Round•up
ROUND•UP
JOE PARKHURST
IT LOOKS AS though the next American-built motorcycle will be the Kawasaki. That enterprising firm has purchased a 200,000-sq.-ft. plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, that was formerly occupied by Addressograph Multigraph Co., to begin assembling Kawasakis this year.
It will be an assembly plant at the start, but will ultimately become a full-manufacturing facility. Kawasaki will expend $20 million on the 100-acre site within the next three years. At capacity, the plant will make 100,000 bikes a year and employ more than 1000 people.
JkMONG THE IRONIES of the so-called fuel crisis is the fact that the increase in sales of motorcycles will produce shortages of bikes before the end of the year. If you have been thinking about buying another bike, better do it now. Showroom floors may be empty when you go looking.
The predicted demand for bikes is attributable to their high mileage capability, of course. Not too long ago I would not have given much credence to the theory that a motorcycle’s appeal lies in its mileage. Who really cared before this? We could spend an entire day racing, trailing, riding an enduro, taking a Akce long highway trip, and ^Ke about three to six gallons of gasoline. Fuel consumption didn’t have anything at all to do with motorcycling. That was a few months ago.
ANOTHER MONSTER ÍS k looming on the horizon: the Environmental Protection Agency. They are studying pollution levels of various motorcycles with a view to proposing limits. They fear that an increase in motorcycle use will produce an increase in pollution.
They base their feelings on some limited research that showed that “on the average, an uncontrolled motorcycle emits 20 times more hydrocarbons per vehicle mile travelled than an automobile controlled to the 1976 standards.”
What a bunch of crap. It is just like typical bureaucrats to react in a manner that completely ignores the obvious. It may very well be true that an uncontrolled bike emits 20 times the pollutants per mile travelled than an automobile suffering under the restricting junk hung on it nowadays to reduce its polluting ability. But it’s that “per mile travelled” line that gives them the false rationale.
How on earth is it possible for a 1 5 or 30.5 or 45-cu.-in. motorcycle to emit anywhere near the amount of pollutants that a 200 to 400-cu.-in. car engine does? Obviously it isn’t possible. But, when you measure the amount it is putting out in terms of miles travelled, you get a slightly different picture—relevant or not.
The outcome will be a set of restrictions that will harm the two-stroke bikes more than the four-strokes. The EPA’s studies to date indicate that most current four-stroke bikes are within, or close to, the maximums under consideration for 1976 standards. Two-strokes will be forced to reduce emissions, also, but it will be much harder to do because of the mixing of gas, air and oil in the crankcase.
Rebreathing of crankcase air is one of the basic steps in cutting down pollutants in an engine. Attempting to recirculate crankcase air in a twostroke would create a loss of crankcase pressure, one of the essential functions in a twostroke.
Another major problem with two-strokes is that the short cycle causes the air/fuel mixture to be drawn into the combustion chamber at the same time fumes are being exhausted; an overlap that vents some of the raw fuel directly into the air. The answer to reducing emissions in a two-stroke will have to come not only from a yet undeveloped converter/exhaust system, but from some method that will control the loss of raw fuel through the exhaust, as well. A pretty heavy problem.
E RECEIVE A lot of appeals from various individuals and agencies, asking for help in the name of various and sundry good causes. We cannot help all of them; there wouldn’t be room left in the magazine for the stuff you buy it for.
But, I recently got a letter from a foxy-looking young lady named Jane Lindstrom. She’s a stu for American Airlines, flying out of L.A. International. Sorry United, I just changed my favorite airline. Jane’s younger brother, Ken, was injured in a bike accident and is paralyzed from his chest down.
Jane’s appeal is for donations to a fund-raising campaign, the goal of which is research into spinal cord regeneration. Funds will be held by the National Paraplegia Foundation. You can send your donations to Wheelchairs, P.O. Box 1022, Cerritos, CA 90701.
I know very little about the diseases leading to paraplegia, but they include cancer, stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, polio, focal epilepsy and spina bifida. Jane asked that we run an ad for the appeal. I hope that a personal request from me will carry a little more weight.
I WAS HAPPY to notice that the Italian counterpart of the AMA got its problems sorted out and announced a date for the 1974 ISDT. It will take place at Camerino, San Marino, on September 9th through the> 14th. San Marino is a tin^ self-governing, picture-book state down near the Adriatic Sea. The terrain will be entirely different from that of the previous Italian ISDT.
