Review: editors and their motorcycles

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Review: editors and their motorcycles
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Review: editors and their motorcycles

Review: editors and their motorcycles
The joy of owning motorbikes old and new

When the Stones rock, you rock along, of course swinging your hips to Robbie Williams too. You click through the most complicated electronics, but nothing gets into your record collection. Then you are one of them too. One in whose garage there is a not so new one next to the modern motorcycle. MOTORRAD editor Werner “Mini” Koch has done this a number of times. Which is why he has something to tell.

Gert Thole, Ralf Schneider, Andreas Bildl, Werner Koch

January 16, 2007

When the Stones rock, you rock along, of course swinging your hips to Robbie Williams too. You click through the most complicated electronics, but nothing gets into your record collection. Then you are one of them too. One in whose garage there is a not so new one next to the modern motorcycle. MOTORRAD editor Werner “Mini” Koch has done this a number of times. Which is why he has something to tell.

The autumn meant well: ironed the house route until the first Advent, cycled to the meeting point. Coffee, chat, warm air. But it came as it had to come. Icy wind. The machine is frozen solid in the corner, the leather suit is grumbling in the cellar, and gray fog soaks up the daylight. If you don’t take precautions now, you will be swallowed up by the vortex of gloomy thoughts. Whereby the precaution consists in having something to screw up, in getting to work with optimistic plans. Of course, the greatest optimism is likely to spread where two vehicles are waiting for the screwdriver. As with me. Where new things that are almost perfect are waiting to be perfected, and where a bunch of old parts should be turned into something that will probably never be perfect.

Why for God’s sake, asks Spezl and GSX-R 1000 rider Tommy, does a 35-year-old, worn-out Honda CB-450 engine have to be refurbished into a classic racer when there is a devilish Yamaha R1 heater next to it? Just because the old Honda brings back memories? To the first girl, the anarchic parties at the lake, the first cup, the old clique that is now scattered all over the world? Probably.

So while the decent citizen puts his credit card at risk in the wake of a passionate buying power, screwdrivers are plowing through fat catalogs. Noble titanium screws, a feather-light carbon fiber work of art for the planer? Or the yellowed oldie may first go to the varnishers after the coarse sandblasting?


Review: editors and their motorcycles


fact

Ralf Schneider, responsible for innovations at MOTORRAD, is actually a historian.

Speaking of oldies: If you look around the scene, it quickly becomes clear that the passion for scrap iron is becoming fashionable. In the circle of friends and colleagues, the addiction to the discreetly antiquated, one can also call it youngtimers, is rampant. At MOTORRAD alone, half a dozen give themselves to the patina of the dusty, practicing sentimentality. Starting with editor-in-chief Michael Pfeiffer, who fogged the landscape with his Suzuki GT 750, built in 1973, to test boss and motocross freak Gert Thole, who looked after his car with a current Honda CRF 450 Yamaha HL 500 drifting down the slopes. Although he is responsible for innovations in his job, editor Ralf Schneider tinkers with one Kreidler RS 50 from the wild seventies rightly, but has become an icon even with the modern motorcycle: Ducati 916, built in 1997. Colleague Andreas Bildl, who mostly drives the latest super sports bikes for work, has also dedicated himself to yesterday: Ducati 888 and Honda Hawk.

They’ve all given in to a feeling that creeps in mid-life, so if you feel the same, do it. Put the two-stroke RD on the go, pull a CB 750 ashore or a Kawasaki Z 1000, whatever it was that moved you in the past, whether actually or just in your mind. If you dare to grapple screws, tear the thing apart with plan and patience, but do it. If it doesn’t work in April, it will work in May. Or in August. Or two years from now. In the end it doesn’t matter. There are those for driving
modern machine.

However, don’t be surprised if the seemingly primitive technique of scrap iron drives you crazy. There is usually more potential for errors in a finger-thick wiring harness than in the confusing electronic jumble of a hyper-modern 2006 mill. And remember: those things died in the past, and they also died today. The spare parts are the same rubbish, not to mention the worn out original parts that besieged the cellar by crates of wine.

Still, it’s worth the effort. Because dealing with fiddly breaker contacts, screwed up nozzles and smacked sealing surfaces is a challenge. Radical measures are an essential part of it. Anyone who hesitantly tries to save what cannot be saved gets caught. If it gets stuck properly, you have to swing the sledgehammer and direct the hot flame out of the welding torch, which has corroded in rusty broth for 20 years.

