Today in motorcycle history, October 4, 1977

                 
                                       
            
 

  For the first time in 9 years Portlandian's feel the wind in their hair.

 

 

  In 1967, to increase motorcycle helmet use, the federal government required the states to enact helmet use laws in order to qualify for certain federal safety programs and the above highway construction funds (no, really, your health and well-being are our top priority not the monies). The federal incentives or rather the threat of a reduction in construction funds worked!  State after state fell to the federal “blackmail” threat.  In Oregon the legislature first instated helmet use laws on January 1, 1968 where they remained in place until 1977.

  As an aside, in Issue No. 3, October 1971, EASYRIDERS started a non-profit organization just for bikers.  It was called NCCA (National Custom Cycle Association).  One must keep in mind that back in 1971, no other motorcycle magazine except Roger Hull’s “Road Rider” was even giving an inch of space to anti-bike legislation.  Editor Lou Kimzey saw fit to take on the extra burden of starting a motorcycle rights organization.

It wasn’t long until Kimzey changed NCCA to ABATE, A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments, the acronym fit at the time as unelected federal bureaucrats were in fact using coercion on state legislators to have specific laws enacted within the states.

  In 1976, states successfully lobbied Congress to stop the Department of Transportation from assessing financial penalties on states without helmet laws and shortly thereafter began a pattern of repeal, reenactment, and amendment of motorcycle helmet laws.  Specifically in Oregon, on October 4, 1977 the helmet law was repealed for age 18 and over.

 

  Now don't throw your helmet away just yet, the helmet law has since been reinstated but, there is no helmet speaker law or handlebar height restriction.  Bad-ass, super tall apes with Motorhead cranked up enough to make your ears bleed while blasting down Route 6 is A-OK.

                                      

Today in motorcycle history, October 2, 1936

 

 

  The Vincent HRD Series A Rapide is introduced.

 

  The story is that supposedly Phil Irving accidentally put a side-view tracing of the Vincent 500 motor wrong way up on top of an equally sized drawing of the same view of the same motor, and saw, moving the tracing so the crankshafts and idler gears coincided, that the result looked like a possible design for a V-twin.  This resulted in the 47.5 degree V-twin.

  The new Vincent V-twin incorporated a number of new and innovative ideas, some of which were more successful than others.

   The Series A Rapide's frame was of brazed lug construction, based on the Comet design but extended to accommodate the longer V twin engine.  It continued the use of "cantilever" rear suspension, which was used on all Vincents produced from 1928 through 1955.  Other improvements/innovations included a Burman 4-speed gearbox, 6.8:1 compression, 1.0625 inch Amal carb and a side stand.

  Both Phil Vincent and Phil Irving refused to use pneumatic forks believing girders were superior at the time.  The Series-A had external oil lines and a separate gearbox.  The 998cc Series A Rapide Vincent cost $600, produced 45 hp, and was capable of 110 miles per hour.

  The high power meant that the gearbox and clutch did not cope well and led to many a breakdown.  Too many in fact, leading to the Series B Rapide's radical changes in 1946. (50 degree V-twin instead of 47.5, internal oil lines, unit construction, etc.)

 

  An interesting Vincent fact for you; in 1948, Indian Motorcycles distributed Vincents in the States along with other British motorcycles including AJS, Royal Enfield, Matchless and Norton Motorcycle Company.  That same year an Indian Chief was sent to Stevenage to be fitted with a Vincent Series B Rapide engine.  Unfortunately, the resulting hybrid "Vindian" never went into production.  Can you imagine it?!  The mind runs wild.

Today in motorcycle history, October 1, 1923

                                         


  

 

  At the 1923 German Motor Show in Berlin BMW shows off it's first badge-wearing motorcycle to the public for the first time.

 

  Their first motorcycle blows the minds of the "experts" immediately, and is an instant hit with the public.  A review in the magazine DER MOTORWAGEN read: "And finally, the culmination of the exhibition, the new BMW motorcycle (494cc) with the cylinders arranged transversely.  Despite its youth it is a remarkably fast and successful motorcycle."

  BMW had been an aircraft engine manufacturer during World War I, but was forced to diversify after the Treaty of Versailles banned the German Air Force and German aircraft manufacture.  BMW initially turned to industrial engine design and manufacturing.  Then in 1919, BMW designed and manufactured the flat-twin M2B15 engine for Victoria Werke AG of Nuremberg.  The engine was initially intended as a portable industrial engine, but found its main use in Victoria motorcycles.

  The R32 had a 494cc air-cooled horizontally opposed engine, a feature that would become their stamp and resonate among their various models for decades to come, albeit with a few displacement increases.  BMW's other major innovation - a driveshaft instead of a chain to drive the rear wheel had people so excited they were unable to control their themselves.  

                                

Today in motorcycle history, September 30, 1955

                                   

 

 

 

  James Dean dies at 24.

 

  Driving his Porsche 550 Spyder (nicknamed "Little Bastard") headed to a car race in Salinas, California, with his mechanic Rolf Wuetherich, when they were involved in a head-on collision with a car driven by a 23-year-old college student named Donald Turnaspeed.  Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:59 p.m. Wuetherich, who was thrown from the car, survived the accident and Turnaspeed escaped with minor injuries.  No charges were ever filed against him.

 

  Often the vehicle associated with James Dean is the Porsche but, there was a love-affair with motorcycles long before he sat behind the wheel of that Spyder.  His first experiences with a motorized two-wheeler was in 1945 on a Whizzer (basically a balloon-tired Schwinn with a 2 horse engine).  On a good day, with the wind at your back, the Whizzer could hit 30 mph and you know that 14 year-old tested its limits every chance he could.

