25 Years Ago May, 1969
25 YEARS AGO MAY, 1969
A 405cc Husqvarna Cross muscled its way onto the Cycle World cover a quarter century ago and quickly found a place in staffers' hearts. "Fabulous" was the term used to describe the Swedish factory's big two-stroke Single. Especially worthy of such enthusiastic praise: a broad smooth powerband and "roto-rooter torque characteristics" that made the Husky "one of the best handling motorcross machines available."
• Adventurer James Talion could probably have used a Husky for his attempt to be the first motorcyclist everto conquer Cape Solitude, a craggy mountaintop 4000 feet above the rim of the Grand Canyon. But he preferred to treat the rocky trek to the top as if it were an English country road, hopping aboard first a single-cylinder Velocette, then a “spic-and-span” Norton 500. Neither machine made the journey successfully, but Talion wasn’t about to give up a life-long dream. He finally reached Cape Solitude on a Honda Super Hawk and lived to tell the tale of what he described as “the longest 34 miles I have ever traveled.”
• That’s exactly the kind of trip veteran motorcyclist Gene Bizallion would have enjoyed. He nostalgically wrote of riding in the 1920s, when “motorcycles were big, noisy, and terrifyingly fast-unsuitable for a sedate ride to work or a pleasant Sunday on the trails.” Seems rosecolored glasses have always been standard attire for riders.
Brenda Buttner
