Cycle World Roundup
CYCLE WORLD ROUNDUP
DAVID EDWARDS
Beyond '85: Futurebike predictions
If late summer brings out thoughts of next year's motorcycles, early fall starts us thinking further down the road. And so, using a combination of rumors, inside information and educated guesses, we sketched out in last month's Roundup what we thought the 1985 motorcycles would be all about. But that's easy compared to predicting what's coming in 1986 or 1987 or 1988. After all, who in 1980 would have predicted sportbikes like VF500F Interceptors or 900 Ninjas? Or that Honda and Yamaha would be building Harley-Davidson lookalikes such as the Shadows and Viragos? Not us.
But we’re prepared to dust off our hazy crystal ball and make some long-range predictions now, predictions that we’d at least be willing to place a bet on. We’re willing to go out on that limb because the motorcycle market has stabilized to some extent, because we’ve heard a few rumors, and because a few exotic motorcycles now seen only in motorcycle shows or on far-off racetracks may offer solutions to Japanese marketing needs.
Prediction One: By the 1988 model year, and perhaps considerably sooner, sportbikes will be available that will stretch most people’s definition of a motorcycle.
The front fork will be missing from these motorcycles, replaced by a swingarm-based suspension with hub-center steering. That’s only one thing that will separate these bikes from current models; another will be more complete integration of body panels, frame and engine. These will be motorcycles with their fairings, and aerodynamics in general, such a fundamental part of their basic design that a naked version will be unthinkable.
The role-models for these future bikes already exist in the ELF-X endurance racer and, more significantly, in the Bimota Tesi. The ELF-X, with its twin-arm, singlesided front suspension, demonstrated that a racebike didn’t need a telescopic fork to be competitive. The Tesi, which exists now only as a show bike and development platform for a future Bimota model, demonstrates that telescopic forks are out at Bimota, a company that has been at the forefront of chassis trend-setting.
If any bike paved the way for the future sportbikes that we expect, it was the Honda Interceptor. That bike severed much of the visual link with motorcycle tradition; and without that link, change is th-e only constant. The motorcycle companies will each be trying to define a new visual image of a sporting motorcycle, each looking for a sales advantage. New chassis technology will help create the combination of performance, appearance and technical credentials that sell sporting motorcycles.
Expect to see the first of the new-generation sportbikes that emphasize chassis technology and aerodynamics just one year after a Japanese company campaigns a similar machine on the European grand prix circuit.
Prediction Two: New front suspensions will emerge in motocross as well. More thought is going into motorcycle chassis technology than ever before, and its effect will ultimately show up. It’s too soon to say exactly what that effect may be, but a version of the upright-connected-toA-arms front suspension seen on the English Hossack roadracer could make its way onto production dirt bikes. In any case, once one company adopts a new front suspension, expect the bandwagon to fill up even more quickly than it did with single-shock rear suspensions.
Prediction Three: Anti-lock brakes will be fitted to motorcycles by the 1986 model year. Prototypes have been around for years, but the anti-lock systems have proven too costly for mass production. Costs are going down, and BMW has stated its intent to offer anti-lock brakes on K100 models as soon as possible. Gold Wings won’t be far behind.
Prediction Four: About the same time as anti-lock brakes show up, electronic suspension-control will make it into production. Both spring rates and damping will be under microprocessor control, and will be varied continually during motorcycle operation to give a better compromise between ride, traction and handling than now possible.
Every major Japanese car company either has a car with electronic suspension control in production, or has exhibited a prototype that has it. The Japanese motorcycle companies won’t be far behind with systems of their own.
Prediction Five: Engine performance will continue to improve. By the 1988 model year (perhaps sooner), 500s will perform as well as current 750s, and 750s as well as current 1100s, and the big bikes will be too fast to think about. And the extra power won’t be at the expense of powerband width, because active control of things like cam timing, inlet-port length or volume, and number of operating valves will insure mid-range and top-end power. Do expect rev limits that make the 12,000 rpm on 500 Interceptors look conservative.
