GUEST SPEAKER
As the calendar reveals yet another new decade, Harley Richards reflects upon what used to be, and how it compares to today’s classic motorcycling
New year: old chestnuts. As the calendar reveals yet another new decade, Harley Richards reflects upon what used to be, and how it compares to today’s classic motorcycling
You don’t have to spend very long with older riders of older bikes to realise that a number of views seem to regularly crop up when comparing the modern day with The Past. However, I’ve begun to wonder how many of those views are actually based on fact and how many are based on what suits our take on the wider modern world. So, I’ve picked out a few of the ‘facts’ that I hear regularly aired and given them a thorough inspection – other opinions are, of course, available.
EVERYONE DID THEIR OWN REPAIRS
To disprove this statement, I didn’t have to look any further than my own family. My father and uncle both rode bikes for economic reasons but neither had an ounce of mechanical understanding. If they broke down (and they did), that would mean either a push home or find somewhere safe to park the bike. Then they’d ask around to see if
anyone could help get it home or to a dealer. Either way, financial hardship was looming.
I think it’s a fair comment that my father and uncle weren’t the only mechanical incompetents out on the roads as otherwise there surely wouldn’t have been a need for so many bike workshops. We all moan about their passing, but to me their very existence proves there were a lot of riders who weren’t quite as handy with the spanners as we sometimes think.
BIKES WERE FIXED BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD
This statement has always confused me, because with the right tools and skills anything can be fixed by the side of the road. I’ve heard stories of complete engines being stripped by the side of the road but, seriously, who carried the tools for that sort of work around with them?
I’d hazard a guess and say that for every rider travelling with the tools to tackle all eventualities, there would be dozens armed with nothing more than a plug spanner and crossed fingers.
Even if we consider the most likely causes of coming to an unscheduled halt, I’m not sure the age of a bike has actually got much to do with whether it can be fixed in situ.
A puncture is a common problem, but getting mobile again, regardless of the age of the bike, will require tools to get the offending wheel out (and possibly some sort of stand to balance the bike); tyre levers to get the tyre off the rim, some sort of puncture repair kit and then compressed air to restore tyre pressure. Without those things, any bike is going to remain immobile.
A broken control cable is another common ailment and, again, a cable on a 1950s Triumph can be fixed in exactly the same way as one on 2010 Kawasaki – you’ve either got a replacement to hand or enough spare length in the cable and some means of re-securing it, or you haven’t.
With electrical failures which brings things to a grinding halt, an awful lot of us could probably tackle a blown fuse or an obvious fault (if a component is in flames or missing completely) but beyond that learned assistance / specialist tools are going to be required. To me, that’s just the way it’s always been.
MODERN BIKES ARE TOO COMPLICATED
This is another statement that warrants closer inspection, after all: what is ‘complicated’ and what is ‘modern’?
I find it hard to believe that anyone who understood the basics of an internal combustion engine and a motorcycle’s rolling chassis in, say, 1955 would have much difficulty in getting to grips with the mechanical components of a 2019 Suzuki. Of course, fuel injection and water cooling are relative newcomers to mass produced bikes but even their operation really isn’t that complex.
If that’s the case, then I believe this statement is more about our ability to fix stuff on modern bikes, other than by the side of the road. That in turn involves two issues: actually identifying the cause of a problem and the ease or otherwise in wielding the necessary tools to fix the problem.
I have a lot of sympathy with the latter issue, having recently carried out some straightforward work on a 2006 Bonneville. Making a change to the airbox required allen keys, torx bits, crosshead screwdrivers, flathead screwdrivers, open-ended spanners, a socket set and several hours’ worth of vile language. Frustrating? Yes. Unnecessary? To me, yes. Difficult? Not really. It’s certainly a longer process than an equivalent job on a Triumph from the 1970s but, after all, it’s only nuts and bolts and I’ve just about got the hang of those.
However, the same bike had what seemed like miles of scary wiring to work around which,
in turn, got me thinking about whether I could diagnose a problem in that particular rat’s nest. At that point, I remembered some Wise Words from my past about tracing electrical problems. You don’t need to know what happens inside an electrical component, you just need to know whether the right current is flowing, or can flow, through it. It’s the same for modern bikes, there are a lot more mysterious black boxes lurking in the harness, but with a wiring diagram and a circuit tester finding the one that’s failed is just trial and error – same as it’s always been!
That said, I would be the first to agree with anyone complaining about the cost of said black boxes, and modern bike parts in general, because the financial cost of fixing a problem can be a short step from a bike being repairable to being scrap. But that’s a discussion for another day…
OLD SKILLS ARE BEING LOST
I’m not convinced. Just because the local chap you used to take your widgets to for their annual refurb has now retired doesn’t mean there are no widget refurbers left. There may not be anyone local (which could well be why you used him in the first place) but if widgets are still being used, chances are someone out there is still refurbing them. In this digital age, finding a suitable trustworthy and competent person will almost certainly mean trawling the net, and that does fill some folks with more trepidation than an intermittent electrical fault. However, being unfamiliar with searching the web is not the same as there being no-one to do the work.
You only have to look at the blossoming custom bike scene to see that there are any number of young(ish) experts out there. Even if you don’t like the look of them or what they are doing to bikes, the skills they are using to get their creations up and running are the same needed to get any bike up and running – don’t let prejudice blind you as to who can help.
BIKING WAS MORE FUN BACK IN THE DAY
Almost certainly true. There again, we all reach a stage in life where everything was more fun back in the day. It doesn’t matter whether it’s regulations, the volume of traffic, the standard of driving or your own abilities, something will be diminishing your two-wheeled fun as the years roll by. So why not enjoy the memories and deal with the present as best you can?
MY OLD BIKE IS TOO HEAVY…
…so it might be time to hang up my leathers. This begs an obvious if awkward question: why are you riding an old bike at all?
If you ride a particular bike because you have a deep emotional attachment to it, and it is simply the only bike you want to ride, then hanging up your leathers is probably the only sensible option if it gets too much to handle.
However, I’d be surprised if many people actually do fall into that category. I think most of us ride old bikes because those are the machines we got our first taste of real freedom from, and had a lot of fun doing it – nostalgia at its finest in fact. If so, that leads to another key question: what was more important, the freedom / fun or the bikes? If you throw away your rose-tinted glasses and the freedom / fun comes out on top, that would suggest you’d be happy on pretty much any bike. You may be happiest on your old bike perhaps, but something, newer / lighter will still be way more fun than not riding at all. As always, a sense of perspective is key.
Conclusion: don’t let misconceptions about what biking was get in the way of having fun with what biking is.