Back on two wheels.

The Scottsdale motorcycling season runs from September through April. The other four months, with daily temperatures over 100F, are simply too warm for comfort and safety.

First ride of the new season, yesterday.

This is a special year for my 1975 BMW R90/6 as it marks the 30th year of ownership, having been purchased from the original owner in 1990.

Each season brings its own issues. This year the left carburetor proceeded to leak all over my boot; quickly detached – a five minute job on an opposed twin – removal of the main and idle jets as well as the float needle, a blast of compressed air to clear the clogged passageways, and all is well. No Garage Language required. Cleaning the boot will take longer. Quite why the Germans never managed to emulate Mikuni’s superb Japanese carburetors for reliability and trouble free service beats me, but then they never made a good horizontally opposed air cooled twin either. I’ll take that trade off. The stock Bing carbs have been overhauled twice in the 45 years since the machine left the Berlin factory.

Bikers are generally obsessed with changing things but the BMW ‘airhead’ twin was pretty much right out of the box. The rear shocks were not the greatest and I replaced them with Konis three decades ago. Lighter wrist pins (‘gudgeon pins’ for English readers) improved throttle response and alcohol-proof carb floats see to it that the introduction of ethanol in fuel did not result in malfunction from dissolved polystyrene floats. The other major fuel problem was the removal of lead tetra ethyl from gasoline, meaning that the cooling effect of lead on valve seats was lost and the seats started running too hot, eroding with use, reducing valve clearances in the process. I had the seats lined with stainless steel and valve clearances have been rock steady ever since, meaning some 25 years now. Finally a 50-state legal headlight modulator makes sure that the headlight flashes in daylight riding, in the forlorn hope that left turners do not take me out. So far, so good.

Other than that there is a near total lack of electronics in the machine, meaning I should survive the electromagnetic wave from the forthcoming North Korean nuclear attack, albeit somewhat irradiated. A couple of relays for the starter and the headlight switches see to it that nothing fries, and these are $2 parts easily replaced should they ever fail. One has in the past three decades. The ignition is by mechanical points and I carry a spare set in case anything fails – it never has. There’s one diode for the clutch switch and that fried a while back, replaced for pennies. This allows starting in gear when the clutch is disengaged – nice if you stall at the lights. Not, you understand, that I would ever do that.

Ignition points work just fine, and it’s not like carrying a spare set is onerous.

The stock Bosch starter looks like it came from a Panzer tank, being massive and half decent. (I use the kick starter when feeling especially macho). Newer Nippondenso starters from Toyotas have been fitted to many airheads as they use less battery power and are lighter to boot. I’m sticking with the original, and have had the solenoid rewound once for very low cost when it ceased engaging the toothed wheel on start-up. An aftermarket front fork brace replaced the poncy stock plate, something BMW recognized as later models had a far beefier brace. The stouter brace eliminates head shake at speed. And to keep those in cages awake, the weak Bosch horn has been replaced by two Italian Fiamms with a relay. These will wake the dead, or even the mindless in SUVs, while doing a good job of draining the battery.

Those elegant spoked rims are made by Weinmann, which continues making spoked wheels for high-end bicycles to this day. I replaced the mild chromed steel original spokes (really, BMW!) with stainless steel ones as they were beginning to rot. Sadly, those spoked rims require the use of tubed tires, far less safe than modern tubeless ones, though rubber has greatly improved over the years. I use either Avon, Metzeler or Michelin, all still available in the stock English sizes specified by an otherwise all metric factory. Go figure. I reckon on 8-10,000 miles a set. Trusting one’s life to Chinese tires, given that nation’s regard for life, is not my glass of Löwenbrau. I don’t waste money on synthetic oil and the consumption of 1500 miles per quart of 20W/50 dino remains as it was 50,000 miles ago. Gas use remains a frugal 45mpg, same as it has always been. Sadly, the high compression engine dictates the use of premium octane fuel.