Thank goodness you are not alone with your problems and, if you are in a hurry, you can conjure up the complete circuit diagram of at least the common antiquities on the monitor even late at night over the Internet. However, if you are not satisfied with a more or less thorough restoration, but rather the complete conversion to a Cafe Racer or some other crazy vision, like me with my CB-450 Rennerle, you will find yourself facing the first real problem without thorough planning and drawings fixed. And once motivation has dropped to zero due to a thousand and one problems, the youngtimer often ends up where it came from: on the scrap metal.

That’s why: one step at a time, and don’t dare to make bigger leaps than your own craft shop allows. Anyone who drives to the tinsmith for every weld seam or has to beg for every spacer sleeve from a buddy for lack of a lathe spends more time in the car than in the workshop. For this reason I bought a little independence in the form of a used TIG welding machine, an old lathe and countless, but indispensable little things. The lathe alone ?? a source of vain joy. It not only rotates sleeves, discs and axles. No, she also makes the tool for the tool. The rollers for bending the pipes, the pin for the frame gauge or the tiny brass plate on the carburetor, the ?? spliiiing ?? When dismantling in a high arc, submerged in the dusty depths of the workshop. I can ?? they kiss my lathe.

Because small parts that have been lost, such as piston pin retainer, valve wedges and similar penny items, can only be found on the dustpan during the spring cleaning. But nobody thinks that the tiny ones will come back just in time for the most fussy sweeping. The long-serving craftsmen, clad in gray master’s robes, claim that it is solely due to the workshop goblins. Little weights, smeared with oil, lurking between the shelves, and ?? snap ?? get over the oh-so-important particles. On long nights, when the workshop light does not go out even after the witching hour, the guys rumble cheekily through screw boxes and spare parts, slurp the leftover coffee from the cup, drink the last sip of beer and even make 36 mm ring spanners disappear. Then at the latest you should hang up your work robe. Because today ?? it won’t work anymore. Guaranteed. In comparison, working on a modern motorcycle is like a vacation.


Review: editors and their motorcycles


fact

Two worlds, one passion: modern 150-hp racing rolls and a 45-hp classic.

Provided that you have sorted the 425 screws, plastic rivets, nipples and rubber pegs that hold the plastic shell in such a way that you can get the puzzle back into shape three months later. On the other hand, with the modern device you can be sure that even on a delicate five-thread thread in disdainful cast aluminum, the gears will not crumble. On the old motorcycle, on the other hand, every second screw reveals the entire thread. Even a longer screw doesn’t help, only Heli-Coil helps.

Because the modern material is first class, but not perfect in some details, the hobbyist can embark on the long road to perfection. Even an R1 still has air here and there. Especially in the bearings, which are made backlash-free with fine oversized parts. Do you really notice half a hundredth of a millimeter? When rolling around on the promenade, definitely not, especially when you are serious about gas on the race track. Then it’s good when the air is out of the bearings and nothing remains between the pilot and the road but tire rubber, stable chassis, full damping. And anyway, what was tinkered, drilled, drawn and welded last winter so that the Yamaha would fit exactly as you dreamed it would. Every lever, every notch, even the seat cushion was tried, discarded, tried again, and thrown away again. Now it fits.

Is the whole circus worth it? For half a second in the lap time? Certainly if you look at the whole thing philosophically with the inclusion of the universe. It’s different with the old plane. It’s not about the lawn, it’s about the fundamental question: Will the rotten thing ever get back on its wheels? If the old iron also makes a clean sound, doesn’t spit out any oil or parts when it goes, then it’s worth a festival beer. A few vials shouldn’t be missing in any craft shop anyway. You never know who comes to visit, what success or what debacle has to be washed down with a delicious cold hop bowl. And anyway, a workshop is not just a workshop, but a home from home.

So put the childish stickers on the wall, hang up your favorite poster, the calendar with the buxom girls right next to it. Here you are again sixteen, here you can be, there is no censoring and no complaining here. Even if the coffee cups are already moldy and the garbage can has been overflowing for six months.

Some people sometimes ask the question: Do hobby mechanics just push handicrafts forward? Do you mime the ambitious tinkerer only to indulge in unimportant and meaningless dreams with an apparently important and meaningful activity? Or just to spend hours with old friends in silent harmony with mechanically questionable inventions? Is there a lot more to the busy tinkering than some friends, wives or mother-in-law suspect? Personality disorders? Fear of the future? Even premature old age stupor? “Huh? I understand?? nothing, the lathe is too loud. ”Shit, now the last two-and-a-half drill has died. Also good. Lights out, tomorrow is another day and winter is long enough.