VERY SOON AN old and well-established maker of kit bikes in England is going to announce an allnew motocrosser. The engine was developed by Dr. Gordon Blair, a reader in thermodynamics at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The bike will be called the URM, for Ulster Racing Motorcycles. It was originally developed as a single-cylinder, two-stroke roadracing engine called the 500 QUB. That was in 1972. Though it was a success when introduced, it quickly got beaten by the advent of Formula 750 multi-cylinder engines and unlimited class racing in England. Blair decided to turn to a class in which the single-cylinder engines would always be winners; namely motocross.
The QUB developed 65 hp at 8000 rpm. It appeared quite simple to develop a mechanically-similar, reliable engine that would produce 40 hp at 6000 rpm. However, the torque curve of a motocross engine is quite different, so Blair turned to the Queen’s University computer for the answer. As a consultant, he had done just that for many motorcycle makers around the world. Including Japan!
So, the QUB 500 became the URM 500, with similar overall physical dimensions and the use of a four-speed transmission instead of the original road-racing fivespeeder. A rubber-mounted 42mm Amal was reduced to a 38mm one. Crankshaft and piston are identical to those on the road racer, but the width was reduced. Only five castings, made by Greeves, make up the bottom half of the engine. Greeves and Vilders use eight. The entire transmission system can be removed without dismantling the engine.
Ignition is a Spanish Motoplat unit. The entire engine and transmission, including kick start, weigh only 75 lb. The complete motorcycle weighs 220 lb. in its present form. Seeley built the frame from Reynolds 531 tubing. The forks and wheels are from Husqvarna.
A considerable amount of money has been invested in the project. Very shortly a racing program will begin; and if things work out, there just might be a new Irish motorcycle on the market. And that is to say nothing of the engine appearing in a new British bike. A 250cc five-speed has already been designed for future consideration. For many years BSA supported the research into “unsteady gas dynamics,” the technical term for the study of the flow of gasoline into, through and out of an engine. It would now seem that Dr. Blair and Queen’s University need only wait for people to beat a path to their door to reap the benefits of their research.
! Y THANKS TO Bob Weggeman of Hot Rod magazine for one of the nicest weekends I have had in Baja. Seems as though Bob and a few of his friends at Petersen Publishing Co. decided last year to organize a nice, friendly ride from Ensenada to Mike’s Sky Ranch. Mike’s is located high in the San Pedro Mártir range, about halfway across the peninsula, 130-odd miles froJÉ Ensenada.
Bob decided to christen the event the Swede Savage Memorial Baja run, or something like that. Swede’s name wasn’t mentioned much, but the true spirit of the kind of motorcycling that Swede liked certainly permeated the weekend.
Swede was an AMA professional racer who turned to car racing under Dan Gurney. He was killed at Indianapolis in 1973. He had a lot of friends.
Mike’s loves motorcyclists. We make up the majority of
their customers. It’s a nice 50-mile ride from the West Coast and it opens up hm^ dreds of miles of the be^P old-style off-road bike riding there are. You need reservations during the busy season, but it’s worth it. The food and hospitality are fantastic. Tell Don and Lois that I sent you. But use a muffler, please.
I SAW AN interesting item in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association bulle tin that might give you some thing to think about. Jet Pro pulsion Laboratory (JPL) sci entists discovered that minute amounts of hydrogen injected into the airflow going into engines allows them to run at mixtures much leaner tha normal.
An engme runs normally using a mixture of about 15 pounds of air for one of fuel, but the injection of hydrogen can reduce this requirement to about 75 pounds of air for one of fuel.
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The National Aeronautic and Space Administration is presently experimenting with a modified car engine, and they see potentially significant use in general aviation. Wonder if it might work on motorcycles?
^■HAT I HOPE is not the final word on racing in Baja is rather gloomy. The Mexican-sponsored 1000 last November, which I reported on in the March issue, has left some lingering bad tastes in a few places. Several finishers have not yet received their prize money. The Baja Sports Committee, organizers of the event and the group who took it away from NORRA, are apparently the villains.
After a little research (one of the nicer advantages that a monthly magazine has), I was able to uncover the reason why the BSC has a money problem. In simple terms, they ran out of money! The entries were far fewer than they had anticipated, so they ran about $23,000 under budget. Many racers did not pay their hotel expenses and the BSC was forced to pick up the tabs. Enter the Baja Racing Association.
The BRA ran the event for the BSC. The BRA has four races scheduled in Baja for 1974. They will definitely run, and the racers will be paid, as they have been for several years since the group started racing down there. Bill Martin of the BRA has assured me that the finishers in the BSC/BRA Baja 1000 will get their money; but it will take a little more time.
