Round Up

ROUND UP

JOE PARKHURST

SEVERAL YEARS ago I visited England on what has since become an annual sojourn to Europe. Since the International Six Days Trial was in the U.S. this year (my usual excuse for making a round of business stops in Europe), I only made a brief trip in 1973.

I hold many fond memories of my 12 years of going over to represent CYCLE WORLD, but one of the nicest was my first visit to BSA and Triumph in Birmingham and Meriden. Birmingham is a typical midlands industrial town, and is not very pretty. The original BSA factory had been almost totally destroyed during the war, so they built a newer one to build Triumphs outside of town, in a small village called Meriden. They put me up on a lovely company owned guest house in the country. I was really treated royally.

As we went to press with this issue, news arrived that the new Norton Villiers Triumph organization had closed the Meriden plant. They were forced to lay off 1750 employees. They will be concentrating production for Nortons, AJS and Triumph bikes at Birmingham and at the Villiers factory in Wolverhampton.

Though production of bikes will be increased and the demand for them is on the rise, it does seem a shame to have to be forced into such drastic measures. Meriden looked like a nice place to work.

NEW SUZUKI MODELS

Importers and distributors seem to compete with each other for ways to show their new models to the motorcycle and general press, and they do so in a manner that reflects the attitudes of company management and the creativity that exists in their sales approaches.

As a press member, I have been to dude ranches in Arizona, boat trips to Catalina Island, pleasant weekends in Monterey during the Laguna Seca races, relaxed on beaches in the Bahamas, visited the Queen Mary, blew my mind (and wallet) in Las Vegas, toured Europe and Japan, gone for trail rides in the mountains of Oregon, been wined and dined at countless plush hotels and restaurants, ridden laps at Ontario Speedway, and many more. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It was, and always will be.

For 1974, U.S. Suzuki really came on strong. They rented the studio, staff, announcers, musicians, etc., of the popular TV audience participation show, “Let’s Make A Deal.” I had never seen the show on TV. I don’t watch TV very much, except for Sanford and Son and a few specials, so it was all a new experience for me. Monty Hall, the M.C. and originator of the show, was hired to run the preview. We were invited to don various costumes, provided by Suzuki, in order to compete for the special prizes offered under the show’s format.

It seems as though members of the audience who look the most absurd and ridiculous are invited to come forward and make fools of themselves trading one prize for another. The goal, of course, is always to trade up. Really fantastic merchandise is often the reward. Suzuki gave away lots of money, several motorcycles, and a really good time to the press. I won $60, myself, and even offered to return it. But they refused, thank goodness.

Aside from that, we got to see the 1974 line of bikes. Most interesting is the new Suzuki 250 Trials bike. None of us had even seen one prior to the showing. Come to find out that the bike we saw was almost all wood because they are not in production yet and won’t be until January, 1974.

CW STAFF CHANGES

You will be aware, after reading “Scene,” Ivan J. Wagar’s column on page 38 of this issue, that we have made a change. CYCLE WORLD has a new editor. His name is Bob Atkinson.

Bob is not new to CYCLE WORLD. He went to work for us as mail boy almost ten years ago while attending college. I won’t repeat what Ivan has to say in “Scene,” I’ll just add that Bob is a superb motorcyclist (he can beat me almost anytime he wants), is a dedicated and professional journalist, and is what one must call an all-around nice guy. Not given to bursts of radical emotion and hasty, opinionated decisions (apparently the lot of many so-called motorcycle “journalists”), he has accepted the challenge and will work to make CW even better while keeping pace with the rapidly changing motorcycle world.

The shoot-out between the Honda CR and the Yamaha YZ in this issue is an example. CW’s readers will see more relevant controversy, more “written from the rider’s seat” kind of features CW is known for. Bob’s shift from associate editor to editor will be seen, and felt, throughout the magazine. We are all pleased to be able to give him the chance to expand and take command.

In our 12 years we have made very few staff changes. Several staffers, like Ivan, Gary Bisel, Leo Bestgen, Patsy Platt and Dan Hunt, have been with us for over five years. Loyalty is something you cannot buy. As publisher of CYCLE WORLD from the virtual beginning, I feel strongly about the people that make up CYCLE WORLD. Bob is, and always has been a CYCLE WORLD man. Can’t help but ask you to watch his smoke.