Having managed to write off a Z1300 in Mexico and subsequently hobble out of a private hospital, leaving behind a pile of unpaid bills, I then had to suffer being shaken, rattled and rolled on an ancient bus all the way back to the US of A. A large bribe got me through the Mexican customs and the Yanks must’ve taken pity on my wretched form, as they stamped my passport with barely a grumble of discontent.
Bruised ribs, sprained ankle and more lacerations than a masochist after a whipping party could be considered a lucky escape when the beast let loose at 110mph and I wasn’t even wearing a crash helmet. There was so little left of the Kawasaki, after it had rolled down the road and been stomped on by a couple of vehicles, that I would have been lucky to come away with enough metal to make a paperweight!
Not that I harboured any such ideas, not with a stream of enraged Mexicans who’d had their vehicles written off and were probably still camped outside the hospital. I was fortunate only in that I’d stashed away my passport and a pile of dollars in a safe deposit box before the accident, thus leaving a relatively easy escape route.
The bus eventually threw me out in LA, a curious place with everything spread out over vast distances. I had the choice of extortionately priced taxis or dangerous public buses. A day of that mad mixture convinced me that it was necessary to get hold of some wheels fast.
I wanted something relatively sane, ending up with a Honda Hawk that had been worked over by Two Brothers Engineering, a company quite famous in the States for tweaking Hawks and racing them in the Battle of the Twins to good effect. This example was a 1990 item with a piffling 23000 miles done. As the deal was private, I looked like a desperate madman and I waved the wad of notes under the youth’s nose, I managed to buy the Hawk for $1975, which at the time worked out at just over a grand.
The Hawk is very similar to the Revere in the UK, save that it has a chain drive rather than shaft. After Two Brothers’ efforts, the bike puts out about sixty horses at the rear wheel at a relatively mild 8000 revs. Whilst that isn’t too likely to get the blood flowing nor particularly impressive for 650cc’s, the Honda weighs less than 400lbs fully tanked up and has a nice secure feel from its combination of alloy frame, one sided swinging arm and 17" wheels.
In my debilitated state the last thing I needed was a continuous wrestling match with some monster of a motorcycle. Two Brothers had also effected some cosmetic changes, the most obvious being a twin headlamp fairing that would give any Dresda owner a twinge of nostalgia. This item made necessary some fairly radical clip-ons whose effect were only slightly mollified by a single seat with a bum pad and rear-sets that were a little on the high side for my long legs.
In the dense LA traffic, moving slowly on expressways that wound around the city in a thoroughly crazy manner, I could have done without the painful riding position which made my foot scream wildly and my ribs seem to want to pierce my lungs. About the only thing it got you in the mood for was a bit of cross-dressing and taking it up the arse, which is probably why the race replicas are so popular amongst journo’s in the UK.
The Americans have strange ideas about lane filtering. Apparently you’re supposed to sit in the queue just like all the dumbo rednecks in their cages. There was no way I could take that, the way my body was hurtling abuse at my brain it was obviously necessary to get any trip over as fast as possible. The Hawk delivers a torrent of torque from as low as 2000rpm, letting me blast through the traffic in third gear with a lovely roar out of the decidedly non-standard 2-1 exhaust.
That low speed torque, combined with minimal mass, gave the bike an almost Harleyesque feel, despite its relative lack of cubes. It wasn’t as strong as a well set up Commando, which used its massive capacity to great effect, but the Honda could rev higher and harder than most big vertical twins, able to put as much as 130mph on its clock. With a 52 degree vee-twin engine (with the con-rods offset on the crank in a way that gives the motor the characteristics of a 90 degree vee-twin) vibes were negligible everywhere except right at the top of the range where the rear-sets thrummed quite harshly.
Still, I was impressed with the engine, it seemed to have most of the virtues of a good vertical twin with none of the drawbacks, such as vibes or excessive mass (of such things as TDMs, XS650s, etc). My only complaint was that I had to fill the 3 gallon tank up every 100 miles or so, fuel working out at less than 40mpg even when pottering around town at relatively moderate speeds. Strange that, I’d always thought that efficient cylinder head design, as the three valve Hawk undoubtedly possessed if its brilliant torque delivery was to be believed, meant that economy would improve.
