A Bike, A Course, A Stopwatch

When my son was little I bought him a Honda XR100. We had an empty lot across the street. After so many laps around the lot we had a pretty good oval track. Momma had an XR200, I had a XR400 and Digger had a XR100. We would go play on a boring weekend afternoon. Digger's friends would come by the house and as we only had one appropriate motorcycle for nine year olds just learning to ride I would hold races that consisted of ten laps timed with the stopwatch. There was a famous racer, who's name escapes me, that stated all a person needs is one bike, a course, and a stopwatch and a race will ensue.
In another thread there was a debate about the merits or demerits of racing. This was a wholly inappropriate place to hold a debate as far as I am concerned. But it reminded me of the joy those kids had in competing on a motorcycle.
We have a beat up canyon road right outside of town that is really fun to test ones nerve and tightness of fillings in the mouth. My neighbor and I would take a knackered pile of two wheel entertainment up, down, turn around, back up, back down, and to the finish line. We posted a business card at the halfway marker that the racer had to bring back as insurance that there was complete lappage of the course. This was a real fun time. The bikes used were whatever small cc'd crap I had laying around including Dig's XR.
The empty lots are pretty much gone along with so many other things around here but I am sure that a motorcycle, a course, and a stopwatch will be around for a long time to come.

Comrade Dribble: Yes but you've gotta move further and further out of town. In the city that I live in there is a pub that has always had live music. Some idiots built a block of apartments next to it then complained about the noise of the live music. Net result: the pub had to reduce the sound and reduce the hours.

When I was a boy I used to ride the motorbike around the back yard. Friends used to come over and "learn" to ride by colliding off the shed, fence Etc. Of course, the pace got faster and faster. Wouldn't be allowed to happen now. Indeed, maybe even the Mums would pull one into court...

On another note Dribble I'm still worried. That post was almost pathologically lucid. You sure you are Ok? How's the work situation going? I note you've been out on a few nice rides - good to see.

Nothing like reminiscing, eh? How old is "Digger" now, and does he still ride - or does he think the 'ol man is just a nutbag for continuing to do so?

Reminds me of the summer my - then very young - brother came in to ownership of a "minibike". You know, one of those awful Briggs&Stratton powered things. My guess was, it was of late's 60s vintage ... "Rupp" branded, if I recall - had a chrome tank. Horrible thing really. This was the late 80s, and there's no way its "8HP" B&S flathead lump was the original.

He did some kind of horse-trading with someone for it - had no clue what he'd gotten himself into; it had no brakes or throttle (other than manually actuating the linkage at the carburetor); clutch was done, and the pull-start having long since failed, was "retrofit" with an ancient wrap-n-pull rope pull to light it up. Machinery of any kind - then or now - has never been my brother's thing: He's more a technology user.

I drop by the folks place (I was a grad student at the time, also working at corporate research facility), mom corners me, then blurts in an angry whisper "Your brother brought home some goddamned minibike - could you take a look at it and make sure he doesn't kill himself on it?".

So I troll around, find him, and casually remark "Mom tells me you got a minibike?". This kid wasn't generally very excitable - probably the Ritalin - but he sure lit up when I mentioned it, and all but ran to the garage to show it to me.

I look at it - not wanting to know how he got it home - and I asked him "Got no brakes or throttle, do ya"?

Grinning out a "Nope" - as if there was some pride to be found in this.

After a liberal application of "Starting Fluid" (active ingredient: Ether) from an aerosol can, he manages to get it started. I was in awe at the pull rope ... Did I mention it was the 80s? It lights with a BANG, and of course there's nothing but a remnant of a muffler. As he tries to pull away on it, it's immediately obvious that not only will this thing make us both deaf, but that the rattling old centrifugal clutch on it, is toast.

At least its tyres looked new-ish.