  When Dean turned 15, his uncle and guardian, Marcus Winslow Sr., gave him a 1947 CZ 125cc motorcycle purchased from a local Indian Motorcycles dealer, Marvin Carter, just a 1/4 of a mile down the road from where they lived in Fairmount, Indiana.  His family said that in the saddle of the CZ "young Jimmy became hell on wheels".  He only knew one speed and that was wide open.

  Even though the 21 year-old actor was living in NYC, Indiana was still home and he frequently returned there for the holidays.  It was on one of those winter respites in 1953 that he traded the CZ in on a Royal Enfield 500cc twin.  Although Marvin Carter warned him to not over-stress the freshly rebuilt engine he instead bundled himself up and set off for New York at top speed in the dead of winter.  He made it to Harrisburg on the Pennsylvania Turnpike before the engine threw a valve.  Luckily, there was a motorcycle dealership that could repair the Enfield in Harrisburg, Huntzinger’s Indian Motorcycle Sales & Service.  The bike was hauled there for repairs and as Dean was casually looking over the bikes in the showroom he spotted a maroon and gold-striped 1952 Indian Warrior TT.  It was love at first sight!  Dean negotiated a trade for the damaged Royal Enfield, his agent in New York wired him the money, and the bike was his.

Back in New York with the Indian motorcycle, Dean stored it at a Greenwich Village garage where budding actor, Steve McQueen, worked as a part-time motorcycle mechanic. 

 

  It’s not known what happened to Dean’s Indian, but his next motorcycle purchase was a shell blue 1955 Triumph Tiger.  He then traded in his T110 for a 1955 Triumph TR5 Trophy at Ted Evans Motorcycles in Culver City, California.  It was shell blue, as well.  But, he had it fitted Flanders high handlebars, a straight-through off-road high exhaust pipe with no muffler, knobby tires, and a single 6T-type spring seat with a pillion pad bolted to the rear fender; backwards, the way Marlon Brando had the pillion seat on his Triumph Thunderbird in The Wild One.

 

  In the late 1980’s, Dean’s cousin, Marcus Winslow Jr., went on a quest to locate the 1955 TR5 Triumph Trophy and have it put on display in Fairmount as a tourist attraction.  After Dean’s death, his father, Winton Dean, sold it back to the original dealer, Ted Evans Motorcycles.  It was with the help of Ted Evans that the Triumph was traced to a man in Minnesota who had raced it and it was now heavily modified for that purpose.  Through estate papers and VIN numbers it was verified that this was indeed James Dean’s Triumph.  Winslow Jr. bought the bike and had it restored to as-new condition, but in the same configuration as Dean had customized it for himself.  Seriously, I don't make this shit up.

                                     

Today in motorcycle history, September 26, 1971

 

 


  On a warm, cloudy, Sunday afternoon in Hutchinson, Kansas, Evel Knievel jumps 10 Kenworth trucks at the Kansas State Fair.  The jump goes off without a hitch, the landing is one of the smoothest he'll have in 1971.  For the second day in a row (Evel also performed the same feat on Saturday the 25th),  the crowd goes home with stomachs full of fried dough, cotton candy and beer.  And the vision of a mad, airborne super-hero in red,white and blue.
                         

Today in motorcycle history, September 26, 1941

 

 An Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) motorcycle dispatch rider in Northern Ireland, September 26, 1941.

 

From the Imperial War Museum collection.

Today in motorcycle history, September 24, 1948

 


 

 

 

  Motorcycle builder Soichiro Honda incorporates the Honda Motor Company in Hamamatsu, Japan.

 

  In the 1960's, the company achieved worldwide fame for its motorcycles but, before he founded the company that bores his name, Soichiro Honda was a bit of a drifter and a dreamer.  He bounced from one mechanic's job to another, and also worked as a babysitter, a race car driver and an amateur distiller.  Even his wife said he was a "wizard at hardly working."  In 1946, he took over an old factory that lay mostly in ruins from wartime bombings, though he did not have much of a plan for what he would do there.  First he tried building what he called a "rotary weaving machine"; next he tried to mass-produce frosted glass windows, then woven bamboo roof panels.  Finally, after he came across a cache of surplus two-stroke motors, he had an idea: motorbikes.

  Honda adapted the motors to run on turpentine and affixed them to flimsy cycle frames built by workers at the Hamamatsu factory.  The bikes sold like hotcakes to people desperate for a way to get around in postwar Japan, where there was virtually no gasoline and no real public transportation.  Soon enough, Honda had sold out of those old engines and was making his own.  In 1947, the factory produced its first complete motorbike, the one-half horsepower A-Type (nicknamed "The Chimney" because it was so smoky).  After the company's incorporation, Honda produced a more sophisticated bike: the 1949 steel-framed, front and rear suspended D-Type that could go as fast as 50 miles per hour.  At the end of the 1950's, it introduced the Cub, a Vespa clone that was especially popular with women and was the first Honda product to be sold in the United States.  The Super Cub had a four-stroke single cylinder engine ranging in size from 49cc to 109cc.  Having been in continuous manufacture since 1958, with production surpassing 60 million mark, the Super Cub is the most produced motor vehicle in history. The Super Cub's US advertising campaign, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda", had a lasting impact on Honda's image and on American attitudes about motorcycling, and is considered a classic case study in marketing.

  Then came the Dream...ahh, the Dream and its 305cc engine and it's cousin the Scrambler.  Did you know the engine was studied, and developed and enlarged by the Laverda factory as the basis of their 650cc and 750cc twin cylinder engines.

  To add to their growing legacy, the 1969 CB750.  The bike is recognized as the four-cylinder sport bike that had a lasting impact and is often called the first superbike. 

  In 1974 Honda's next attempt at world domination would come as the GL1000, the Gold Wing. 

 

  Soichiro Honda was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1989 (don't forget he also is responsible for the Civic).  He died two years later at the age of 84.