Roundup
ROUNDUP
PETER C. VAMVAS
peter C. Vamvas, Cycle World's art director, was killed in a road crash February 24. He was on his way home from work. He was wearing a helmet and the bike was in top condition. We don't know how it happened.
Peter was more than an art director, he was an artist, a designer, a photographer and a dedicated worker. He raced mini cycles and go-karts. When we needed a novice for road racing, Peter volunteered. He understood machines and the people who like them. He had vision and the energy to put his vision to work.
Cycle World is a better magazine because Peter worked here. We all loved Peter and we’re going to miss him.
A LEGEND COMES TRUE
Remember the story about the barn full of classics? Seems there was this old man, an eccentric, and he bought all these fine motocycles and tucked them away. If a guy could get in there . . . but that's where the story ende4, because all the tellers of the tale heard it from some body who knew a friend who'd been in the place, but when you actually tried to track it down, the man who'd been there was always two jumps away. like the lifetime battery and the surplus Jeeps and a score of other legends.
Not this time. According to the legend, George Disteel was once a wealthy man. He became, well, different, and the state took away most of his property in Northern California for non-payment of taxes. George didn’t care. He sat around cafes, reading 20-year-old newspapers and making comments about the stories in them. George’s son was killed in a motorcycle accident and George spent what money he had left buying bikes and stashing' them in a rented barn.
The old legend, right? Right. Now', facts. Late last year George Disteel died of a heart attack. No will, no estate as such but the authorities did find the rent receipts and the barn.
There they were—18 motorcyles. The chrome was corroded, the tires were flat, some parts were gone, just what you’d expect from 20 years parked in a barn.
Up against one wall were seven Vincent Twins: Black Shadows, Rapides, the w'orks. Probably more Vincents in one place than most of us have seen since we first heard that magic name.
What else? Oh, just a Norton International, a prewar Veloeette, two Moto Guzzis and two DKWs, a Sunbeam, a BMW and a Royal Enfield.
What happened? The state is nobody’s fool and whoever officially found the treasure trove knew' it was w'orth something. They hired a professional auction company, whose experts figured out the fair market value and auctioned off the machines, bringing in something like $20.000 for the state.
So it’s good news for collectors. The supply of Vincents in the U.S. has just increased. And for the rest of us. it’s time to begin looking for another barn full of classic bikes.
NO TRUCE IN SIGHT
You may have thought the Honda CBX was the ultimate salvo in the superbike wars-we did, anyway-but Ka wasaki dealers returning from the recent dealer show in Las Vegas have another idea. It's called the 1200cc Six. Like Honda, Kawasaki has chosen an inline configuration for the new engine. Unlike Honda, the Kawasaki Six will be liquid cooled, powering a shaft-drive system. Horsepower is reputed to be the vicinity of 115.
As side dishes for the Six, Kawasaki reportedly served up development models of an 80cc mini-motocrosser and 400 and lOOOcc automatics. There was also a shaftdrive 1000 sporting a fresh frame design and leading axle front forks.
We all know' dealer shows are great arenas for blue sky breast-beating, and American Kawasaki’s official responses to our subtle queries (like, “Hey, when can we get our hands on the new 1200?”) range from a terse “no comment” to “if there’s a 1200 we sure don’t know anything about it.” Nevertheless, the muttering continues among dealers of our acquaintance, and we’re inclined to credit these mutterings. After all, Kawasaki made its mark by offering the wildest street bikes on the market. We can’t believe the men in green will settle for anything less than the Number One road rocket.
MEANWHILE, IN ITALY
Not all the missiles will originate in the Far East this year. Laverda's lineup for the U.S. market includes its familiar 1000cc Triple and an update Ofl that en gine that will probably be the biggest motorcycle powerplant this side of HarleyDavidson, at least through the curreilt model year. The newcomer is the 1200 iota America. a name derived from some rather optimistic rounding off of the big Triple's 1115cc displacement. The new iota meets U.S. noise standards and is touted as a sub 12-sec. bike, which puts it in with some of this year's fastest company. Other features include triple disc brakes, electronic igni tion. and the removal of the kickstarter (electric start only is an across-the-board feature on all 1978 Laverdas). Price is $4250.
Laverda is also bringing in a new 500cc dohc four-valve Twin, the Zeta ($2995), and this machine is the base bike under the fancy racer pictured here. The 500cc Production Racer has its own special class in Italy. A few copies of the machines will be imported to the U.S. Laverda’s lOOOcc Jarama ($3995) rounds out the company’s lineup of U.S. offerings. We hope to have one of the two new models in for testing in the next month or two.
The importer is Yankee Accessories Corporation, P.O. Box 36, Schenectady. N.Y. 12301, telephone (518) 355-6010.
Benelli has been busy, too. The people who brought you the first of the ohc Sixes (the 750 Sei) showed up at the recent Milan show with a 906cc version of the bike. With a dry weight of 485 lb., the bike figures to be in the running with some of the hotter cookers around this season.
Benelli is also reportedly working up a 900 kit for the current edition of the Sei. However, according to Benelli’s U.S. importer, Cosmopolitan Motors (Jacksonville and Meadowbrook Roads, Hatboro, Pa. 19040. telephone (215) 672-9100), availability dates for either the kit or the 900 itself are not yet firm.
THE NEW VELOCETTE MAYEN
By signing a check. Ellis Taylor has made his Santa Barbara operation the U.S. capital for Velocette parts. Taylor recently acquired the entire stock of Vel ocette specialist Lou Branch, an inventory that includes new and used parts for every Velocette made since 1953. from frames to rubber-this in addition to bits and pieces for much older examples of the marque.