We were young then, in the late seventies…

We were young then, in the late seventies, and we had a lot of dreams. About a cross four-stroke engine that can keep up with the superior two-stroke engines. I first worked one
XT in the field to get hold of one of the rare HL 500 crossers. But HL was not really good either. And because of that it gathered dust in the attic when I could afford better motorcycles.
Today the wildest dreams of yesteryear have been exceeded by far. In 1978 I would never have thought it possible that there would one day be such perfect machines as the current normal series crossers. When I hit the slopes with my 450cc Honda at the weekend, I freak out every time
Enthusiasm from how fantastic modern machines work. Just unbelievable. In addition, you don’t have to screw or tune at all, the series material is always sufficient, and the technology is almost indestructible.
So a few years ago sometime in winter something like boredom came up and I got the remains of HL from the roof-
floor down. Since then I have had a new bacillus be-
fall. It was screwed, tinkered, searched, traded. And at some point the time had come: the HL was optically and technically better than ever before, a dream of a motorcycle. After a few laps on the cross track, however, it was clear again: From today’s perspective, this is old stuff
really miserable. Still, it’s fun, every now and then an oldie cross with the HL or a Twinshock Husky
to drive. To the weekend afterwards with my CRF 450
all the more fun to have.

Everything should have been better in the past?

Everything should have been better in the past? rubbish.
Today’s motorcycles are the best, and despite theirs
I also count my Ducati 916 in age. I am enthusiastic about their uncompromising driving dynamics, although I would like a few more horsepower. So what, you may ask, give me my two Kreidler RS ​​from the 1970s
last century in the last millennium? Six and a quarter horsepower carrots that reach almost 90 with the extreme jerk of their speedometer needles.
It is the same inexpressible that I couldn’t have at 16, but which I wished for with all my might. They were too expensive by an insurance premium of 700 marks per year. And would have been super cheap compared to today. Seriously restoring an RS currently costs the same amount in euros as it cost in Marks back then. Not to mention the working hours. Anyway, the first ride on the ?? 77 was wonderful, even with a makeshift ?? 73 tank and a huge red plate number plate. The fact that the newly spoked rims had warped the brake drums, that the engine was leaking out of the shift shaft bore despite the new bronze bushing and O-ring and that the retrofit struts did not dampen, however, is extremely annoying. I don’t like screwing for screwing’s sake. Until my frustration is digested, the ungrateful thing has to stand in the workshop. And I drive Duc.

Yamaha YZF-R1 hobby racer

The racing roll for the weekend. Crisp, short 14-liter tank, airy high seat cushions and a board-hard chassis ?? just the way I like it. In between the powerful RN 09 engine, standard and reliable. Because screwing outside takes enough time. Fork, shock absorber,
Deflection system, bearing points ??
everything meticulously rebuilt and put together. The longest winter is not long enough. But now the heating iron comes as you wish. Plus a nice blue color and a bit copied from the Doctor’s Yamaha M1. What is still missing now? Exactly. A week’s vacation and then give the guys an edge on the kringel.

Honda CB 450 Classic Racer

The R1 was through, and while cleaning up the CB 450 K engine from 1970 was in the corner. No frills, air-cooled, powerful dohc cylinder head ?? a gem. At the end of the 1960s, as a boy at the JuPo in Hockenheim, I was frozen in awe when Peter Stocksiefen drove everything to the ground with the Dixton-Honda CB 450. So sketched the frame, got the right pipe, started the welding machine?
and off to the post. A winter
was too short, but now the CB 450 is buzzing. But to be honest: firstly, too good to drive, secondly, the old engine is ailing, and thirdly, a nice dust collector is still missing in the office.

Ducati 888 or even 900 SS?

We don’t need to talk about it for long: every modern racing roll is a class better than scrap iron. More pressure, finer manners, cooler chassis. Functionally excellent. Period. But have you ever screwed on a 999? so what.
At some point you also want to take a closer look at your device. Nothing against plugging in a power commander and planting a racing exhaust. Everything is very nice. But if you want to immerse yourself in such a device, screw it up and tinker with it, the greyed racers are unbeatable when it comes to enjoyment. No rolling computers. Mechanics you can touch, maybe a little shirt-sleeved, but not that complex? your own ideas are much easier to implement. And there is still so much that can be extracted. From the chassis. And engine. That doesn’t bring them up to date either, but at least within sight. And the fun of successfully eliminating a weakness again, taking a step forward and that
then to savor it on the road or on the racetrack ?? unbeatable.
But above all: the old things are still allowed to make real music. Without any exhaust flap.

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