Prediction Six: While all aspects of performance on motorcycles with American traditional styling will improve, don’t expect the styling of Viragos or Shadows or bikes of that ilk to do anything other than become even more traditional. While sportbikes are off evolving into something that looks like a cross between an Indy car and an F-16 fighter, there will still be a strong demand for motorcycles that are recognizably motorcycles. And the Japanese will answer that demand with bikes that take their styling cues from Harleys, and even from Triumphs and BSAs, as well.
More on next year
Since last month’s 1985 predictions, we’ve gained access to more information that helps put things into slightly sharper focus.
For one thing, there may be an additional model in Honda’s lineup. We’ve heard reports of a very fast, very muscular-sounding, Nighthawk-styled bike, perhaps in the lOOOcc range. And if glimpses of the 1000 Shadow are any indication, expect that liquid-cooled VTwin cruiser to look even more Harleyesque than its 700cc predecessor.
There are more details on the Honda sportbike front as well. An all-black, apparently-Interceptor 750based machine with new-style bodywork has been seen prowling the streets around Honda’s Gardena, California, test facility.
And there’s a surprise rumor from Yamaha. Despite the critical acclaim laid on the super-quick FJ 1100, we’ve heard that the company has a new tire-shredder ready for next year’s sales wars. There aren’t any details on the new bike, but the word “awesome” keeps coming up.
Our all-liquid-cooled forecast about Kawasaki’s ’85 lineup was a little off the mark. It seems that company’s two enduro bikes, the 200 and 250 KDXs, haven’t exactly set the sales charts on fire, so there won’t be a new 250 version next year, just unsold ’84s, and the 200 will be updated only minimally.
Last month we said that all of Harley-Davidson’s 80-inch V-Twins would use belt final drive, except for the Softail model. Well, the Wide Glide, similar in styling to the Softail but without the rigidlook rear suspension, will also have a chain wrapped around its sprockets.
Finally, we predicted that Suzuki’s new SP600 dualpurpose thumper would have electric starting, as the European version of that bikes does. Perhaps as a weight-saving measure, or perhaps because Suzuki thinks electric starting isn’t needed in the U.S. dualpurpose market, the electric foot has been dropped.
AMA against the double-nickel
AAere’s something the One Lap of America Harley riders would probably agree with: The American Motorcyclist Association has taken a stand against the 55-mph national speed limit.
The AMA took the action after 92 percent of the AMA members responding to an editorial in the organization’s monthly magazine said they opposed the limit.
Reasons given for the AMA’s opposition of the speed limit were that “a sin'gle maximum speed limit is not appropriate for a transportation environment as diverse as that of the United States,” and that “power to set maximum speed limits should be returned to state governments.”
Bye-Bye Shovelhead
The only motorcycle to have a motion picture named after it is about to take its last curtaincall. Harley-Davidson’s Shovelhead-powered ElectraGlide, Robert Blake’s mount in the movie Electra Glide in Blue, is being phased out to make room for a 1985 model that will carry the same name but have little in common. Powered by the last of the Shoveihead engines, the 1984 ’Glide can trace its lineage back to 1949 and the 74-cubicinch Hydra Glide (hydraulic valve lifters and hydraulic front fork) and the later Duo Glide (dual rear shocks). Electric starting (hence the “Electra” designation), the last major change, was added in 1966.
Until recently, the Electra Glide was Harley’s standard touring model. In fact, the King of the Highwayequipped version was the first-ever tourer to leave the factory with fairing, saddlebags and trunk as standard equipment, preceeding today’s Gold Wings and Ventures by more than a decade.
To mark the Shovelheadpowered model’s final year, H-D is selling 1250 Special Edition models in full touring trim, along with 500 barebones Sport Versions.
But before you throw the last spadeful of dirt on the Electra Glide’s grave, rest assured that the name will live on. Harley’s 1985 lineup includes an Electra Glide model, without the Shovelhead engine, but updated with the rubber-mounted Evolution engine, five-speed transmission, twin-disc front brake, anti-dive fork, airadjustable shocks and belt final drive. The new Electra Glide bears the FLHT designation.
Rob Rasor, with the AMA’s government relations division, knows the fight to get the law changed will be tough, and urged all motorcyclists who are against the ►double-nickel to write to their representatives in Congress. “Without the active backing of motorcyclists from all over the country,” Rasor said, “we don’t expect to get very far.”
