Up Front
UPFRONT
THE RETURN OF RED ROOSTER
Allan Girdler
Privacy. On the occasion of this moment of truth my intention was to confound my friends and violate my principles. Naturally I wanted to be alone.
Near the close of the business day there’s a lull, between when the early departees dart for the door and the night crew burrows into their desks. I waited for that lull and stepped softly into the shop. All was quiet. I rolled Red Rooster out the door. Switch on. Fuel on. Neutral light on. Full choke. Contact.
The engine fired up. Not too well. The left cylinder surged and clattered and the right was good for maybe one beat out of 10. No matter. My faith had been rewarded, my work had not been in vain. Time now for a round of applause. I rode around to the front of the building and across the sidewalk to Brian’s window. Literally up to the window, as in, bump. Fie walked over, looked out and laughed as hard as I was.
This ride to the winner’s circle, so to speak, begins with my principles. For as long as there have been dual-purpose bikes, that’s all I’ve owned. While my admiration for pure enduro bikes and touring bikes and sports roadsters has no limit, still, to have a bike that can’t do all things, never mind how well, is in my view a limitation not worth accepting.
As to confounding my friends, everybody else here lusts after new motorcycles. Their palms are always clammy. Last summer Ron bought a Yamaha, in the fall a Suzuki, in the winter a Maico and at this writing he’s dickering for a Flonda. Henry already had a Honda, a Triumph and a Yamaha when he bought his second Yamaha and he’s bought the Bultaco tested for this issue and already he’s wondering if he can get a discount on the touring BMW likewise.
They are all like that. Except me. As regular readers know, I am devoted to my 1972 thumper. Day after day the other chaps come ’round like mothers with many daughters, urging me to buy this shiny new sports model or that woods wonder, and I have been hard pressed figure a way to show' them that I plain don’t want a new bike.
Parallel to the above, remember Cafe Boom that never took place? All brains in the motorcycle business figured the riding public was eager for cafe bikes. thought they were wrong. I live a couple blocks from one of the finest riding roads in the western U.S. and every Sunday see these troops of Canyon Commandos; necks kinked, knees dragging, backs answer to a chiropractor’s prayer and say to myself, lowering the c.g. by inches and reducing frontal area by eight percent can’t be worth it.
I w'as right. The public didn’t buy. Well. Couple months ago I went to visit a friend who works at another magazine. (Not a motorcycle magazine.) I went in back door. Off in a corner beneath some snow tires and a dead bicycle and a papermache sea captain, there was a motorcycle.
An odd. one might say unique, motorcycle. When the cafe boom was still going happen, somebody decided to prepare Honda CB350 as a mock road racer. They took a nearly new CB350 and swapped all the comfortable items for Honda GP replica tank, seat and bars. They cobbled up a shifter and fitted a front disc brake.
What they got w;as the speed and handling of a CB350 (pause for ironic laughter) mixed with the comfort and utility of a 1968 GP racer. (More chuckles.)
As far as the project went was limbo, in the form of this warehouse for I don’t know how many years.
many years. When my pal decided to leave the magazine I asked, “Whatcha gonna do with the cafe bike?” and he said, “It’s yours,” which was just w hat I hoped he’d say.
Why, I don’t know. Leading the list of bikes I don’t need has got to be a cafe bike. A slow cafe bike. One of whose mechanical condition I was not at all sure.
Perhaps because I didn’t need it, I wanted it. A lot. I dragged it out of the warehouse, dragged because the tires w'ere flat, and the front brake was frozen. Also the battery was gone, the mirrors were gone, the kickstarter was gone, the fuel tank leaked, the clutch lever pivot was smashed, the master cylinder was full of sludge, the float bowls were full of murky grey stuff and the substance in the crankcase came through the drain in chunks.
Originally this wasn’t going to matter. I had in mind a bit of touching up, then a parking place in the office. A conversation piece.
But when I saw Red Rooster in the light, after washing off the layers of dust revealed layers of corrosion covering Team Honda Red, those stubby bars, that skinny tank and a seat just like where Mike Hailwood sat. I knew' . . .
. . . Born to run.
I used up a can of Gunk, a bottle of Star Brite and a tube of Simichrome. I replaced the missing and broken parts and reglassed the tank, all the while not trying the engine because I didn’t really want to know until I had no choice.
Technically, the name should be Red> Rooster II. When I was writing about boats there was a one-off ocean racing design built by a man who thought if a boat could do one thing really well, it wouldn’t matter if it couldn’t do anything else at all well. The result was Red Rooster I and it never won anything although 1 always secretly rooted for it because I am a sucker for things which are daring and different and fail anyway. Hence the borrowing of a boat’s name for a replica road racing bike. Team Honda Red didn’t hurt, either.
Soon as I knew the engine would actually run on at least half its cylinders at least part of the time, I took the bike home.
My Gold Wing-owner neighbor Turner was preparing to wash his car or some such dull chore when I set to work. Piece of cake. I rolled the bike out of the driveway and he bit the lure. (Turner is an engineer and has lots of diagnostic tools and equipment 1 don’t have.)
We tested compression and spark and carb sync and so forth and traced the trouble to not all the murky stuff having been flushed from the right-hand carb. Red Rooster now runs if not like a clock, then like a sound CB350 and all I need next is a vintage race meet with loose rules or a parade.
When w'e were putting away his tools. Turner hurt my feelings.
“Is this bike for one of your sons?” he asked.
“My children are old enough to buy their own toys,” I replied stiffly. “This one is for me.”
