Motorcycling Nostalgia -By Phil Hall
At historic bike race meetings the conversations inevitably turn to two things, old riders and old bikes. And so it was that, at the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed, I found myself involved in several of these conversations over the course of the weekend.
Mind you, it wasn’t difficult given that so many riders and bikes were from what we often regard as the golden era of motorcycling, the 1970’s. And, since that was the era in which I began my motorcycling, it is even less surprising.
Many of the riders competing last weekend were of a similar age to me or in the next generation along. The great Robbie Phillis, who most of us think of as being perennially young, turns 59 this year and his great Victorian sparring partner, Bob Rosenthal has already passed the three score years mark.
Gathering at the Creek to honour Warren Willing were many riders from the 70’s and 80’s who perhaps hadn’t been at a race track for many years but whose names were household ones in the world of motorcycle road racing in the day; Dennis Neill, Alan Blanco, Dave Robbins, Murray Sayle, Len Atlee, Gary Coleman and others. To me, these guys didn’t SEEM old because, apart from old #1, they were either my contemporaries or younger than me.
And the pits were crammed with bikes that were also from my era, since P3 starts at 1946 and P6 finishes at the end of 1990. So, finding bikes about which to talk, to praise or to damn, is never a problem. And the general consensus whenever conversations of this kind arise is that, while we look back on the bikes of the era with affection, we wouldn’t really want to ride one of them again, even for a short period, let alone as daily riders.
We have moved on; our expectations have been refined and we expect our bikes to have done so as well. We expect three disk brakes (hell, even LAMS bikes have that), ABS, traction control, adjustable suspension, variable mapping of the ECU, super sticky tyres that last longer than a lap around the block and so the list goes on. And, much as we enjoy the nostalgia trip, the old bikes had none of these features and were even more rudimentary than our memories of them are.
My 1973 Honda 500/4 (a model which motorcycling photographer, Sue Scaysbrook rides to the races whenever they are on) had non-adjustable front suspension and rear shock absorbers that offered 5 degrees of adjustment of the spring by way of a metal collar on the bottom of the spring/damper unit that was adjusted with a “C” spanner that was part of the original tool kit. It had one of Honda’s legendary (and loathed) single sliding caliper disk brake on the front wheel and a drum brake on the rear. Speaking of brakes, the front disk was made of stainless steel which was heavy. That was not its worst feature, however. Since Honda was determined to produce a range of bikes with longevity and which still looked good long after they had left the factory, the decision to use stainless steel rather than normal steel made sense. Early British disks were made by companies like Girling and Lockheed and were made of steel. Fine for retardation (if you were Charles Atlas and could activate the brake lever, that is) but they rusted as soon as they were exposed to water and looked horrible.
Honda disks never rusted so they looked brand new all the time. So, what was the problem? Well, apart from the fact that the mechanism to operate the brake wasn’t the best that Honda could have chosen, the fact was that every rider hopping on one of these wonderful machines discovered, sooner or later, that the front disk brake simply didn’t work when it got wet. Applying the front brake when it was raining inevitably led to a wide-eyed, heart rate increasing period of seconds when the application of the front brake lever simply did nothing; the bike’s progress appeared to be completely unaffected by the action. Until the brake pads had squeegied the water off the disk surface and was able to bind on the steel of the disk, forward progress continued.
Grabbing the lever harder is the instinctive reaction but this was actually the worst thing that you could do because, once the pads had cleared the water off the disk, you were then faced with the braking biting and you were OVER-braking. Given that the road surface was already wet, the locking of the front wheel was highly likely to be followed immediately by vertical progress becoming horizontal progress.
Yes, the bikes were reliable; they started first push of the button (even Honda’s smallest bikes had this feature – the kick start lever remained for some years but was soon seen to be residual and then disappeared). They didn’t leak oil (thank goodness for new milling machines with fine tolerances and a horizontally-split crankcase) and they had excellent finish which meant that they stayed new-looking for much longer. They had Japanese carburettors which maintained their settings for years rather than weeks or months. Even the two stoke machines from the other Japanese manufacturers seem to be able to stay new-looking for longer despite the extra potential there is for oil to be where it isn’t supposed to be.
And, speaking of two strokes, the Japanese introduced oil injection into the engine as a mass-production feature. No more pre-mixing the fuel and the two stroke oil and having to carry a bottle of the stuff with you to add to the fuel at every fill-up.