Bill feels that blasting Mexico and the BSC just may end all racing in that country.
I do know that the Mexicans are very sensitive when it comes to criticism. He may be right, but the BSC had
better pay the money as soon as they can or there won’t be anybody there when they start their next race.
I heard a rumor that several Americans, including the new king of off-road professional racing, Mickey Thompson, were dickering with the Mexicans to take over the 1000 and perhaps the 500. I hope it is true; Mickey would pay the money for sure.
If the BRA again helped the BSC, and Mickey Thompson was the boss, it might be even better than with NORRA. Parnelli Jones told me that they were also thinking of making the 1000 a loop event, with a start at ai^k return to Ensenada. The lo<(P would go down the east side and cross over to El Arco, then work its way up the west side back to Ensenada.
It would also eliminate the best part of racing the 1000: La Paz. That would be very sad for us race followers.
TWELVE YEARS AND ONE MONTH AGO
ONTINUING OUR series exploring the old days in CYCLE WORLD, the April 1962 issue had the new Matchless G-50CSR on the cover, with a road test and an analysis of the engine as features. It was a bike with the G-50 engine mounted in the standard production Matchless frame. It was expensive at $1550., but it went 122 mph, did the quarter in 14.1 sec. and had a trap speed of 98 mph. A real superbike, especially for its day. Not many were built, but those that are still around are worth a lot more now than when new.
AÍ Rogers was selling Cottons, or at least trying to. The Matchless Indian company’s advertisement read: “The
thing to do in ‘62. . .buy Matchless.” A lot of us did. The line included a 750 Twin; a 650 Twin; the Golden Eagle, which was what they called the G-50CSR, two 500 Singles; the 600cc singlecylinder Typhoon; two 250 Singles; the 150cc Pinto twostroke and the Papoose motorscooter. Quite a lineup.
Hap Jones advertised that Mike Hailwood and Tom Phillis had won 38 European events on Avon tires.
We also tested the Greeves 250 motocrosser. It had an open exhaust and was without doubt the noisiest bike in the world. It’s a shame that Greeves couldn’t have continued the winning streak that it was on at the time. Rumor from England now has it that the factory has been sold and will not make bikes any longer. We know the Greeves distributorship in the U.S. is for sale.
We also tested the Yamaha YD-3, which was supplied by my good friend, the late Jimmy Jingu, at Yamaha. Jingu helped CYCLE WORLD a lot in the early days. He had a strong sense of appreciation for what we were trying to do with the magazine.
The YD-3 had funny fenders and whitewall tires. It didn’t go very fast, either.
But it was nice and it had electric starting.
We fooled around with another one of those damnable mini-bikes; a Micro Rebel. It at least had suspension, of sorts. It was powered with a lOOcc Sachs two-stroke engine, which really was the only good thing about it.
Our competition reports talked about a midnight road run in New York, ice racing in Iowa, a rally and gold hunt in New Jersey and the United States Motorcycle Club Daytona GP. Mike Hailwood rode a Norton in the latter event, but he didn’t finish.
Honda factory bikes were all over the place, winning almost everything. Takahashi rode a 250 Honda Four and beat all the 500s. John McLaughlin rode a Norton. So did Ron Grant from Surrey, England who was new to the U.S. at the time. The Tohotsu factory bikes did well in the 50cc class. It was quite a show. There hasn’t been a real U.S. Grand Prix since. The USMC, run by a bunch of big time Eastern businessmen, was the official FIM affiliate at the time.
Honda advertised on the back cover. They showed the 250 Hawk, 305 Super Hawk, 250 Dream, 125 Benly Super Sport and the 50cc Super Sport. An incredible line of bikes, so far ahead of their time it was almost unbelievable.
■ HAVE ALWAYS been fascinated by Africa. I don’t want to go there and kill a bunch of helpless animals, but one of our advertisers is putting together a trek clear across the belt of the continent on motorcycles. That sounds more like the way I would like to do it.
It’s called Afrotrek L^P The man in charge is Bill Record, who made the trip in 1972 on a BMW. The tour will leave in late October of this year. Although somewhat expensive, $2545 for either one of two six-week tours, and $4110 for the full 12week trip, leaving from New York, the price includes all meals, lodging, gasoline and air fares.
A 250cc bike, properly set up, will be provided. The route crosses Africa from Morocco to Kenya, through the Sahara in Algeria and through the jungles of the Congo River Basin. The group is limited to 15 persons, and will be supported by a tru^^ carrying food, gasoline, watP and spares.
Wish I could go. 13