After a week or so in a grubby motel on the outskirts of LA I came to the conclusion that some dubious types had staked the place out and were only waiting for their chance to kick me to death. This might merely have been massive withdrawal symptoms as I’d denied myself any indulgences such as drugs, whisky or even the scantily clad maidens of desire who insisted on disturbing my mind by lounging on nearby street corners. Whenever I felt the pressures of events really getting to me I’d go for a bop on the Hawk; I’d even come to the conclusion that hard physical labour such as cleaning the Honda was as good a way as any of keeping the angst away.
About 4.00am I woke up convinced that the room was about to be broken into and my body sliced into a million pieces by some deranged maniac. When I turned on the lights the walls were covered by monster cockroaches, some of which had huge wings and wobbled through the air in a totally unbelievable manner. By the time I’d gathered up my few belongings, the floor and bed were awash with the creatures. My boots crunched them to death with a horrible noise as I fled out of the room.
The sparkling Hawk was still in one piece, not infected. The neon lights were speckled with dead creatures and the sound of the night was of millions of crickets closing in on me. I felt a lot safer with my helmet on and visor closed, the reassuring thrum of the vee-twin engine doing more to steady my mind than a dose of valium could ever hope to achieve. I left town at maximum velocity, as seemed usual, fairly safe that at that hour of the day there would be few cops around.
The detritus of the LA riots was a bit nerve-racking, though, giving the city the air of some particularly desperate third world country. I knew I had to avoid the heavily policed main highways, that it would be much more fun to head north up the older roads that were mostly neglected by the vast majority of traffic. The Hawk thrummed along like a good ’un for the first hour with as much as 120mph on the clock, once clear of the sprawl of LA, but then hit reserve in the middle of nowhere just as the sun was trying to break through the sky.
The bike’s suspension had been first rate at those kinds of speed, able to soak up the somewhat rutted surfaces but also able to keep the Hawk on a very precise line. Hardly any effort was needed to roll the bike through the curves and it would even roar out of corners with as little as 1500 revs up in fifth gear. Even the gearbox was precise for a Honda, although that was just as well as it lacked any real feel. I’d guess that once 40,000 miles were on the clock it’d turn into a real bugger.
The Hawk’s tank has as much reserve as a transvestite let loose in a shower full of rugby players; we stuttered to a halt after what seemed like mere moments after turning the petrol tap. I shook the bike between my legs and then peered in the tank, hoping for a bit of divine intervention. I couldn’t remember seeing a petrol station, so spent the next half hour pushing the bike until I came to a garage.
The place didn’t open for another hour and the usual lout seemed reluctant to fill the tank until he’d doused his body in coffee. I bought a spare two gallon can, filled that with the precious fluid and strapped it on to the rear GRP with half a dozen bungee cords. It wobbled about a bit but I figured if the worst came to the worst I could always throw in off the back into the path any avenging porcine vehicles.
All would have been fine with the world had not the Hawk backfired raucously through the exhaust rather than come to life. This kind of cussedness was enough to drive a man to drugs and drink. The slob in the gas station lumbered over, waving a sawn off shot-gun all over the place, the exhaust noise having evidently convinced him that he was under attack.
The fool tripped over some petrol hose and let loose with both barrels. I’d seen it coming and half fell and half hurled myself over the Hawk, which put a large lump of alloy and steel between us. Or would have had not the bike decided to follow suit by collapsing on top of my still injured body.
Eventually, the bike was pulled off me and I was helped into a crouching position. I felt like I’d had a lot more than the wind knocked out of me. Perhaps fearing that I’d sue the butt off him for causing grievous bodily harm to my innocent person, I was helped into the garage and plied with several cans of Budweiser. The rest of the day blurred away into the night and some kind of weirdness involving a couple of gals.
The next day I had the choice of going west on an excess of drugs or getting back to the sane world by riding the Hawk, which had been fixed, up to New York. It was an easy choice.
Johnny Malone