Letters
LETTERS
MINTAGE EXCHANGE?
I am an avid reader of your magazine and a steadfast supporter of motorcycling and anything which could help improve it. Therefore, I'd like to offer a suggestion.
It would be a great service if you could follow your companion car publication’s Example and include a classified ad section where we readers could find proper homes and owners for our well-cared-for relics and classics. There are a lot of people out here looking for bikes that can’t be bought in any dealership.
Patrick Hatton Dothan, Ala.
Years ago, when our sport was smaller * than it is now, CW did in fact have a classified section patterned after Road & Track ’s. (Our founder, Joe Parkhurst, worked at R& T before creating this magazine, so the resemblance was intentional qnd approved by R&T.)
But as motorcycles became more popuvlar and more numerous, we had to drop the department. Most bikes could be found more quickly elsewhere, and most people weren’t interested in the occasional rare old 'un.
Doug Roy
Since then interest in the old bikes has increased and so have places to buy and sell them. We doubt we could compete with, say, Cycle News and its weekly listing of racing and motocross machines. Motorcyclist’s Post does a good job for old roadsters in New England, the WER A club newsletter has scores of current road
racers. Buzz Walneck’s Classic-Fieds has old bikes of all kinds, mostly English, and all the various make clubs, as in Ducati, Vincent, Yamaha 650, Vintage Japanese, etc., carry good ads for each make and model.
We’d like to have a classified section. It’s great fun to wish you had the money> for the Gilera or MV or Royal Enfleldf that’s on the block. But, because we don’t have the space, and because the parties listed above are doing the job better than we could, we’ll have to leave it to them.
THE WINSTON QUIZ SHOW
How come your back cover in May* shows a Harley-Davidson being ridden by a Yamaha driver? Does Winston plan oil running it again?
Mike Vandertie" Roseville, Minn.
Sure. And those ads are anything but a conflict of interest. Instead, it’s a challenge\ to the ad agencies involved.
Winston’s parent company, R.J. Reynolds, is backing motorcycle racing with publicity, support and piles of money. It’f fair to say we’d have a much poorer AMA national championship if it wasn’t for' Winston. A
So they like to show in their ads that they support the sport. But they have to lye careful not to take away from their own message. If they used Randy Goss or Gary♦ Scott or Ted Boody in the ads, we fans would pay attention to the men and not the pitch.
What they do, therefore, is have modelsÀ who look the part. For background they use actual racing bikes. Not from the factories; again, that would make it a Harley or Yamaha or Honda or Kawasaki ad. They deal with privateers. Because th& bikes must look right, they must have the various decals and emblems, while not giving ad space to those who don’t need it. AM A, for instance, is non-commercial and" cooperates with Winston, so an AMA sticker may be visible. The rider’s leathers, though, may have been doctored so somey emblems are visible and others have disappeared.
We think this is great fun. Every time a new Winston ad appears we give ourselves ■ a quiz: Who has national number 52? What’s been taken off the leathers worn &y the guy standing next to the #3 bike, and whose number is that? We hope the series continues and that the privateers, who, need the money, keep on helping out.
As a specific note, if you’re thinking of< Mike Kidd, he’s not a Yamaha rider. He rides for Roberts/Lawwill. They in tur*n are subcontractors for Yamaha but they have permission to use Harleys while thd Yamaha tracker is being developed. It’s a way to gain points, not a conflict of interest.
TOP SPEED TESTING
I was interested in the test of the Ya-^ maha XJ550 (April 1981) but was puzzled by some of the figures. From the time to speed curve given it looks to me as if the 550’s top speed would be closer to 115 mph shown for the half-mile than to the 128 in the speeds-in-gears chart. Am I missing something?
Donald Wigston St. Louis, Mo.
No. We’re missing the proper explanation. There is no place available to us on a regular basis where we can truly time the top speeds of some of the more powerful bikes on the market. Not even the average race track will let, say, a GS1100 or XSl 100 or CBX really have long enough to pick up those last few mph. So we use a radar gun and a flying start half mile. The rockets will do 135 or so, which to us is close enough to the 138 or 140 that we’d get at Bonneville to not make much difference.
