Re: Didn\'t drive 2305 today.
There Was a Time
Mark Appleton
There was a time when. . .
Kick starting technique was highly rated, and those who wore crash helmets were considered eccentric. There was no such thing as a tire changing machine, and oil was changed ever thousand miles (straight 50W). Prices were written in the manufacturer’s parts books in shillings and pence, and on the front of the dealer’s parts bins in dollars; and that’s what they stayed. Three battery types and five tire sizes and positive ground (earth) was the way it was.
If a bike was stolen, word went out to all the bike shops, making it too hot to handle. Whitworth was the word and chains were boiled in grease. Advance was manual, and spark plugs were Lodge and KLG. Pegboard displays in shops were avant garde, and goggles were glass and leather. Parts were called “spares” and came protected in Cosmoline and brown waxed paper – not plastic. Seats had springs, telescopic forks were a novelty, and no one converted swingarm frames to rigid. Primary chains were single row, and when busted, the rear chain would also need the same thing. People went for rides with tire irons and a tire pump on their bikes, and kept master links, just in case.
Bike shops all had coffee pots and magazines, and the owners went riding each Sunday with customers. You didn’t have to move your bike to the back of the shop if it leaked oil on the sidewalk in front. Winter rebuilds were just that – every winter. A de-coke didn’t mean switching to Pepsi. It was possible to call a bike a “Hog” without being sued. A torque wrench was considered a high tech tool. Strobe lights were unfathomable; ignition timing was set by cigarette papers and a rod through the plug hole.
People knew the names of the engineers who designed their bikes, instead of imagining, faceless design teams collaborating with computers. Bikes sounded exciting, and you could see through a factory muffler if you held the end up to your eye like a telescope. Edward Turner was young, England had an empire, and Japan made silk. Armory Road, Meriden, Bracebridge Street, Hall Green, Redditch, Plumstead, Wolverhampton, Stevenage, and dozens of other magic places turned out crates of gleaming motorcycles.
Though time has passed them by, the time machines left behind when the factories folded still allow us to free up the clutch plates and open the chrome fuel petcocks, to smell the aroma of gas when fiddling the carb, to hear the engine roar to life and the familiar light clunk as first gear is engaged, to feel the air rushing past our ears as we go through the gears, and hear the intake hiss, the burble of the exhaust, and the whining of chains; to feel the vibration and revel in it, and to listen to the ticking of cooling metal as the bike sits on it stand after the ride. Back again to the time when British bikes were king and Britannia ruled the waves.
