Cycle World Roundup
CYCLE WORLD ROUNDUP
HARLEY’S OWN FREEDOM MACHINE
Conglomerate spin-off is a financial term, meaning that a division or subsidiary has gone out on its own after having been part, for good, bad or both, of a larger organization. Such moves are rare these days, as in most cases the large holding company collects smaller firms more easily than it sends them off as independent operations.
Harley-Davidson has done it. After 12 5'ears as a part of AMF, the leisure-products holding company that also produces sporting goods, sailboats, golf carts and the like, Harley is in the process of becoming just plain Harley, with no AMF label tagging along.
Not only that, Harley has been bought by ... Harley. In the form of H-D’s own presidents and vice-presidents.
The story begins in 1969, when the then-family-owned Harley-Davidson was bought by AMF. The move was good for both parties. H-D was small and lacked financial resources at a time when the motorcycle business was growing and the other companies in the field were much larger and could draw on more production, marketing and engineering expertise.
Old-time Harley fans grumbled then, and still do, that the buy was a bad one and resulted in more machines with less care and tradition, but in truth, if AMF hadn’t arrived with money for improved machinery and engineering and changes to
meet the various legal requirements, the chances are Harley wouldn’t have survived. Further, the team spirit never changed. The guys on the line rode Harleys to work then and still do and there are those who say the AMF official who guided the acquisition was motivated at least in part by his personal enthusiasm for motorcycles. AMF didn’t buy Harley to loot it or strip it or do anything to hurt America’s only motorcycle company.
But H-D was an investment. A good one, as it’s turned out. Harley policy has always been to build what buyers wanted and to build no more of them than the dealers could sell at a fair price. This has worked well, and unlike some of the larger factories there have never been rows of two-year-old Harleys stored in warehouses waiting for demand to come back.
But Harley hasn’t been as profitable as other AMF ventures. The motorcycle business is tough. There have been signs in recent times that the market is changing and that Harley will have to change too, offering different and new models to keep the profits coming. More investment, when the hope has been for return on previous investment.
Several months ago we began to hear rumors. H-D was for sale. The buyers were (pick one or all three) Honda, Kawasaki, the Davidson family.
One was partly true, and it’s easy to see how the facts changed on their way to the rumor mill.
Harley executives, including Board Chairman John Davidson, president Charlie Thompson, AMF marketing director Vaughn Beales and the director of overseas operations David Lickerman had approached AMF with an offer, which has been accepted.
They, and some other officials, are buying Harley. Not with just their own money. Not even vice presidents get paid enough to buy a company this size. But they’ve put together the financial backing from institutions, which we interpret as banks and such, and they will be in charge.
What’s that mean for us bike nuts? First, it means the continued success of Harley. Nobody involved has anything but good to say about AMF but some people on the outside have worried about whether a financial holding company would back a division if the return on investment didn’t look good. Financial companies make money. Motorcycle companies make motorcycles and Harley is once again a motorcycle company.
Okay, so these guys are motorcycle people and they have control. Next, part of the deal surely must be that they also have seed money, funds to be spent on new and improved products. There were budget cuts early this year. The only department that didn’t feel the touch of the ax was quality control. The new system will have
the resources to keep improving the production lines, and it will also be able to design the new bikes Harley will need in the near future.
Such as? Harley’s engineering department has never been large and ever since the federal government discovered motorcycles, most of the engineers were a«signed to emissions and other government mandates. Our spy system isn’t as good as we’d like. Our source told us about the spin-off barely two hours before Harley’s official spokesman called. So we can’t vouch for this, but we have seen reports that H-D contracted with outside consultants and has in progress plans for three engines; a 500cc V-Twin, a lOOOcc V-Four, and a 1500cc V-Six. Not quite a modular engine family as the 500 is supposed to be air cooled and the other two are water cooled, but those are details.
Congratulations, to Harley, in sum. May your headquarters always be in Milwaukee and may the number of your models increase.
QUIET AS A MOTORCYCLE
After the federal government originally proposed noise standards for motorcycles that would put several brands of motorcycles out of business, there was lots of quiet from the EPA until the final regulations were issued last December. The original proposals called for an eventual maximum sound level of 78 db(A) for street bikes and small off-road bikes and a maximum noise level of 82 db(A) for offroad bikes larger than 170cc. The final noise standards are 80 db(A) and 82 db(A) for the two classes, respectively.
That’s only part of the story, though. Since the new administration has moved into the Capitol buildings there’s been lots of rethinking going on. President Reagan has ordered a review of the Carter administration’s last-minute rules and some people in the motorcycle industry expect the noise standards to be included in the review. The standards adopted, however, are considered possible by most of the manu-
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facturers who have commented on the regulations.
