Hertfelder: Been Riding Long?

You’ve been digging dirt a while if you can remember:

Montessa Cappras; Greeves, Cliff Ferris, our local distributor,
sold them by the hundreds and claimed no two of them were
identical); Ossas (and the Yankee Twin, which was two Ossa
engines bolted together with a slip joint so you could phase the
thing to fire every revolution or every half a revolution (don’t ask
me to explain that); the Puch (say “Pook”); twingle that had two
pistons on one connecting rod (don’t ask me about THAT,
either); Bob Greene; ACE 90’s; Chay Zeds; Rokons; (the
shiftless American that had a lot going for it but you could
hardly move the thing unless the engine was running); Road
Toads; Benelli’s; the Buco helmet that looked like a hat so no
one would suspect you had a brain; the Matchless G15CS
Scrambler that never won any scrambles; the Yamaha Big Bear
Scrambler that would be laughed out of the Big Bear even;
Royal Enfields; Sachs Boondockers (the last survivor used to
be bolted to the wall over my desk, it’s open-top air cleaner
was apparently designed to trap mud thrown by the rear tire);
the Marusho Magnum 500 – a BMW clone - ; the Go-Matic two-
speed sprocket assembly; Villers engines; motorcycles that
shifted on the right side and those with a shift shaft that
extended out BOTH sides so that you could put the shift and
brake levers wherever you felt (and the common sheared-off-
flush-with-the-case shift lever became a temporary
inconvinience instead of a disaster.

You’re on your tenth pair of boots if you remember:

The Alpina, Sherpa, Lobito and Montadero models which had
dozens of case bolts – no two of which were the same length;
James; Derbi and Dot motorcycles; Van Tech; Rotary Jets –
which were neither rotary nor jets; Harley Hummers (dealers
would put a pins in maps to show how far they would go before
seizing); 125cc Cobra Scramblers – which could “carry two
adults and their gear over the roughest terrain” (if you believed
that, you probably also believed “neutral was readily found’,
which it might have been during the test but not in actual use).

You’re riding into mid-life crisis if you remember:

Barbour suits that felt like waxed tar-paper saunas; Cottons;
BSA’s (bastard stalled again); Kreidler; Moto Beta; Zundapp
Super Sabre; the Helmirror that bolted to your helmet (“Better
than having eyes in the back of your head”); NSU; Garelli;
Panther 650cc slant singles; double-leading shoe front brakes
that were marvelous going forward – totally useless going
backwards.

You’ve been riding over dinosaur doody if you:

YDS2 and YDS3; Pabatco; 50cc Fireball; Bunnyvilles; Akront
rims; goggles stamped: U.S.A.A.C.; the Jawa with the kick
starter that swung FORWARD, A.M.C. gearboxes; rotary shifts
that could easily be shifted from gear to low with one stab,
sliding the rear wheel down the trail as the engine tried to rev to
142,000 rpm; shifts that went up for low and one that was all
up with neutral at the bottom; Aeromacchis with an oil line under
the engine and no skid plate; Eso; square fours; Horex
Imperator; Mobyliette; Sunbeam; VDO resettable speedos;
Tohatsu; Gold Stars or NSU.

Only pre-dinosaur will remember:

When we made dirt bikes from road models by “jacking out” the
fork rake – heating the down tubes near the steering head until
they were red hot, the jacking out with a bumper jack jammed
between the engine cases and the front axle. Some hacks put
the jack between the cases and the front tire inflated to next-to-
blow-up. This was not the way to go because the tire would
deform; more heat would be added to the tubes and “bloop"!
There went 10 times more rake than you wanted. Some of
these botched jobs were turned into choppers.

We used the same heat-and-bend as a required stunt in the
rear frame loop to allow more wheel travel before “graunching”
the back fender. The result looked professional until you stuck
the motorcycle and walked around back to get a two-handed lift
on the rear loop. After three deep breathes, you’d close your
eyes, strain mightily and feel the bike lifting nicely out of the
mud. Problem was, on opening your eyes you’d see you had
just folded the rear loop, fender, and taillight over the seat!