"We need need to go downtown to the small-engine shop to get some stuff." I jot a few notes on the model/serial of the B&S, it's carb, etc. In a standard Midwestern torrent, we jumped in my CJ (-8, "Scrambler"), and headed down there. Rain pounding on it's fogged-window vinyl top and doors, tiny wipers all but worthless, we manage to get there.

The shop was one of those fantastic places that no longer seem to exist. If you raced karts, or needed a blade for your mower - they had it. The guys who worked there, had been there forever, rarely ever having to look things up. You told them what you had, and what you wanted. They'd disappear into the stacks in the back, and always seemed to come back with whatever you needed.

My list was lengthy: Carb rebuild kit, spark plug, air filter, clutch, generic throttle & cable kit, a muffler (there were choices!) - I even popped for a "kill switch", which brought us to the brakes. From what I could tell - there was once some kind if rear brake, adjacent to, or that somehow used the rear sprocket. The hardware for that brake was long gone. So I consulted with the counter gurus.

They advised a type that literally wrapped around the outside of the clutch "basket" (the clutched part that the countersprocket was integral to). I popped for this, a lever, and cable. A stop on the way home at the hardware store for a large Grade-8 bolt (to support and locate the brake-band) and some various springs - and the project was underway.

Now, I know my brother: If we didn't get through everything that needed to be done - he'd ride the damn thing anyway; would likely have ended up in the hospital, and I'd never have heard the end of it.

We got through almost everything – including this crazy strap-brake setup, like on a turn-of-the-century (er, 19th to 20th, that is) tractor or something. Changed the oil, new clutch, throttle, kill switch, MUFFLER, plug, filter, etc. All good. Only needed to rebuild the carb. No big deal, but it was late, and still raining.

I took the carb home with me – trusting that it would be the easiest deterrent preventing him from riding the thing – promising to return the next week to finish, where we would ride it.

On the evening before I was supposed to go out there again, I rebuilt this ridiculously simple carb on the kitchen table of my flat. It was ready to bolt on.

The following day, I was practically tackled getting out of my Jeep, to deal with this thing. Straight to the garage, no time was wasted bolting up that carb, putting fresh gas in the tank, and wrapping-on that crazy pull rope (the pull was real maple!). “Starting Fluid” can close at hand …

Damn if the thing didn’t start in about 5 wrap-n-pulls. Old lever choke actually worked as it should. Same for the the kill switch - without electrocuting either of us. Don’t tell me you’ve never gotten shocked trying to kill one of these engines.

A little bit of carb adjustment to get it to idle decently and a quick twist of the throttle assured us that the new clutch was functional. The brake seemed like it was going to function, but I insisted on taking it down the folks’ steep driveway, to test it.

The brake “kind of” worked – and after a few passes and some adjustment – it “sort of” worked. It took one helluva grab at the lever, but you could get the rear tyre to lock up. Good enough. We have “The Bike”.

The folks lived on a bit of hill, which was off a winding, little travelled, tree-lined road, about 3/4 mile from a 2-lane highway.

Helmets not even considered, we took turns riding down to the highway “T” and back. This was “The Course”.

Yeah, I no doubt looked like the proverbial football-fucking monkey - and I was still skinny then.

The digital age well underway, both wrist and digital hand-held stopwatches were common. But we knew where there was a wind-up 30-second 1/10th split timer in the house. Some 1960s remnant from when the folks’ used to go to the Indy 500 every year. “The Stopwatch”.

By this time, a couple of my brother’s friends had dropped by. It was quickly decided that we were going to “race” this horrible minibike, to the highway and back. To keep everyone honest, you could barely see - if not the whole route - where the road met the highway. The highway’s shoulder was gravel, and you had to bring some back.

½ downhill, and ½ half uphill. The only time you had to brake really, was halfway - at the bottom - to prevent from going into the highway, and to get some gravel while there.

The “starter” would say “GO!” and start the watch. You’d twist the throttle to the stop and hold it all the way down the winding road. Turns out you can achieve decent speed on 8 HP – downhill. Brake as hard as you could, u-turn, put some gravel in your pocket, and pin it again. There was something manic about the wait for someone to return, the oh-so-analog stopwatch ticking in double-time.

