Letters
LETTERS
Bubba Ray meets Bobby Jay
We here in New Hamster sure appreciate Bubba and Wade’s article on the Ruski sled (“The Dnepr Papers,” July, 1987). But we feel obliged to point out that the accessory artillery shown in your lead pic is a Kraut MG-34; any self-respektin’ Commie would be sporting a Dhsk.
We’re glad you mentioned the new paint job, since we’ve never been able to find any of the legendary gloss-white Dnpers issued in 1941 to the Red Army Polish Brigade for summer combat.
One last thought: That fella in Denver is full of some bad borscht if he thinks he’s got a Commie kublewagon back there. The Ruskies could never figure out which end was front; ended up leaving ’em where they found ’em and painting bulls-eyes on, not stars. Must be a prop from “Red Dawn.”
Well, gotta go spiff-up the ol’ Skfz-250. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
Bobbie Jay
Nashua, New Hampshire
Obviously, you've got 'em.
Ural right
I’ve read and re-read “The Dnepr Papers” over and over, and it never fails to put me in stitches. Please forgive any mistakes in this letter because I’m still laughing as I write. P.J. O’Rourke, Joe Bob Briggs, Hunter Thompson—they don’t have
a thing on Bubba Ray Burdick or Wade Roberts, or whoever was responsible for the story.
I read a lot of magazines, up to and including the NEW YORKER, and this is by far the funniest thing I’ve seen in print in a couple of years. I can’t believe I came across writing like this buried in the back of a motorcycle magazine.
May I offer a suggestion? Let the think tank have a monthly page to turn its resources to other motorcycling issues. You’ll gain at least one new reader—me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll buy my first bike at the age of 43. One from the Free World, natch.
Eric Edgars Atlanta, Georgia
Anacin headache No. 1
Let the makers of Anacin be aware that I have stopped buying
their product as a result of their commençai in which a mother scolds her daughter for riding on a motorcycle because it’s dangerous. I hope all motorcyclists will join me in boycotting this product until that ad is taken off the air. Be real, Anacin; riding motorcycles has nothing to do with headaches. Just your commercial does.
Mark Peper
Rolla, Missouri
Up in arms
I just finished reading Paul Dean’s editorial, “CBS, ABC, CPSC vs.
AT Vs = BS on TV,” in the July issue. I had a sardonic laugh at the article, then got P-O’ed all over again.
I subscribe to various gun, motorcycle and flying magazines, and I’ve seen this kind of bull for the last 20 years with guns. I get a pain-in-thegut kind of déjà vu reading the goings-on in the motorcycle/ATV magazines, because I’ve seen this kind of cancer all too well before. This kind of media bias undermines the very freedoms this country is supposed to stand for.
Anyway, what makes you think the media (printed or electronic) is after the truth or even facts? We, the nation’s riflemen and sportsmen, have known for years that they’re merely ministers of propaganda and masters of half-truths, misinformation and outright lies. You’re damn right the future of motorcycling is in jeopardy. Just as we gunners found out that when a snake shows its head, more is to come, we motorcyclists are going to see the snake, too. There are forces at work here that think that Americans enjoy too much feedom. They’ll laugh me off as a crackpot, but fight with the cloak of silence to see that views such as mine are never disseminated, while all the time dreaming up safety laws “for your own good.
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“What can I do?” you say? Well, we all know that an army is better than one soldier. Our army is the American Motorcyclist Association, The National Rifle Association, and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Join them and help out. Later is too, too late.
Mark Kostal
Bolingbrook, Illinois
The nighttime is the right time
Your “Baja Or Bust” story made the statement that on one day in particular, you all continued riding because “there was a lot of daylight left.” This makes me think you guys
may have missed one of the best parts of ATV riding: nights. Nightriding in a group is a blast on ATVs, even if all of them don’t have lights. You just lead off with a lighted one, then alternate, making sure the last one has lights.
The fun of night riding is evidenced at our annual Pumpkin Run Night Enduro, where ATVs now outnumber bikes 4 to 1.
Paul Malloy Titusville, Florida
On the warpath in Indiantown
The double-page spread on pages 60-61 of the August issue entitled. “The Other Side of 60 Minutes,” and “What We Can Do For ATV Safety!” made me see red.
Indiantown is a small village out in the “boonies” on the northern edge of the Florida Everglades. There is an inordinate number of ATVs here for the size of the town. They are ridden by “kids” of all ages, from six or seven on up. Little
kids ride adult machines without protective clothing of any sort (two or three do wear helmets); they sometimes ride twoand-three up, up and down the back streets of town and on trails in the adjacent woods where they negotiate steep banks of drainage ditches (dry much of the time). But I do not know of anyone ever getting hurt on them.
I’m just the sort of old fuddyduddy you’d expect to be opposed to these fun (and sometimes annoyingly noisy) vehicles, but I’m not. In fact, when I look out my window and watch them riding up and down the street, I turn green with envy. I think it’s great that those young folks have such fun machines to enjoy.
Not that I don’t have fun of my own. Never having ridden a motorcycle until I was over 63 years old, I have since ridden more than 80,000 miles in the last eight years, including two trips to New England and back on a little KZ440, which now has over 70,000 miles on the odometer. > I think CBS should be soundly trounced for airing that negative 60 Minutes broadcast. And our congressmen in Washington who are bent on “protecting” us from ourselves should be voted out of office.
Samuel H. Eastman Indiantown, Florida
Between Hogs
Paul Dean’s August editorial set off alarm bells. Not that I felt any real longing for a motorcycle when I was six years old; but more so now, here, today.
I am among those unfortunate bikers who are momentarily afoot, or as I prefer to think of it, “between Harley-Davidsons.” Each time I see someone enjoying our sport, I get the wishful longings you attributed to the kid in the car. Actually, it’s worse, because I know what Em missing.
If it weren’t for the usurious interest rates charged for motorcycle financing. I’d be back in the saddle again. I will, however, soon be able to pay cash for my new Hog, and will gleefully thumb my nose at the banks as I ride off into the sunset.
Scott Barber
San Francisco, California
Progress, intelligently managed
I recently ran across a 1966 CYCLE WORLD test of a Kawasaki 250. I was amazed to find that this bike was quicker, faster, lighter and, of course, cheaper than a Ninja 250. Kawasaki calls this twenty years of progress?
Jon C. Meese Montclair, California
Just remember that the sum total of “quiek, ” “fast, ” “light"and “cheap" is not “better. " 0