Wear and repairs? Not much to talk about, really. I’m on my third set of head bearings (I use Japanese ones after poor experience with the aptly named German FAG brand), second clutch plate and third set of good old fashioned Bosch single copper electrode plugs, still available if you search. The Getrag gearbox has yet to be opened and as with all airheads makes a massive clunk on shifting from first to second. More Panzer legacy, I suppose. I consider it a feature, not an issue. The seat vinyl cracked a few years back and it was a simple matter for a professional to replace it with the original material. While the bike came with the small BMW café fairing, that broke when the machine jumped off its stand in the Northbridge earthquake in the San Fernando Valley (January 17, 1994) so for long distance riding I fit a National Cycle screen to reduce neck fatigue from wind blast.

I have never needed to replace the drive chain as the bike does not use one. It is shaft driven like a RWD car. On the other hand, the cam chain was replaced at 60,000 miles and proper timing was restored to the motor as the original was somewhat stretched.

Oil leaks? Nada, Zilch, Zero, This is a German motorcycle, not an English one.

The 30th anniversary of purchase will be in June 2020 and I rather fancy my chances of getting there. Mileage is approaching 70,000.

Hand pinstriping tanks and fenders in the old Berlin factory.
This is the closest you want any woman to your bike.

iPhone7 snap. Fräuleins courtesy of BMW.

With the Porsche Club.

The cool mornings here in Scottsdale see me mounting the old steed for a desert run to procure the morning croissant. My gas cost exceeds that of the French delicacy and with the mercury at 44F this morning the old leather jacket with a Thinsulate liner was indicated. GoreTex may be just the thing for breathability, but it does not cut through the cold on an unfaired machine.

As luck would have it the local Porsche Club was having a get together at the grocery store of choice and when I pulled up on the old Airhead conversation naturally ensued. We share a heritage of horizontally opposed air cooled engines, although the cooling air for the bike is naturally provided to the protruding fins on the cylinder heads, that for the 356/911 set is courtesy of a massive fan mounted on a vertical axis in the engine compartment out back.

My 1975 BMW R90/6 at a recent old bike show.

BMW bikes and Porsche cars abandoned air cooling for the most part in the ’90s in the face of rising horse power demands and efficiency, and most serious Porsche and BMW bike men maintain that the world pretty much ended about that time.

There was a nice study in contrasts in this part of the parking lot.

2019 GT3 and 1965 356.

The $200k 911 is worth less …. Lots of nice P cars in the background.
And yes, the ‘bra’ on the 356 is an abomination.

The green GT3 is the last normally aspirated 911 available. All the others from the regular model through to the Turbo use twin turbos to keep pollution down, which also takes out the gorgeous sound of the normally aspirated six. Porsche (and BMW) have traded charisma for competence. Turbocharged engines run so much quieter that Porsche now pipes artificial sound into the cabin to reassure the poor schnook at the wheel that he is driving the real thing. This is engineering?

The greatest motorcycle ever.

With 100 million made and counting it’s great news that Honda’s Super Cub motorcycle is being reintroduced in the US. The original dates from 1958.

The original ‘step through’ bike. This is the new version.

The step through design meant that ladies did not have to show their undergarments to all and sundry when getting on – or getting off for that matter – and Honda paired the roll-out with the greatest motorcyle campaign ever.

The greatest bike ad ever – June 1963.

The Super Cub was revolutionary in so many ways it’s hard to know where to begin. It had a four stroke engine whose low compression ratio made the use of the lowest octane gas possible and obviated the need for an electric starter, which was an option. The plastic fairing, a first, provided excellent weather protection for the rider and the top speed of 40+mph was all you needed in crowded western and eastern cities. The chain was enclosed to keep oil off the rider’s legs and the DIY maintenance was so simple anyone could perform it. The semi-automatic gearbox deleted that pesky clutch, meaning even women could ride the Super Cub when not in the kitchen or in labor.

But it was that magical advertising campaign which made all the difference. Watch The Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ and you see warring mods – on scooters and neatly dressed – fighting rockers – on bikes and in leather jackets – beating one another up in Brighton. What else was there to do in early 1960s London on a weekend, after all? Then along comes Honda with this:

Not just for poor eastern nations.

