| From West by Northwest.org Voices of Spencer Creek A Song of the Open Road By Norm Maxwell Jan 9, 2003
The January sun was bright and almost warm and I wondered (like Toad) if this particular type of motorcycle (motorcar) was easy to start. I slid open one of the fuel petcocks and pressed the carbuerator "tickler" button that allowed gas to fill the float bowl. The heavy aircooled aircraft engine oil in the English vertical twin resisted the kickstarter. One, two, three kicks and then turn the key on. Another kick followed by a loud Blub Blub. I depress the tickler again and another firm kick backed up by 100 kilos and the BSA exploded into vibrant song. Ben the Bengal cat raced from his hideout under a tree to escape the noise. I held the throttle a quarter open for a few minutes until I could let go and fetch my leather jacket and beanie helmet out of the shop. The BSA hadn't been ridden since November and it was "walking" across the concrete slab in front of the shop at idle. I sprayed a little aerosol lube on the chain and walked around the bike to check for anything loose. Nothing was. I sit on the small bike and must look like the proverbial gorilla with a football and snick the transmission into first gear. I leave the shop garage door open and flee the scene like Mole. The sausage shaped mufflers (if that is the word) are simple hollow shells with out any pretense of baffles. I wear earplugs to protect my ears that have been abused by heavy automatic weapons and years of chainsawing but I can still hear the glorious sobbing howl from the twin exhausts as I accelerate through the gears and the thunderous chuckle as I back off on the throttle. Birmingham Small Arms started business in 1861 when a group of master craftsmen bought some land near Birmingham, England to mass produce rifled muskets. Now there's an oxymoron. They made many, many of these big bore smoke poles and freely sold their product to both sides of the Mason Dixon line for hard cash during the American Civil War. After the giddy days of the war, the firm struggled along selling firearms until bicycles began to make an appearance and BSA turned their mass production talents to this new form of transportation that required no food or space and was never sick. Almost exactly 100 years ago somebody at BSA hung a small single cylinder motor in the frame of a heavy bicycle and ran a leather belt to a small spare wheel rim attached outboard of the rear wheel. BSA puttered along with single cylinder bikes for the most part through the second world war. The firm did produce some awesome V-twin machines like a Harley Davidson in the 30s but more than 90% of their bikes were singles of about 350 cubic centimeter displacement. On the eve of the war, Sir Edwin Turner designed the vertical twin motorcycle engine but it was never produced until the cesation of hostilities. England honored her war debts to the US and most of the new twins were sold in America to generate money. The English pobbled along on old singles. The English Army rode the BSA M 20 that was unchanged from the early thirties until the 1980s--a full fifty years on this design. England had curvy back roads with few straight stretches so the new BSA and Triumph twins were designed to cruise at 60 miles an hours. In the US, with the vast open spaces and roads that were straight as an arrow for miles, this proved unsatisfactory for BSA's American customers. Still, Harley Davidsons were little faster in the early 50s and much more expensive. Birmingham Small Arms increased the compression in their bikes but the engine design was made to lope along in mid range. The BSA twin changed hardly at all from 1946 until the last one rolled off the line in 1974. The US Army Air Corp had helped Japanese motorcycle production by bombing everything flat and burning it down during the war. A man named Honda bought a dozen army surplus motorcycles and started building new production lines with room for expansion while BSA stayed in the same crowded facilities they had occupied since the 30s. English and Americans alike sniffed and scoffed at the first light weight Japanese motorcycles that started showing up at established bike showrooms in the late 50s. The writing was on the wall. Honda, Suzuki and others designed new machines that reved far higher than anything else on two wheels. They soon dominated the little bike market and in 1969, Honda introduced the 4 cylinder 750 cc that was cheaper than the BSA twin and outperformed it as well with vastly superior reliability. My BSA is a 1970 model, built in June of 1969. It is serial #1,610 of that year. It is possibly the best example ever built of the BSA twin as the firm had consolidated all the improvements made to the design over the years and the next year tried a whole bunch of new ideas in order to compete with the Japanese. Some of the ideas worked but many did not. I reach the beginning of Fire Road and make a right and roar through the gears to Lorane in the bright, cold day. I stop at the Family Store and buy a couple dollars of high test gas. A RUB (Rich Urban Biker) pulls up on his new HD and tells me about how he, his brother, his dog, his mother (pick one) used to ride a BSA. While you see many Harleys on the road, when is the last time you saw an operational BSA? I blast down the Siuslaw Access Road achieving speeds of 90 miles an hour. I put special high gear sprockets on the bike so it can cruise comfortably on modern roads. I slow down for the Lorane Ghetto, better known as Fitch's Camp. I understand that it has been recently been purchased--undoubtedly by a developer and we will have another Lorane developer war on our hands soon. The road undulates as it follows the Siuslaw River and it gets cold in the shade of the timber. I pass the spot where I saw three cougars early one morning and go a little further and turn around. The bike idles flawlessly now and the heavy oil is thinned by normal operating temperature. Jerry Collins died last summer. Jerry had a British bike/HD shop on Lorane Highway about two miles from the crest of Chambers street in Eugene. I am sad as I almost stopped to buy some oil and filters from him the day before I got dispatched on a fire to Colorado. I was gone for two weeks, came home and was immediately dispatched somewhere else. When I came home that time somebody told me that there was a big clearance sale at Jerry's shop. I found out that he had died of mad cow disease. It was very handy having Jerry there with his huge collection of bike parts for old English MCs. The world is a poorer place without him. Jerry would always bitch about how people never let him get any work done in his shop when I stopped and then proceed to give me a 45 minute tour of all his latest projects. His Vincent Black Shadow sat in pieces on a bench for five years while he worked on other people's machines. The last time I saw him, I told him that he absolutely, positively had to take a day off and ride one of his Ariel Square fours up to McMinville and check out the Spruce Goose and all the other airplanes at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. He said he would but I don't think he ever did. It is getting cold out and I ride for home. The three porch panthers all sharpen their claws on the cedar verticals of the rail when I ride up. I push the bikes in the shop and close the doors. Writer Norm Maxwell is a Bureau of Land Management Fire Fighter, on the ground and with a BLM helicopter crew, and an union negotiator. He lives on Fire Road which he has successfully saved from development. For more of Norm Maxwell's writing visit: Remember Fire Road The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King Home, Home on Fire Road © Copyright 2000-2004 by West by Northwest.org |
