I keep seeing an incredible amount of British machinery on the road, although not one of the new Triumphs (quite a few in the local showroom). These old Brits are mostly Bonnies and A65s in radically different states of health and ridden by a disparate bunch of characters. From an immaculate late sixties Bonnie ridden by an OAP to a youth who looked as bad as his rat A65. Unfortunately, mounted as I invariably am on Jap crap they look upon my enquiries of why they are riding British stuff with something approaching total disdain, so | can't offer much enlightenment as to what is exactly going down.
I have not seen so many British bikes about since my youth when you could buy the things new, men were men and knew what a kickstart was for... and indeed I had probably the worst six months of my motorcycle life trying to run a recalcitrant Triton 650, which put me off the breed for the rest of my life. I know that a well put together Triumph twin is worth owning but it’s not something I can justify at the entry level prices demanded, even if classic prices have fallen rapidly over the past couple of years.
There's also a surprising mass of mid seventies Japanese middleweights, like CB550s, XS650s and GS550s, in remarkably good shape rather than the usual rats run on a shoestring - these are the kind of people who buy the cast off, worn out tyres and chains and have turned the use of Araldite into a new religion (wonderful stuff that it is). Again, there is a mixture of motivations behind the survival of these decent Japs, some have been stored away for a decade or more; others have been renovated from the wheel rims up. They are not very fast nor particularly economical but they are otherwise cheap to keep on the road, no more complex than a B25 and rather more reliable.
The other pleasant surprise is the number of kids who are suddenly taking to commuter style 100s and 125s (although as 14 year old school children are known as students I should perhaps use a more sterling term for 17 year olds). Judging by some of their antics the compulsory basic training isn’t much cop - they are as unpredictable as a Volvo driven by a deaf and blind woman (no offence, girls, but some grand dame gave me heart palpitations a few hours ago when she turned left after indicating right - only my willingness to take to the pavement saved the day) but they will doubtless learn the hard way or end up dead.
The statistics say less and less new learner machines are being sold, but as with the British stuff I've never seen so many about. Although sales of new motorcycles are down, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the older bikes are changing hands more often, even desperate old hacks gaining a new lease of life courtesy of engines from breakers.
This resurgence of motorcycling (though not of the UMG sales figures - sob!) is probably down to the effects of the depression. British bike owners finding in their garages a very cheap way to get around, old Japanese middleweights being put back into use rather than scrapped and the youths forced on to bikes because they can’t afford anything else and daddy can’t cough up for a nice safe car for them.
| see ever diminishing numbers of race replicas on the road, which is sad in a way as they are hugely enjoyable to ride fast, and in ten years time they will probably be a lost breed. Once their engines fail few people will have the resources or expertise to do a rebuild. They could be the first generation of the truly disposable motorcycles (Jap bikes have been described thus since the sixties but were then better engineered and no more complex than British bikes) although judging by the numbers that find their way into breakers at least one, if not two, engine transplants will be possible before they are dead meat.
Car sales were well down last year but I find it surprising that they managed to sell even one car - there seem to about five times as many cars as the roads can take (and I tend not to ride when the rush hours are in full flow) - | think a combination of stringent MOT tests (emission tests will get all the old wrecks off the roads) and £500 a year road tax for cars bigger than a Mini, and £1000 for cars bigger than an Escort, would sort things out. Real discouragement to the GTi brigade would be a compulsory five year training period in an electric car limited to 50mph with an appearance no more attractive than an invalid carriage. Some hope!
Not that motorcycles can be considered Green, although many in the industry desperately clutching at straws would have us think so. If we all commuted to work along the shortest routes aboard C90s, and the like, doubtless claims could me made for minimal pollution and wonderful economy, but when the sun’s shining my five minute jaunt to the local shop tends to get extended by a couple of hours, a circular tour of my favourite roads at indecent speed results in a totally unnecessary journey and fuel economy that would have the average Metro owner writing to his MP in enraged complaint.
The only thing green in that kind of journey are the car drivers who get burnt off. I know many owners of fast and furious machinery who get up an hour or two early to take the long route into work (a bit difficult for me as I only have to walk down the stairs from bedroom to office) in a riot of conspicuous consumption. After paying four, five or six grand for a race reptile it’s the only decent thing to do!
The insidious nature of motorcycling affects everyone who aspires to something greater than a scooterette (scooterat would be a more appropriate term); I don’t even have to ask the juvenile delinquents on the 125s if they are actually going anywhere in particular on a sunny evening because I know damn well that the destination doesn’t really matter, it's getting there with the widest possible grin and a clean pair of underpants that really counts.
The really clever thing to do, if you're into selling lots of motorcycles, is to produce an entry level machine that on the face of it is the perfect commuter. Youths could reassure parents that it was a perfectly safe way of getting around and married men could tell wives to think of all the money they would save which would buy new carpets, kitchens, etc. Beneath its Plain Jane looks, incorporating effective weather protection, the machine would have reasonable suspension, decent geometry and an engine that could double its 12hp power by something as simple as a change of throttle cable.
It would only take a few days to have an effect, car drivers would be won over easily by its ability to filter through the mass of stalled cars and youths thrilled by its power (I can remember being thrilled doing 30mph on an NSU Quickly, though not by doing the same speed on a friend’s ancient scooter in his back yard and being rudely stopped by a tree). The key to such a subversive campaign is very simple....and I may as well tell you as it's unlikely in the extreme that I will ever be in a position to pull it off - our commuter in 12hp guise will have an amazingly economical engine at a steady 30mph.
Never mind that this is hardly relevant to road usage, advertising is all about lying - the ability to print 200mpg in banner headlines would have such a shock effect on anyone who read it that an overnight conversion would surely occur. Probably not, as to get the price right whoever produced it would need to sell over 100000 bikes a year (a paltry figure compared to the outrageous numbers of cars sold even in a bad year, but rather more than the entire motorcycle sales, so far has the game fallen) just in the UK. The risk is huge, for you or I, but for some obscenely profitable multi national just loose change and surely better than just sitting back, letting the numbers on the road decline and decline until motorcycling becomes no more popular than hang gliding.
Personally, I couldn’t give a shit. I am quite happy to have the only motorcycle in my street; the way things are going mass produced Japanese motorcycles are going to become so rare that they’ll have all the cachet of a hand built special. I very rarely see anyone on the same model and colour of machine that I own, although its sales are regularly in the top ten. Unfortunately, if the number of motorcyclists goes too low there are political and technological implications that bode very ill for anyone who wants to ride free on ever faster and more outrageous machinery.
Bill Fowler