This was fun transportation for people who did not have grease in their hair or under their fingernails and who dressed like nice preppies in upper end western hemisphere culture.

That $215 in 1966 was actually a bargain. Using CPI data that computes to $1,675 today whereas the Super Cub is coming back to the US at $3,599. But you get a tremendous increase in technology and reliability compared with the already reliable original. The 50cc engine is now 125cc, the brakes are hydraulic disks, not drums, all lighting is LED, ABS is standard and was but a dream 50 years ago, the wheels are cast not spoked and the tires are the far safer tubeless variety as a result. Fuel injection? But of course.

My Honda scooter, bought 15 months ago and now with 2,000 miles on the clock may look fancier but the Super Cub is a classic.

Do the environment a favor and help destroy Middle East and Russian hegemony over oil supplies. Get a Super Cub and extend your life expectancy.

A day in the sun.

Motorcycles used to be single brand things in the store. In the UK of my youth any self respecting high street would have several such stores from Triumph (died in 1983), BSA (1972), Matchless (1966) and Royal Enfield (1971) for the lowest demographic, through to the Velocette (1971), AJS (1969) and Norton (1975) stores for the higher tuned machines with racing aspirations, then onto the high end which meant Vincent (1955) and BMW (which continues merrily to this day).

With one exception, all the great British marques failed owing to crappy engineering, with little reinvestment in modern production machinery and newer designs, the same curse which destroyed most of British industry while louche aspirants to power like Margaret Thatcher saw to it that Britain became a financialized nation centered in London, making precisely nothing, while shuffling paper denominating debt and real estate.

The one exception was Vincent which went under because of that generic British curse, lousy management. But without doubt, above all these self-inflicted wounds, the one machine which destroyed British motorcycle manufacture was the Honda CB750 of 1969, an across the frame, air cooled four which did all the things British machines did not. It started first thing, sported a powerful engine, had an electric starter, was reliable as a hammer and never leaked oil. Honda got there after making smaller predecessors like their fine 125, 175, 250 and 400 multis, all leading up to the killer 750.

So now the high street line up – this is the early 1970s – found one brand stores from Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki and Suzuki, the ‘Big Four’, all making superb, powerful, beautifully executed multis. And, of course, BMW, with its staid but reliable and oh-so-well-made twins.

Then the accountants started to take over and today the single brand store no longer exists, unless you consider Harley-Davidson and the ever failing Indian. We can disregard those as they are restricted to PTSD sufferers who were once pawns of the Pentagon, fighting yet another losing war while having their guts vaporized along with their grey cells, such as they were.

They buy motorcycles not to ride but to commiserate.

For the other big name manufacturers, the chances that you will find many brands under one roof are high. One such (very large) roof is GOAZ Motorcycles near my home in Scottsdale, Arizona where on one lot you will find Triumph (resurrected and alive), BMW, Aprilia, KTM, Ducati, Vespa/Piaggio, the Big Four and Ducati. And let’s not forget the Ural, a Russian piece of garbage with a sidecar sold only to the criminally insane.

Every fall, in the first week of autumn (the start of our riding season, as you can no longer fry an egg unaided on the sidewalk), GOAZ holds a vintage motorcycle show where exhibitors (like me) are required to pay a $15 entry fee to show their old machines. Strange economics. Shouldn’t the gawking visitors be paying? It’s a fun show not least because Harleys and their owners are not welcome (there’s the world’s largest HD dealership next door for these knuckle draggers, complete with tattoo parlor and wedding chapel. The dealership actually makes more money from clothing sales than from bikes but the profit leader is the service section because, you know, Harleys make pre-war British bikes look like exemplars of reliability. No, I am not making any of this up.)

The 2018 fall show was held today and my much ridden 1975 BMW R90/6 was again on display, accompanied by lovely old Ducatis, Benellis, Moto Guzzis, British bikes aplenty, lots of vintage Japanese iron, Vespa and Lambretta scooters and on and on.

All snaps on the iPhone7 in HDR mode.