Imperial Gallons

Imperial gallons

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

WHAT WITH THE PERFECT SUMMER EVEnings we’ve been having recently, I’ve been going for a lot of after-dinner rides in the endless twilight we get here in the Wisconsin north country.

The only place I’ve ever seen with an even longer dusk is England, where being at 50-55 degrees north latitude allows you to walk home from the pub in perfectly good navigating light until about 11:00 p.m. If you can.

Here on the 43rd parallel, things are only slightly dimmer and those summer evenings go a long way toward making up for winter, when it gets dark just after lunch.

The bike I nearly always pick for these twilight rides is my surprisingly trusty 1961 Velocette Venom, which seems to have been built for meandering down narrow country lanes. It chatters smoothly along at perfect landscape-observation speed, and the valve clatter seems to confuse and immobilize the deer.

Anyway, last week one of those narrow lanes took me into the little town of Evansville, where I stopped at the BP station (real gasoline, no ethanol) to fill up.

Doing a rough calculation, I came up with about 65 mpg on my last tank. Commendable mileage, yes, but I must admit the bike also leaks a quart of oil about every 200 miles-most of it on my garage floor-somewhat deflating my illusions of environmental virtue.

While I was putting on my gloves to flee the gas station before anyone slipped on my latest oil deposit (initiating a nasty lawsuit), a slightly overheated old gent at the next pump finished filling his Suburban. He slammed the fuel nozzle back into its slot and came over with his lower lip thrust out, an expression I would describe as “Winston Churchill doing his famous bulldog imitation.” He pointed a finger at my old Velocette.

“You’re going to be seeing a lot more of those on the road!” he growled.

I turned and stared at my bike for a moment, trying to envision such an unlikely development. Row upon row of Velocettes coming toward me... It was like an acid dream from a Beatles cartoon.

“What?” I said, “Velocette Venoms? They didn’t make very many...”

He narrowed his eyes and looked at me as if I were speaking pig Latin.

“Motorcycles!” he exploded. “I’m talking about motorcycles! You’re going to be seeing a lot more of them, I can tell

you that!” He got into his SUV and roared away.

On the ride home, I started to ponder what the man had said

This is about the fourth gas crisis I’ve lived through, starting with the Arab oil embargo in 1973, and during each one people predicted a boom in motorcycle sales. But it never materialized.

Those of us who already had bikes felt more justified in our natural habits and, perhaps, rode a little more often. Meanwhile, that vast horde of timid souls who fear motorcycles remained fearful and stayed away in droves.

But maybe this time it will be different. Gas is genuinely expensive now, many sectors of the economy are doing poorly and disposable income is down. Paying $ 100 to go a few hundred miles in a 6000pound brick suddenly seems...odd. We are tired of excess.

For all that, this fuel spike doesn’t feel as grim to me as the ’73 crisis did. The mood is different, and I get the weird feeling that many people-despite their grousing-are actually having fun thinking of ways to outsmart the oil industry. And motorcycles and scooters are a fun solution.

Fine, you say, but does this mood translate into any real increase in sales?

The universal answer, when I called the usual suspects at the shops where I’ve hung out over the years, was, “Absolutely!”

An old friend in California who runs a Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki shop said, “It’s for real this time. People are actually buying motorcycles to get better mileage, instead of just talking about it.”

I asked what he was selling most of and he said, “The scooters are gone, and I sold out my allotment of 250 Ninjas a long time ago. Big sportbikes are doing okay, but they’re moving a little slower than the small stuff.”

A Triumph dealer in Iowa told me that everything’s selling pretty well, especially the Bonnevilles, but says, “I’m often asked why the average motorcycle isn’t getting better mileage than a hybrid or a regular economy car. I think that’s a fair question.”

It is a fair question. But until now, of course, it didn’t matter to most people. If you could have 149 horsepower and still get 40 mpg, what difference did it make? That was as good or better than some stodgy little car, and a small price to pay for high performance and good times. Still is, even now.

But there may be a new market emerging, a demand for adult-sized bikes that specifically get mileage worth bragging about, while also keeping up with modern commuter traffic. Honda produced a whole range of bikes like this-with stunning mileage-in the Sixties. So did the Europeans, for that matter, and the Brits. We know how to do this stuff. Have forever.

So if I were designing a new bike for myself right now, it might turn out surprisingly like a modern version of the old Velocette I’m riding, a bike originally designed as real transportation in post-war England, when fuel was costly and money hard to come by.

It would be an adult-sized 500cc Single with handsome engine architecture and a dry weight of no more than 375 pounds. It would have a flat, comfortable dual-seat, quality chrome, exquisite finish, a great exhaust note, owner-adjustable valves and handle well enough to do track days—if anyone felt like it. It would be an object of pride, rather than just dismal utility.

Best of all, it would get better mileage than a 2890-pound Toyota Prius. Which, of the six bikes I have in my garage, only the Velocette now does.

The only thing it wouldn’t do is leak a large puddle of oil when parked. Good mileage is nice, but I hate leaving carbon footprints all over my workshop. □