The speeds in gears are calculated. We know the gearbox ratios and the final drive ratio, so we compute how fast the bike could safely go in each gear. If the redline has 8000 rpm, the chart might show 55 in 1st, 70 in 2nd, 85 in 3rd, 100 in 4th and 110 in 5th. Most motorcycles are geared so they won’t hurt themselves in top, which is why the timed speeds are usually lower than the calculated speeds.
ELECTRIC KICK BACK
I really got a kick (sorry) out of “Letters” in June. “When kickstarts go, I will ride no more.” Really? Even the old Harley riders tell of looking at the headlight face to face while upside down because the big Twin kicked back. And who remembers when you kicked and kicked and kicked and found yourself pinned beneath it because you were so tired you couldn’t hold it up? Undoubtedly a kick start is good to have in case the little lightning bug isn’t getting to your starter, but to insinuate electric starters are more trouble than they’re worth is to never have owned one.
REB
Columbia, S.C.
I have an ’81 Honda CB750F and my starter never fails. A friend has a 1979 CBX and has never had a problem with the starter. I’ve never heard of the starter snapping a chain and I, for one of many, will take electric start every time.
Tom Stauffer Hawthorne, Calif.
The electric leg is a wonderful invention. There are two valid points of view here. One is that of the sailor who wouldn’t have an outboard motor because that takes away the challenge of knowing how to sail. And there’s the sailor who has an auxiliary motor because sometimes it’s better to get home before dark.
Our view is that for any engine larger than 400cc, an aid such as a compression release, or electric start, is best. Motorcycles are to be ridden, not started. But we ride enough to know that motorcycle bafi teries and charging systems aren’t what^ they could be. When the battery goes flat, we’d prefer ignition that cranked its own sparks and we’d like the kick lever, just in case, and anybody who doesn’t know why. hasn’t been trapped in an empty parking lot with a dead battery and no way to kick or bump it.
DEALING WITH DEALERS
This letter is in reference to your June 1981 article, “Dealing With Dealers.”
I resent mechanics being referred to as “pimply-faced mechanics who don’t know’ an inner tube from a brake shoe.”
I am 25 years old, married, and have been in the motorcycle field for eight years. I am a LICENSED motorcycle mechanic and have been for four years. In Canada, to become a licensed motorcycle mechanic you have to attend a total c$ sixteen weeks of in-school government training, in addition to a three-year ap-" prenticeship with a registered motorcycle dealer. At the end of the apprenticeship and government training, you must pass a government-supervised examination to receive your certificate of qualification. Most dealers also have their mechanics continually updated at factory-sponsored training schools.
Who is David Mallet, and what are his"1 credentials in the motorcycle field? If he is a motorcycle mechanic who knows what he is talking about, he is doing a great disservice to his fellow mechanics. If he is a budding new author just blowing hot aii;, he should know what he is talking about before he condemns all mechanics.
Steven Roy King Service Manager Ontario, Canada
No disrespect was intended. We hopecl to distinguish between the truly profes-H sional mechanic and the shop owner’s nephew, the untrained kid who’s all thumbs and ball-peen hammers.
There are now schools for mechanics. There are factory-backed training programs and there are some dealerships who care enough about service to hire good me-^ chanics and keep them up to date.
David Mallet is a motorcycle owner who has experienced poor service. Sad to say, he’s not the only one.
ROUTE 66 PURSUIT
Peter Egan’s Lost Highway (May,1981) is on a par with his Down the Road Again (November, 1980). Would that other motorcycle journalists could match his achievements of literature.
But I have a correction and comment. It was Amtrak’s Southwest Limited that he raced across New Mexico on the Santa Fe Railway. As well as being fast, it is often sold out and can easily match a motorcycle for being fun and fuel efficient. The national budget now scuttles the SouthWest Limited and the rest of Amtrak outside the Northeast to save 250 million. Our Federal highway budget is over 8 million and climbing.
