive and oh-so-stealable street machines? Steering head locks are a joke. All a pair of thieves has to do is lift the front end and wheel the bike up a ramp onto their waiting pickup truck. But with both wheels immobilized it would take a good sized crew of Robin’s merry men to lift a Sportster into a truck. Sure, they can use a tow-truck, but at that stage of sophistication we have to assume the truck is equipped with a cutting torch, so there’s no advantage to running a case hardened chain to a fireplug. Locking both wheels effectively prevents rollaway thefts whether the bike is attached to anything or not.
It’s disgusting to look at the left swinging arm on my Sportster. (Don’t print my address. The bomb shelter I keep it in only has a two-foot-thick door.) The left part of the rear wheel hub has a series of large holes in it. All the factory would have to do is to modify the axle mounting casting, at negligible cost, to provide a sturdy hasp-like fitting, and a padlock could be run from the swinging arm to the wheel hub, taking care of that end of the bike.
As for the front wheel, it’s easy to visualize a cylinder lock cast into or welded to the fork tube so that a plunger could be locked into a hole, parallel to the axle, cast into the front hub. Presto. There’s no way to move the bike except to carry it. Happy hernia to bike thieves.
Note that immobilizing the wheels works best for the big bikes that are most likely to be stolen, and are the worst financial loss when they are stolen.
Most “new” features in motorcycles turn out to have been originally produced in 1928 or 1904, but I’ve never heard of a motorcycle incorporating this obvious anti-theft feature. Apparently the manufacturers feel that every bike stolen means another potential replacement sale for themselves, so why should they worry. Perhaps the DOT, busily formalizing standards to put neutral at the bottom of the shift pattern, could require wheel locks on all bikes over, say, 400 lb. These locks would do infinitely more good than those silly side reflectors.
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The only drawback to letting the Feds do it is that, sure as death and taxes, they would also require electrical interlocks between the wheel locking mechanism and the ignition switch, the gear selector, the passenger handle and the eight-track stereo tape player. This would be bureaucratic overkill of the usual kind since: a) there are already plenty of people who regularly manage to muster the degree of smarts necessary to remove a locking chain from their bike’s wheels before attempting to smoke off, and b) if a locking mechanism strong enough to resist the tender attention of your friendly local bikesnatcher is built into the wheel hubs, it’ll be strong enough so that nothing worse than a stalled engine and a red face occurs, assuming you forget to disconnect it.
It took a federal law to force the automobile manufacturers to do anything at all to raise the anti-theft rating of their cars. Perhaps that’s the only thing which will move you motorcycle manufacturers. I’m afraid that you manufacturers of Bonnevilles, Sportsters and Fours, the bikes most popular on the um, aftermarket, will join Norton and BMW and Moto-Guzzi and the rest in a game of musical hands-to see who can sit on theirs the longest while good old Janacek & Wanderer quickly revise their products to include wheel locks.
J.G. Krol Anaheim, Calif.
1969 SUZUKI TITAN
This letter is long past due. I should have written this unsolicited testimonial many, many miles ago. My 1969 Suzuki 500 Titan has been a “Super” bike in most every way.
To me the most important requisites for any vehicle are: 1 ) dependability, 2) performance, 3) good looks, and 4) cost (initial and upkeep). In my opinion, the Titan rates near tops in all of these categories.
I have just turned 35,000 miles and have had excellent success. At 16,000 miles my left condenser became intermittent (running fine for a few hundred miles and then being dead for about 10 miles). At this same time a new chain was installed (I had to buy rubber boots to keep my feet dry from all my Honda 750 pals’ tears).
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At 32,000 miles I installed another chain, a set of points and a tachometer cable. Outside of a handful of headlamp bulbs (I do all of my road riding with my lights on) and tires, that is all 1 have spent on the bike. One cannot ride a bicycle much cheaper.
I clean the plugs at 3000-mile intervals and change them every 5000 miles. I have only fouled one plug since purchase and that on my way hack from an extended highand low-speed trip to Canada, and in very, very hot weather. My Suzuki was the first bike to arrive in Mazatlan on the original Mexican tour, and performed beautifully, seemingly running equally well on either high grade kerosene in Mexico or on the unleaded gas I normally use. 1 dismantle and decarbon every 10.000 miles, checking the battery, point gap and muffler baffles. 1 lube my chain with a homemade concoction of Vasoline thinned with acetone (the vehicle evaporating leaving only the grease). I take excellent care of my machine hut ride it very hard. In all of the 35,000 miles it has never left me stranded or forced me to return home.
Even though it’s a two-cycle, my oil consumption is about the same as any other road bike: about five quarts every 3 000 miles, including changing the transmission oil. Except for “honking” it on after first starting it up, it smokes most imperceptibly. My gasoline consumption is consistently less than other machines at lower speeds, hut does start to exceed the others when speeds of over 75 mph are reached. I have gotten as high as 5 5.5 mpg on a two-way, 800-mile trip (before windshield and hags), and as low as 30 mpg on Mexican gas, with shield, bags, high wind and high speeds.
The motorcycle is perfectly stock except for windshield, bags, home-made throttle lock, oversized front tire and a primary sprocket with one less tooth.
The things I do not like about the hike are an engine vibration that started between 3500 rpm and 4000 rpm when new and has widened to between 3000 and 4500 rpm with age (probably crankshaft flex), a disconcerting rattle from the clutch or throwout bearing when idling in neutral, and no electric starter.
The 500 is my first experience with Suzuki (I have since bought a 350 for my wife), although I have had a number of machines including two Cushmans, one Whizzer. one Powell, one Salisbury, one Honda, one Benelli, one AJS, one BSA, and five Yamahas (I still own two AT-Is).
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In summation, I will say that I feel the Titan to be one of the most beautiful bikes around, one of the most dependable (I think the most dependable, BMW notwithstanding), one of the best performing (I have ridden with and against most everything and have never been embarrassed, due to the ease with which the Titan can be kept in tip-top tune). All things considered, it is one of the best bikes in the world and certainly the best buy. A potent machine like this with two mirrors, a luggage rack, sportster bags and windshield for under SI000. How can you beat it? You can’t! Thanks for the tremendous product.
Cieñe Wilson Jr.
Los Angeles, Calif.
F.S. A couple of more likes and dislikes.
Likes The toolkit in the side case. Lvery time we go on a trip it’s “good ole Wilson” everyone comes to for minor adjustments, because I can readily get to my tools. Toolkits under the seat require near complete unloading to reach, and what with chain adjustments needed on the 750 Honda every few hundred miles, this is no small time loss.
Likes—The small headlight bulb used on the Titan instead of the large sealed beam. Seldom has a trip passed when a Honda or 650 Yamaha rider has not lost a headlamp element and has had to do without as the lamps are too large to carry.
Likes Oil-tightness. I would not be afraid to park my bike on a fine carpet, as it never loses a drop (woe unto my English bike rider friends).
Dislikes, or wish fors—My front fender brace broke and my dealer informed me that fenders were not covered under warranty and that separate braces are not made. I made one from scrap and had it chromed for S3. I think the braces should be made available separately.
Di^like-A “pinging” sometimes occurs which necessitates decarboning the heads. It does not seem to affect the performance, but is somewhat annoying.
Dislike-The greatest annoyance of all. The tools are made of a material that blackens one’s hands (and clothes) with carbon.
Flease consider adding the following to any road bike you make in the future (if the following were added to the Titan it would be the near-perfect machine): l ) Drive shaft, 2) electric starter, 3) effective horn, 4) larger gas tank, 5) gas gauge (whatever happened to the neoprene tubing on the 250), 6) throttle lock, 7) tools made from a better material.
