My Vintage Bikes

My first "vintage" bike was a 1967 Montgomery Wards Riverside. It was a 350cc 4 stroke single that was actually manufactured by Benelli of Italy. I got it nearly for free—and that's just about what it was worth. But since owning that funky thumper, I've enjoyed riding, and inevitably, working on, older bikes.

Here's '69 Riverside looking great. Mine was painted blue with a rattle can.

In fact, usually one works on an older bike before the joy of riding it can be realized. That hasn't been universally true for me, but it certainly started out that way. I got the Riverside so cheaply because it didn't shift right, and although I put a couple thousand miles on it before giving it away to a friend, I spent a few hundred dollars fixing things that were, or became, broken.

Similarly, my first real vintage foray was when I convinced my friend Rick to give me a basketcase 1961 BMW R60/2 that had been cluttering up his garage Actually, there were no baskets involved, it was in 5 cardboard boxes. Although I asked for it, I ignored it for about 10 years. Then it came together in a few months and I had a working motorcycle. But I had to be ready for it.

The bikes I've picked up since then have all shown me things about a different era in motoring, and have made me think a bit about what the wider times were like. I was actually alive and aware when my 1975 R90S was built, at least as aware as an 11th grader is. In fact, that's even the year I got my driver's license. But I was entirely unaware about motorcycles at that time and certainly had no concenpt about a bike that—in highly modified form—had won the AMA Superbike championship that year. In fact, new, it cost more than my first 3 cars did.

However, the R90S is essentially a modern bike, if not as fully developed as current offerings. Disc brakes, modern form of suspension components, a plain bearing motor with an inline oil filter, it represents the dawning of a new age in motorcycles. When you step back before that, none of these things are present. Motorcycle designers were still feeling their way along, trying to find a magical combination of motor design and layout and chassis that was secure yet handled well.

That R60/2 that got me really hooked is an example. The most obvious thing about it was the swingarm and shock absorbers front forks, known as Earles forks after the British designer who invented them. The bike has a good, controlled ride in part because of them, but it is very slow steering even with the wide Flanders handlebars that were delivered on the bikes here in the US. The next thing one finds out about is the starting ritual. There's no starter button, one must kick the motor over to get it to start. There's an onrush of unfamiliar things: 6 volt electrical system, a "key" that's the same in every bike and looks more like a nail with a plastic head, the tickler buttons on the carburetors that must be used just right, and the throttle grip that must be opened just the right amount, lest the motor be flooded. Nobody floods motors any more; with fuel injection it's nearly impossible.

Going further back, my 1953 R51/3 has no shock absorbers in back, just heavy springs damped by a bit of grease. This system, popular in the 1950s, is called a plunger frame, and represented an intermediate step to a full rear swingarm and shock absorber, from the previous hard tail or rigid frame bikes, like my 1941 R12. Even the R12 has a damped and sprung front end, with its novel-for-the-times telescopic forks. A few other things have regressed at this point, too; manual spark advance and a hand shift gear box.

This is just an overview of the things that changed over the years. I love learning about and learning to live with them.

I am the moderator of the slash2 mailing list hosted on Yahoo! groups. I founded this group for selfish reasons; I wanted a place to be able to ask questions about these cool bikes!

Recently I have become the Northern California Regional Director for the Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners, Ltd., the national BMW vintage club. I hope to help bring more activity for vintage beemers to the bay area! As an indication of this, check out The Bride of the Surf City Tech Day I'm hosting.