Leanings

LEANINGS

A thoroughly modern Vincent

Peter Egan

SHOULD I TELL THE MOTORCYCLE INdustry what kind of bike they need to build? Do they really need any advice from the likes of me?

Probably not. But then again, I hear rumors that sales are down and traffic is light in some showrooms, so maybe it couldn’t hurt to sketch a general outline of the motorcycle that just might bring me, and a handful of similar fringe-element types, back to those dealerships whose doors we have not recently darkened. Besides, it is blessed to instruct others to do good, as Mark Twain said, and no trouble.

What I am looking for is a lightweight, large-displacement sporttourer with a V-Twin engine. Essentially, a modern Vincent. I’ve been waiting for this bike to come along for many years and no one has built it, so I thought I might hurry the process by passing along a few of the features that are most important to me.

In no particular order, they are:

1. A flat, dead-level seat that carries two people in all-day comfort. It should not look like a tractor seat, a vinyl caterpillar, a small sheep, a sofa pillow, a bison or an upholstered lightning bolt. A densely padded version of the late-Sixties BSA 650 or the late-Seventies BMW RIOOS seat would be nice—wide, with a small kickup at the end to keep the passenger from sliding off. Passenger pegs should be low so the passenger’s feet are not higher than his or her shoulders.

2. Plain, chromed-steel, tube handlebar of the low, backswept Superbike bend, allowing you to sit upright, but with a slight forward tilt into the wind. The handlebar should clamp to the top of the triple clamp with two half-round caps and four bolts. The bars should cost $29.95 and take 15 minutes to replace, in case you drop the bike or don’t like this particular bend. No internal wires or cables, no modesty panels.

3. Wire wheels of at least 18-inch diameter. Tires only as wide as they need be to strike a good balance between traction and steering effort. Spokes should be stainless steel. The front hub would carry two disc brakes, with one disc at the rear.

4. No stylist-inspired plastic bodywork, please. Just a seat, tank, fenders and sidecovers. I follow Jay Leno’s dictum, in that I don’t trust any motorcycle I can’t see through.

5. A large, round headlight with a chromed, bullet-shaped shell. The bike would come with no fairing, but there would be two optional fairings—a small R-90Sor Z1-R-style sport fairing and a streamlined, fullcoverage model that would fall somewhere in esthetics and weather protection between the BMW R100RS and the old Avon design, with lowers. Or, if you didn’t like either of these, you could just do what people used to, which is buy an aftermarket fairing. The more competition here the better.

6. Polished, stainless-steel front and rear fenders. Two separate, easily removed (or replaced) round instruments in cylindrical housings, stainless or painted black. No chromed plastic anywhere. In fact, all plastic should be avoided, except in the fairings or where needed for invisible weight savings and/or electrical components. For some reason, the human soul doesn’t connect well with plastic. Never did.

7. Lower cost than an economy car; also less weight and better mileage. Weight should be well under 500 pounds (the weller under the better) with a low center of gravity and mileage of 60 mpg or more on the highway. The Geo Metro (a car) now gets 58 mpg on the highway. With clever engineering, a motorcycle should do better and still deliver reasonable performance.

8. No contrived bad-guy names, like the Exterminator II. Names like this are an insult to people who are old enough to buy motorcycles, or smart enough to save the money for one. If necessary, just call it the Your-Name-Here 1000. If it must have a name, it should be at least as classy as Black Shadow or Commando, but it probably won’t be, so why bother?

9. Modern elements incorporated where they really work for you—a single lever swingarm that allows you to unbolt the rear wheel from one side, for example. The owner should be able to adjust valves, change the oil, filter and sparkplugs and generally see what does what without removing panels. Generally, the bike should look like an honest piece of machinery, rather than a scooter or an imitation punk-lifestyle enhancer.

10. An engine. Ah, the engine. The core. It should be an air-cooled VTwin of around lOOOcc. It’s designer should spend a lot of time looking at the great radial aircraft engines as built by Wright, Pratt & Whitney, Continental and others, not to mention the V-Twins of Vincent, Indian, Harley-Davidson and Ducati. Overhead cams with shaft-and-bevel-gear drives are okay, but so are cams mounted high in the case with short pushrods. The much-dreaded reciprocating weight of these would be relatively unimportant because the engine will be tuned for arm-stretching, low-end torque so that it doesn’t have to rev past 8000 rpm to make power.

It’ll be geared tall, to loaf on the highway, a low-key brute that combines smoothness and precision with the charisma of a Harley. Gears will click rather than clunk. An engine speed of about 5000 rpm at 100 mph would be nice. The less the exhaust note sounds like a Lawn-Boy the better. Exhaust-pipe curve and muffler shape are extremely important. Bear in mind that Burgess, Conti and reverse-cone Norton mufflers are some of the best-looking silencers that ever came down the pike, even if they didn’t really silence much.

That should just about do it. As a parting comment, I should mention that, while there are many fine colors to choose from, you could do a lot worse than paint a motorcycle black with gold-leaf trim. E3