Up Front

UP FRONT

THERE MUST BE 24 WAYS TO PARK YOUR SCOOTER

Allan Girdler

Following the termination of one of those meetings, the ones in which you consume an afternoon deciding nothing, I slumped wearily out of the building and threw a leg over the Yamaha 920. I inserted the key, turned it.

Nothing. A full assortment of lights stood mute. Just in case I’d read the signals wrong, I pushed the starter button.

Nothing. A second push and the oil warning light managed a dull glow, then faded away.

I muttered the usual curses, imprecations and pleas for help. One of the other guys had been riding the bike and new Yamahas have a funny switch. It’s all too possible to turn past “lock” to “park”, which turns on the taillight and runs down the battery. No kick lever on the 920, of course, and without battery power there’s nothing to produce sparks so you can’t bump start. All I could think to do was hook up the shop charger for long enough to get some life into the battery.

Darn, I said, doesn’t anybody know how to park a motorcycle?

So I got off the bike and began to roll it nearer to the workbench . . . bump.

Oh. Hang on. This thing is in gear! My energy level revived faster than a lifetime battery. Back in the saddle, key on, nudge the lever up. On came the green light and a touch of the thumb whirled—well, Cranked. Big Twins don’t whirl—the 920 into life and away I went, normally late for dinner but not much and still thinking to myself, Why don’t people park bikes the right way?

First revision: why don’t they park them my way?

That’s not quite right either: Why don't we park them the orthodox way?

There is one. A side benefit to having been taught how to ride is that I got to learn the official, approved, rational way

to deal with and set the controls when you start your scooter.

This comes from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. They are educators and like all such they like to use codes and catch phrases. The MSF system is spelled out FINE-C.

It’s a step-by-step. F means fuel petcock, as in turn it on. I is the ignition switch, also to be turned on. Then N, the neutral light, which should glow green and tell you the gearbox is in neutral. E stands for engine kill switch. (I asked the instructor why not K for kill switch and he gave me a thousand-yard stare, the fmk.) Last comes C for choke. Whether you need it on or off depends on various factors, but it never hurts to check.

This is a logical system. Every step was reasoned out but still, I bet if you check the way you park your bike and then the way your riding pals park theirs, you’ll find everybody does it differently.

Why? Begin with the math. Consider a median motorcycle. No automatic neutral-finder, no leave-the-selection-to-us petcock, no dirt or race-only kill button.

The median motorcycle will have an ignition switch; choice of off or on. There will be a neutral light connected to the gearbox, which will be in gear or not. The kill switch can be on or off and the petcock can be in on, off or reserve. Two times two is four, times two is eight, times three gives us 24 different combinations.

Next, we take advantage of them all. FINE-C is exercised mostly in the book, not on the road, and I think it’s because we are all victims of fashion, habit and trauma.

I am the rule rather than the exception. Excepting special circumstances, for instance parking on a hill, I am not capable of leaving my machine unless it’s in neutral. I can’t help it. When I began this motorcycling stuff, neutral was as elusive as an un-bobbed Harley fender. Burned into my memory circuit is the day 1 rowed up and down, 1-2-1-2 while the other guys parked. Then they ordered. Then they ate while I couldn’t get out of gear. I finally settled for 2nd and parking so I could bump it downhill, but by then the pack was ready for the road again. Now, never mind that you can buy a bike with an automatic neutral finder, I cannot roll to a stop unless the bike is out of gear.

Petcocks I ignore. For reasons not germane to this account I missed the European dirt bike era, in which, I’m told, carburetors leaked like Congressional committees and a petcock left on was a sure way to fill your crankcase with fuel quicker than you can say bent connecting rod. This morning I watched a veteran dirt racer ride up on a sophisticated road machine and sure enough, he carefully shut off the fuel taps before he dismounted.

He also flipped the kill switch as well as the ignition switch.

I don’t like kill switches, never mind that they may come in handy when your throttle is stuck and you don’t want to take a hand off the grips. First, I was told in high school that current coursing through the points burns them. The green light means—to me—that the ignition is on. Right, I know it’s not. Further, most mo torcycles nowadays don’t even have points but none of this has any effect on me. Besides, I once wore down the battery and then my leg trying to start a bike borrowed from an ex-racer who had, as was naturalE to him, flipped the kill switch. Never touch the things myself.

The third petcock option, reserve, had me puzzled for a long time. I can’t take the stress of being the first step out of gas^ Next, the house rule is any bike that goes on reserve will be filled at the corner station and not parked in the shop so the next sucker can 1) notice the petcock and ge4 gas or 2) run out of gas and then notice the petcock, chose one and it’s usually the lat-1 ter.

But we still have fleet bikes on reserve. Even with gas in them. The racers agaiii, Eve discovered. On the track you don’t want to carry any fuel you don’t need 4 don’t know any race ever was won by the edge you get from being 6 lb. lighter, bub that’s how the racers figure. No do they wish to fumble with levers under the tank1 at odd times. So racers instantly flip onto reserve.

None of the above needs to work firsthand, by the way. My kids park in gear, which I first ascribed to neutral being so, easy in these effete times, not like in my day. No. They also switch off petcocks and* they’ve never had a flooded carb. They’ve been told about them, though, by their motocross pals who got this wisdom from lord knows how far back, thanks to pioneers on CZs. (I find this reassuring in ÿ. way. Ed hate to think foolish folklore is an endangered species. Believing nonsense one sign of true faith, after all, and if we can trade the “Never use the front brake-** it’ll put you over the bars” and the “No time for the brakes, I had to lay ’er down*” legends, the ones that can hurt, 1 reckon the flooded crankcase is an acceptable supstition, sort of sparklers for cherry^ bombs.)

What I am doing here is non-preaching^ to the unconvertible. There are, as the figures prove, at least 24 ways to leave yoi^r bike. There is not any one correct, or best way to do it and even if there were—feel free to argue. Steve Kimball says 1 am too polite and wishy-washy—none of us would' do it the approved way if we liked our way better.

My evidence here came from a Harley show. A Harley rider asked what 1 think of the belt-drive Sturgis. Good work, I said. Why? he growled.

Uh, well, it shifts so nicely. You can get neutral any time you want it. He glared as if I’d rolled up my sleeve to expose my4 Indian tattoo.

“Some things,” he said as he moved as far from me as he could, “aren’t suppose^ to be easy.” &