Presently there are no federal standards for motorcycle noise. Various states have laws, not all the same, and that would have become more of a problem in the future as the various state laws became more and more stringent. However. At present most street motorcycles will meet an 83 db(A) standard under the testing procedure commonly used.
But what does that number mean? According to the EPA’s original statements even that sound level was enough to cause grave problems and that’s why the noise standards were needed.
More realistic research indicates there’s less of a problem than the environmental nazis suggested. An article in Sound and Vibration, a publication for acoustic engineers, reported on an EPA study made last summer that concluded that motorcycles accelerating in traffic are just as noisy as cars, on the average.
Originally, the study began as did previous EPA studies. The researchers hauled their sound measuring equipment to an in-
tersection near a motorcyclists’ hangout and proceded to measure the sound com-
ing from motorcycles accelerating from a stop sign. But what became apparent was that the system didn’t work. The motorcyclists generally traveled in groups and there was no way of measuring the sound from a single motorcycle. Also, there was no way of determining if the exhaust systems on the motorcycles was entirely stock or if the mufflers had been modified. The sound of a stock bike was frequently masked by the sound of a bike with straight pipes even though the loud bike might have been a half block away. The results of that portion of the test were, in short, worthless.
That’s when the researchers set up a more controlled experiment. Several years ago General Motors conducted experiments on the acceleration rates of cars on urban streets. They found that averag* passenger cars accelerate from a stop to 100 ft. in 5 sec. and attain a speed of 22 mph at that distance. The maximum noise during that acceleration occurs 75 ft. from the start.
Using that information, the sound engineers brought 220 motorcyclists to a test, site. The bikes ranged from lOOcc to 1300cc and had a collection of exhausts from stock to straight pipes. The cyclists were asked to accelerate as they normally would for some tests, they accelerated at the standard automotive rates and finally they accelerated as hard as their motorcycles could.
Motorcycles are normally ridden a little harder than cars and when ridden normally the sound produced by the stock bikes was 74 db(A). Ridden at the automotive rate of acceleration the sound level was 72.6 db(A). At maximum acceleration the sound level was 85 db(A).
As a comparison, cars with automatic transmissions produce 70 db(A) and cars with standard transmissions recorded 72 db(A). In otherwords, shift-it-yourself cars were just as quiet as motorcycles.
VETTER’S NEW TOY
Craig Vetter has always been an inventive soul, and now that he’s sold the fairing company he’s had even more time to come up with new ideas. The latest one is a small engined streamlined touring bike that must be the most novel shape he’s come up with yet.
Behind the new bike is Craig’s idea that a properly streamlined motorcycle should be able to get over 125 mpg while cruising at 55 mph. That means the engine shouldn’t be too big, so he uses a Kawasaki 250cc Single, tuned for more economy. At 55 mph most of the horsepower and thus fuel is used simply to overcome wind resistance. There are two ways to reduce that drag. One is to improve the coefficient of drag, and the other is to reduce the frontal area.
Working in both directions, Vetter’s streamliner repositions the rider in a reclined perch between the two wheels. That reduces the frontal area and also fits the shape of the bike. Drawings of the machine show a front view that looks like a stretched Goodyear blimp with a tire encased beneath it. From the side there’s an indentation for the rider’s legs to tuck behind the fairing, in front of the rider. The rear portion of the bike is fully enclosed.
If there is a similarity to anything else on wheels, it might be the Quasar, a more enclosed English two wheeler. The appeal of the Vetter bike is that it’s still an open machine, without a roof or sides.
“It feels a little strange at first to be sitting in a semi-reclining position, but it works just fine. There’s no doubt that this is the most comfortable way to ride for long trips,” said Vetter. He has no plans to produce the machine, but just wanted to make it for himself.
FREE GOLDEN GATE
Actually, it’s the motorcyclists who are freed. When the Golden Gate Bridge District in California raised the fee to cross the famous bridge to $ 1.25, motorcyclists were granted permission to ride across the bridge toll-free during normal commuting hours of 6-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The same allowance is made for carpools with more than three passengers, and the district felt motorcyclists were doing as much to save gas and reduce congestion so motorcycles were classified along with carpools.
Not all officials think so highly of motorcycles and motorcyclists, however. When the California Department of Transportation began its experiment allowing motorcycles to use some freeway lanes reserved for busses and carpools, the commissioner of the Highway Patrol wrote a memo to a state legislator protesting the action. Commissioner Glen Craig objected to anything that would encourage motorcycle use because he feels motorcycles are dangerous. Craig presented several figures showing that motorcycles were less safe than cars and concluded, “In light of these trends, it may not be appropriate to encourage any significant shift from automobiles to motorcycles.”