Wouldn’t we rather save that 250 million by slowing our attempt to pave over the whole nation? I’ll take trains and Route 66 over more Interstates any day.
Ben English Boulder, Colo.
THE INVISIBLE FORCE
Here’s what I tried on the Motorace tire yoke ad, page 98 of the June issue:
1) Holding it up to a mirror gave me a headache.
2) Holding it up to the light gave me a nice picture of Gina Bovaird.
3) Lemon juice gave me a wet page.
4) Heat dried the page but left spots.
I give up. What is the price for the tire irons?
Robert Harding Waterville, N.Y.
We’re happy to say the printer did it. There was supposed to be a banner across that picture, proclaiming the price of $14.95 for the pair, $7.95 for one tire iron, plus shipping from the various zones.
Sorry for the confusion. We have a pair of the Motorace irons and they really work well. Worth the price, if not the puzzlement caused by the omission. >
COST PER MILE
Recently some of your readers have commented on how little reimbursement they as government employees get for operation of their motorcycles while on official" business. One commented on the lack of data available on the cost of cycle operation.
This moved me to do a quick cost per mile (CPM) study on my 1978 Kawasaki KZ650SR, and the results astounded me. They indicate that even though my gener-ous private sector employer pays me 20 cents per mile, I’m not making the financial killing I had believed.
Based on 2/2 years and 26,700 mi. (I bought it new in March, 1979), here arc my figures:
Divide the bottom line by total miles t® get CPM, which comes out to be 17.68 cents per mile! How’s that for a kick in the"
head?
Tom Berg
Huntington Beach, Calif
THE RING LEADER
I would like to comment on your piston ring article in the July, 1981 issue. I am 14 years old and ride regularly (that is when my bike runs) and most of my problems have to do with the rings.
Your article will help me to understand rings much better when I work on mf bike.
Matt Merriam " Orlando, Fla.
TOO HOT FOR LEATHERS
For quite sometime now I have been looking for a functional windbreaker to wear when it’s too hot for leathers. In the^ July, 1981 issue on pages 44 and 45, the test rider is wearing a jacket that looks like it will fill the bill. Does it keep out the wind and is its all over performance good?
Steve Swenson Menomonie, Wis>
Our rider is wearing a BMWjacket that is excellent for hot weather riding. You might try a BMW dealer or check out the jackets at the accessory houses. I can not emphasize the importance of safety equipment on a motorcycle enough. Recently my wife and I were involved in an accident but received only minor injuries. My crash bars not only saved the bike (1978 KZ1000) but my leg as well and I would wear a helmet even if all the helmet laws were done away with.
AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION
M. R. Collins Clarksville, Ga.
We’re glad your equipment worked for you. Helmets are beyond debate, but safety research to date shows case guards—legal term for what used to be called crash bars—sometimes protect the )rider and sometimes make leg injuries worse.
FOR THE LOVE OF YAMAHA
It sounds like Dean Flanders (Letter, August, 1981) hasn’t been to the Yamaha dealer lately. If he would check out the SR500 he would find it meets his desires. I’ve had one for three years and over 15,000 mi. and plan to keep it for a long, long time.
If he wants to kickstart it, he can. It has simple maintenance . . . and as far as tuneups go, each spring I spend 30 min. checking the lifters and $1.99 for a new plug.
Overcomplex? No. Overweight? No. ^Overpriced? What isn’t?
Alfred Greene, Jr.
Uncasville, Conn.
MIKE THE BIKE
I have never had the pleasure of seeing him ride but the photos of Mike Hailwood tell me I missed perfection in motion. This great man along with many other of our fellow enthusiasts of the early 1970s helped to dispel the myths of “if you ride a bike you’re some kind of second class citizen.”
Mike the Bike, we salute you and you will be greatly missed by all fellow bikers.
David Clemmer Gastonia, N.C.