By producing their road bikes with multiples of cylinders, a feature refined in the harsh laboratory of Grand Prix racing in the Sixties, the Japanese manufacturers were able to produce bikes that were smooth to ride and which didn’t shake the stitches out of your shorts and the gold fillings out of your teeth. Granted some of them persevered with the vertical twin design in an effort to woo the traditional bike buyer away from their Triumphs and Nortons, but, even then, they did it better. They included all the good features I have detailed above but added contra-rotating balance shafts in the engine that smoothed out the harsh vibrations which made the bike nicer to ride and eliminated the BFO (Bits Falling Off) situation that was part and parcel of owning a British twin.
Having wooed most of the reluctants away from their “twins” the vertical twin engine almost completely disappeared from the Japanese manufacturer’s inventory as well.
Yes, in every way imaginable (except for the indefinable concept of “tradition”), the Japanese bikes were superior to those produced by the manufacturers in other countries. They were fast and they were reliable. And, once potential owners became aware of this, the writing was on the wall. And so, in a pitifully short period of time in overall terms, the Japanese manufacturers contributed to and presided over the demise of mass production of motorcycles in most other countries.
So, what were the 70’s bikes really like? I am using my 1973 Honda 500/4 as the benchmark here but you could just as easily substitute any one of a dozen viable alternatives. Well, they had large, comfortable seats (though the foam didn’t always last that long before it became hard and refurbishment of the seat was required.) Most of them had fixed, but foldable pillion footpegs and a solid grab handle for the passenger. They had a tool kit that enabled you to do basic maintenance and side-of-the-road repairs. They had comprehensive instrumentation that told you pretty much everything you needed to know. (The Gold Wing was the first to have a fuel gauge, I believe but even that was in 1975). They had reliable electrics (gone were the days of Joseph Lucas, the Prince of Darkness) that ALWAYS worked, and their four cylinder engines were smooth and made riding a joy. Early 70’s bikes still had fork gaiters; you know, those rubber accordion-style tubes that clamped to the top of the fork lower and the bottom of the triple clamp and sealed off the fork slider from mud, rain and dirt. Ugly, but hugely effective in prolonging the life of the fork seals. And, did I mention these bikes were fast? Oh, yes, that’s right, I did.
Were there disadvantages? Of course; they were mass-produced items built so that they could be keenly priced, but most of these “faults” are as a result of hindsight rather than the perception of the day. The BIG fours didn’t handle particularly well and got worse the more power was added with succeeding models. My first experience with the 750/4 of their era was quite unnerving as the requirement to “bump” the bike off the vertical position when one wanted to corner I found quite disconcerting. Having once overcome the bike’s desire to remain vertical, the next issue was that the bike felt like it wanted to keep leaning until it fell over. My first experience with the Z1 Kawasaki showed that the while the Big K had refined that process somewhat it was still a big heavy lump to lean. A big bike brings with it large amounts of inertia.
This was not helped by the tyres of the day which were rudimentary to say the least. It was not surprising that the OEM tyres quickly became known as “Japanese Rim Protectors.” Owners who could afford to do so, quickly replaced them with Dunlop K81’s or Avons and found things improved dramatically as a result.
Japanese exhaust systems of the day were their own worst enemies. Made from steel and then chromed, they were packed with fibreglass wadding to aid muffling of the engine noise and they worked beautifully. However, since most riders only ever rode their bikes for short distances, this wadding was almost constantly wet from condensation and so the mufflers rusted, from the inside out, and some were lucky to last the period of the original manufacturer’s warranty (1 year or 20000kms)
But these things were really minor inconveniences in the overall scheme of things. Is it any wonder that the passage of time has seen the iconic Japanese bikes rapidly INCREASING in value to the point where prices now are vastly more than they were when the bikes were new in comparable terms.
Could you live with one as a daily rider? Of course you could; all of the perceived “disadvantages” of the day can easily be overcome with some fettling. Spares are still readily available and, given normal care and maintenance, there is no reason why one of them couldn’t go on for another 40 years.
But, and here is the kicker. If you had one of these bikes in the day and you are now used to a 21st Century bike and have fallen in love with the features it now has, you will come away from riding a 70’s bike thinking, “What the hell did I ever see in that?” As long as you are prepared for that, there is no reason why you can’t still own and enjoy one of the bikes of the era. Oh, and budget may help you decide, too!
Nostalgia is a thing of the past, but I can live with it. Maybe that is why my next “project” is an original and unmolested 1975 Gold Wing.