Taylor’s shop will also handle Velocette engine rebuilding operations.
Taylor (left) is pictured with Branch at last summer’s antique bike meet in Visalia, California. The bike is Eddie Arnold’s 1928 Velocette KTT Mk I, a replica of the one ridden to victory in the 1928 Junior Isle of Man by Alec Bennett, one of only 270 such machines produced by the factory.
For information on Taylor’s Velocette Spares service, write P.O. Box 5023. Santa Barbara, Calif. 93108. Telephone (805) 969-0838.
TRIUMPH KEEPS ROLLING
Meriden. the British workers' coopera tive that produces Triumph motorcy cles, appears to be well along on the road to good financial health. The co-op has paid back a million-pound (roughly $2 million at early 1978 exchange rates) gov ernment loan and is scrambling to meet orders.
Production is running about 300 motorcycles per week, and current orders are sufficient to keep the works busy through June. Ironically, a small but significant percentage of the weekly production is earmarked for Japan. Some 1200 machines are currently on order for the U.S. market and another 1000 are ticketed for Canada.
BANNING THE BIKES
yes, bikes can be banned, and not just dirt bikes treading in the wilderness. It's happened in Canada, in the city of Longueuil, a suburb of Quebec. Motorcy cles have been banned from all but major roads within the city. Seems there were complaints about noise and riding on lawns, so the city fathers banished motor cycles from residential streets. At first the ban was from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. Later the time limit was dropped.
The city fathers mean business. You can ride your motorcycle on a Longueuil residential street only if you live there. You must use the shortest possible route to and from. The penalty is $20 to $60 fine or up to 60 days in jail if the fine isn't paid.
Cycle Canada, the source of this news item, quotes the city’s traffic engineer as saying noise wasn’t the only reason for the ban. Car drivers run into motorcycles, he explained, because drivers don't expect motorcycles to be there and some riders don’t turn on their lights. That'll teach us.
HELMET ADVICE FROM THE PROS
This season all professional licensed riders in American Motorcyclist Asso ciation (AMA) events will be required to wear helmets meeting the Snell Founda tion's 1975 standards.
This comes as no surprise. That the Snell ’75 standard is the world’s toughest is generally conceded. And it’s natural for the AMÀ to require as much protection as a racer can have.
Our stand on this is also known, that is, there's no way to prove which helmet is best and research to date shows wearing a helmet is more beneficial than which helmet. At the same time, it’s hard to come up with a good reason not to wear the best helmet you can buy, i.e. one meeting the Snell ’75 requirements.
There are more of these helmets on the market every day. Again for the record, as of mid-January, 1978, Snell '75 helmets are made or supplied by Arai, Bell, KRW, Shoei, Hondaline (made by Shoei). Simpson and American Sports Co., which makes the Fury line and some models sold through Yamaha.
Note: Not all helmets made by these firms are built to the new Snell standard. All models which are. have the Snell ’75 label. If there is no such label, the helmet is not certified.
MOTOCOURSE ENCORE
Up until last year. the international motorcycle road racing scene lacked an authoritative and comprehensive annual. Then the people who have been producing Autocourse, the yearbook of car racing, put together the first edition of Motocourse, Autocourse's bike racing sequel. It was done in the loaded-with-photos, coffee-table-size format employed so successfully for 25 years by THQ Autocourse publishers (Hazelton Securities. Ltd., in England) and was an immediate success.
Comes now the 1977-78 edition, which maintains the solid standard set by the original. Within are some things you'd expect—reviews of the various Grand Prix meetings, the Formula 750 season, the FIM Coupe d'Endurance, the AngloAmerican Match Race Series—as well as some extras. The history of Yamaha’s racing involvement is a good example of the latter, as is a series of profiles on the seven world champions. Conceivably, one might list the book’s ranking of the world's top 20 pavement riders as another extra, but this, of course, depends on wffiether you happen to agree with them or not (see “Race Watch” for details).
If there’s any grievance one might level against this book, it’s that it’s heavily Europe-oriented. Besides a six-page wrap-up of the AMA Camel Pro Series (ironically, this entails the only dirt track coverage to be found in the book) and the Daytona, Laguna Seca and Mosport rounds of the Formula 750 series, there is precious little coverage of North American racing. One might reasonably argue that there is precious little North American road racing available for coverage, but expanding the reportage of the road racing segments of the AMA championship couldn’t hurt, and the AMA’s 250cc lightweight series is about as obscure as Tanzanian village politics: illumination of this murky training ground for F750 riders would be helpful. The increasingly popular Superbike Production series would also be a welcome addition to this yearbook, at least for American readers, and there are certain special events, such as the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges, that would lend a little resonance.
But these are really minor shortcomings. In the main. Motocourse is doing its job and doing it very well. This year’s book is 244 pages, packed with plenty of dynamite photography—black and white and color— and rich with detail. There are. for example, seven pages devoted to specifications of contending machines (these, incidentally, could be improved by the addition of more nitty-gritty numbers pertaining to wheelbase, rake and trail, spark plug heat range, carb bore size, etc.) from the various world championship categories, and 16 pages of straight results info.
At $21.95 the book isn’t cheap, but if you’re a follower of international pavement racing, Motocourse is a book you’ll want to have on your shelves.
The U.S. importer is Motorbooks International. P.O. Box 2. Osceola, Wis. 54020,—
Tony Swan