It was a hoot. We all took turns. Somehow I was faster than the other kids, but I never could beat my brother’s times. He probably weighed half what I did then … Well, that’s what I kept telling myself. Somehow we didn’t seem to get bored with this for at least several hours. If I recall, the old Briggs vapor locked a few times on us. We’d let it cool a little, and break out the pull-rope again.

That summer, there were a few more impromptu sessions of minibike “racing” – and even though I was well past the age of such shenanigans, it was fun every time. Something my brother and I could do, given the age disparity. Even my girlfriend at the time got caught up in a couple of the sessions.

Fall came, and with it weather and wet leaves that makes minibikes unusable on the road. And I was neck deep in books again.

I don’t know what happened to that minibike, and I’d long forgotten about it until the Dribbler’s own story of a bike, a course, and a stopwatch.

Thanks for reminding me.

Great story and I too had a CJ8 Scrambler.

Gentlemen Comrades: Your stories are charming - thank you so much. Such a relief from 'how loud is this fooking brand of exhaust"!

Thanks for the stories.
Brings back some great memories and reminds us why we started riding these stupid things in the first place.
More fun than debating if the 1290 is 0.5% better than a Tuhomo or if the Akra sounds boofier than an AR can.

Great stuff. My first "motorcycle" was a '70 Honda 50 MiniTrail. It had a giant rear sprocket that was intended to limit my top speed. And it did so quite effectively. What it didn't do was limit my ability to slam on the rear foot brake and back it in, supermoto style - just like they did on the Wide World of Sports. I had quite a time doing that and banging through the gears on my own personal racetrack. (Sorry, no stop watch). That was fun until my uncle realised I was plowing huge ruts in his hayfield. I had to end my sumo career before it started. But, that wasn't my only problem. That came when I had to get the bike on my uncle's porch when I was done riding. My fingers were two short to work the gas and apply the brake at the same time. The porch on my uncle's trailer had a steep edge, and I couldn't ride the bike onto the porch without giving the bike generous throttle. Net result, I ended up slamming into my uncle's trailer to get the damn thing stopped, not once, not twice, but three times before I was banished from riding it onto his porch. Those were the days.

My first two wheeled debacle was a home made mini-bike. I bought it from Louis Avitabile in Hanover Massachusetts. Nerd, I can better your brothers poor choice of purchase by stating that this particular orange piece of steel had no motor and never ended up having one while in my stead. I would have my sisters push me around our backyard for candy. Usually a package of Necco's. Louis was the cool kid in town and I half bought the bike just so I could hang with his hipster crowd. They smoked cigarettes and swore and spit and somehow they let me in. It was probably my paper route money. Eventually we all had real motorcycles Honda fifties and nineties with a mixture of Bridgestones and Lambretta's. The mucked up trails in the Ma. woods required a bit of work to keep open. We would steal building materials off housing sites and lay the boards in the nastiest mud holes. We all had woods out of our backyards and except for crossing a street now and again we could all ride up to one anothers back yards. Are town was so small back then it was actually called a village. I tried to influence my son to join in the same shinanaguns that I grew up through, but his spirit is in so many ways different than mine. He graduates from UCSC next week and predicts that he will tumble back into the riding arena, I have my doubts. I have never pushed him into a life with a motorcycle. This is not due to wisdom on my part, more to due with his Momma believing that the child should choose his own path and she is pretty darn happy that path is sans two wheels. I have always had a bike in the shed that I would hand over to him at his just asking and promising he would take MSF and act responsibly. Even to the point of having a personalized plate DIGGER at the ready. So far nothing. Hope springs eternal
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Candy-fueled sisters as a motor - that's fantastic!

I'm jealous: No amount of candy (which in my case would also have been afforded by paper route revenue), would have been enough to convince my own sisters to push me around on any form of bike.