A Suzukrolet or a Chevroluki?
The next Chevy econobox that you blow past may, in fact, be a Suzuki.
The new Chevrolet Sprint, a low-priced, two-door, 50’mpg commuter, is made for GM by Suzuki, a company better known, of course, for its motorcycles but which has been producing cars since 1961. The Sprint, called the Cultus in Japan, is powered by a three-cylinder, 993cc four-stroke engine, and is looked upon as a stopgap measure by GM until it can develop a competitive economy model of its own.
In other car-motorcycle news, Yamaha has signed an agreement with Ford to develop a new series of fourcylinder engines for possible use in Ford’s 1987 European lineup of Escort and Sierra models.
A picture is worth...
In this case, seven pictures were worth $100,000, or about $14,285 each.
According to an article in the July issue of American Photographer, that’s how much Honda payed Italian photographer Vittoro Sacco for seven photographs that were used as ads in Italian motorcycle magazines and the Italian editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.
The ads, which featured 14 Hondas in outer-space settings, took almost two months to complete, with each 8 x 10-inch photograph requiring up to six different exposures. While it’s nice to read about motorcycles in non-bike magazines, we weren’t too thrilled with the way the article began. It read, “Once the dreaded vehicle of misfits, hell-raisers and petty thieves, the motorcycle . . . has had its image polished.”
McQueen's bikes on the block
Movie historians might remember Steve McQueen for his roles in Bullitt, The Sand Pebbles or Papillon, but to motorcyclists he’ll always be the guy playriding with Malcolm Smith and Mert Lawwill in On Any Sunday, or the freedom-seeking PÓW careening toward the Swiss border in The Great Escape.
McQueen loved motorcycles. Pure and simple. Besides motocrossing, desert racing, competing in the 1964 International Six Days Trial and bankrolling the classic On Any Sunday, he collected antique motorcycles. By the time he died in 1980 of a heart seizure after cancer surgery, McQueen had amassed more than 100 examples. Those motorcycles, including some of the bikes on which he raced, will be auctioned off November 23rd through the 25th at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
For more information about the auction, which will also include 20 of McQueen’s cars and some personal effects, contact Kris Engelstad at the Imperial Palace Hotel, 3535 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV 89109.
Husky's 500 GP: fast and single
As reported in last month’s Roundup, Husqvarna, the Swedish company that stuck to its dual-shock setup long after every other motocross manufacturer had jumped on the single-shock bandwagon, is currently campaigning oneshock bikes on the 250 and 500 GP circuits.
The 245cc and 488cc liquid-cooled bikes share the same frame, with a Huskybuilt fork giving 11.8 inches of travel and a single Ohlins shock working through a linkage system to provide almost 13 inches of rear-wheel travel. The four-speed 500 has a claimed dry weight of 225 pounds, while the fivespeed 250 is 216 pounds.
Mile after mile
If the gas crisis ever comes back, Matsu Matsuzawa and the rest of the competitors in the fourth annual Craig Vetter Fuel Economy Run will be ready.
With five cents of gas in his streamliner’s float bowl, Matsuzawa circled the hilly Laguna Seca road course six times to win the event with a 377-mpg figure, a new record. More than 80,000 people, who were attending the Monterey, California, racetrack for the annual AMA roadraces, saw Matsuzawa and 23 other mileage contestants in two classes.
Matsuzawa is a designer for HRA, Honda’s American research facility, and his bike seems to have benefitted from whatever spare parts were laying around the office. Dubbed the “Egg”, the streamliner started life as an XL 125 dual-purpose bike. Matsuzawa and fellow workers then fitted parts from street bikes, trials bikes and even an ATC before covering the creation with a Rifle fairing.
Winner of the 72-mile qualifying session held on public roads the day before the on-track final was Dan Hanebrink’s fully enclosed streamliner ridden by Bob Lebo. The bike, possessing the slipperiest shape this side of a NASA wind tunnel, recorded a phenomenal 557 mpg. The effort was sunk in the final, however, when the bike’s carburetor float stuck open, allowing most of the gas to escape. EH
