25 Years Ago May, 1978
25 YEARS AGO MAY, 1978
Flipping through this month's issue, I wasn't drawn to the "First Ride on Ducati's Dynamite Darmah." A heady explanation of rake and trail with accompanying diagrams and insightful theories didn't do it, either. No, what caught my eye was the advertisement for the new Maico Magnum.
• About the time this magazine was being printed, I was sneaking over to Cyclops Cycle Parts in Camarillo, California. While my mom was grocery shopping next door, I was trying to catch a glimpse of a Magnum and dreaming of what one would be like to ride. Eye-level to the cylinder fins of one of these mighty red machines, I wondered if I’d ever be able kick-start one-and why Maico didn’t make a minibike for me.
• As for the rest of this issue, which I most likely read in fourth grade in the school library, the editors had a lot of favorable things to say about the Ducati, pontificating on and on about funky desmodromic valves, Dr. Fabio Taglioni and 125cc Grand Prix race wins. Price and maintenance concerns aside, the Darmah was seen as “one of the ultimate personal sportbikes of the day.” On the dirt side, Husqvarna’s 390 OR was finally the bike that the desert-riding freaks at CW knew the Swedish firm could build. Until third gear blew out, that is!
• Finally, handy ignition and carburation troubleshooting charts were published for do-it-yourselfers to hang on the shop wall. Problem was, they were printed back-toback on a common page. Hey, where’s the Xerox machine?
-Jimmy Lewis
