I'm thinking there is another Wes involved because I've never actually met Rick, much less helped him moved. I'm sure the real Wes deserves all the credit.Uchytil said:I've been following his situation on the yahoo group (maico). They have spoken highly of you Wes and there are a few ideas (mentioned "there") concerning ways to help him.
VintageMX.US said:Holloway, Mark
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Ad # 3126522 June 20, 2008
Written by: Rick Salazar....
Submitted by: Stephen Gautreau....
Dear Friend,
I don't know if you are aware, but our old friend Rick (Super Hunky) Siemen has been facing some serious personal challenges lately.
SH recently found out that he has prostate cancer for the second time, and has been undergoing Chemo therapy. SH is now waiting to find out if the treatment was successful or not. As you may know, Rick has lived in Baja, Mex. for years, but recently had to move back to the US to get his medical treatment. Rick and his wife Tina moved out into the desert of Maricopa, Arizona, however, because Tina had to take a job to help with bills, they have had to move again. This time closer to town, to be near his doctor/hospital, so he could drive himself back and forth. The real estate market being what it is, Rick lost quite a bit of money that was earmarked for retirement and other things due to the moves.
I have been following SH's progress for months thru a friend of mine who is personal friend of SH and lives close to SH. A couple of weekends ago Rick's old friend Wes, (who was also arrested back in the day at the same time as Rick) gathered over a half dozen friends with trucks and trailers along with my friend and a few of the VMX community in AZ. to help move SH. SH being extremely weakened due to the chemo therapy was unable to help very much. My friend said Rick was quite humbled that so many strangers would turn out to help him move. Stephen mentioned to Rick that many in the vintage motorcycle community that had heard of SH's medical plight would like to help, if help would be accepted. SH said he wouldn't be offended or turn down any offers of help.
To be clear, Rick receives medical benefits from the US Navy, however he has lost quite a bit of money in the moves, and at his age, and condition (recent stroke, as well as prostrate cancer) he couldn't really afford to lose that money.
For those of you that grew up in the 'Golden age of Motocross' you may remember Super Hunky as the CZ, and Maico riding older brother that wrote of his adventures. Super Hunky gave us the straight scoop about the newest dirt bikes, which ones were worth the money, and which ones were junk. Rick also told us about waging a legal battle against the BLM and the Sierra Club to preserve riding land here in California. Rick was jailed, and almost bankrupt himself taking on the BLM, fighting to keep the Barstow to Vegas desert race going, for dirt riders everywhere.
The reason I'm writing this letter is that the vintage community has always helped out guys in need, and now Rick Siemen needs our help. It is time to give something back to Rick 'Super Hunky' Siemen for his 35 plus years of giving to us.
There are FIVE ways to help Rick, and each way the money goes right to Rick.
1. Go to his website SuperHunky.com and buy his books, CD's, posters and other collectible items.If you haven't read his book 'Monkey Butt' you ought to.
2. Buy Ricks 1970 Husqvarna 400 Cross. (being sold for Rick by a friend) http://www.vintagemx.us/cgi-bin/largephoto.cgi?C=cAXduhE6NovC8UAe
3. I know not everybody has a PayPal account but if you do, a donation can be sent to Rick via https://www.paypal.com/ Simply click on 'Send money to your friends and relatives'. Enter Rick's email address: superhunky@gmail.com and follow directions.
4. Mail a donation directly to Rick Siemen. (this is his NEW address)
Rick Siemen
36607 West Cosa Blanca St.
Maricopa, AZ. 85238
Mark Holloway
Oceanside, CA
VINTAGEMX.US Preserving Motocross History VINTAGEMX.US
_____________________________SuperHunky.com MY DINNER WITH SUPER HUNKY said:Super Hunky:
My Dinner With Super Hunky
(excerpted from Monkey Butt)
My Dinner With Super Hunky
by Brian Halton
It's no secret to CityBike readers that I became smitten with off-road riding over 8 years ago. That love affair literally changed my life. I stopped smoking because of it. I'm in better physical condition because of it, too.
I'll never forget the day I rode back into the pit area at the Pacifica Motorcycle Club's land on a Honda XR250 test bike. Pacifica native Jim Trout had led me around the club course one chilly winter morning, taking me up and down the hills he knew so well, yet that I had never seen. When he led me back twenty minutes later, I was short of breath and soaking wet with perspiration. Dean Sweet walked towards me grinning his famous grin and asked, "Well, Brian, what do you think?"
"I think this is the center of motorcycling that's what I think!" I remember screaming. "It's so violent! I love it!"
From that point on, I was hooked. I began studying how to get better at dirt bike riding. Now, after all those years, I'm not half bad, but the lessons didn't come easy. You want to be a good dirt bike rider, you gotta really try...
Of all the publications that I ferociously devoured in those early years, Rick Seiman's Dirt Bike became my favorite. It had humor. It liked to pick fights. It gave real-world evaluations and stuck to them. It gave tech tips on how to ride through techinical stuff and what you should have in your fanny pack. It was clearly committed to defending our sport against the hysterical rhetoric of the Greens.
People have often asked me what quality CityBike has that a lot of other publications lack, why CityBike survived being repeatedly imitated these last few years. I always answer that question the same way: "We ride a lot. As long as you stay involved, as long as you ride, you will always be in touch with your reader..."
DirtBike magazine under the editorship of Rick "Super Hunky" Seiman had that same quality. "The Hunkster" was out there with you, raging, falling down, breaking things, breaking bones, drinking beer at night and telling tall tales around a campfire.
When I read in Cycle News that he had been ****canned from his job at Dirt Bike for things he'd written about Publisher Roland Hinz, I had to talk to the man myself.
What better idea than to hook up with Rick Seiman on my way back from our Baja ride last May. Rick and his wife, Arlene, live just over the Mexican border near Rosarita Beach. Their lovely home on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean was the setting for this interview.
"Super Hunky," as he is known in dirt bike circles, is a compact figure. Thin-waisted with big biceps and forearms, he greeted me with a firm handshake. Years of competiton weight lifting shows in his build, and I passsed by an array of barbells on my way into his living room. I'd guess he'd be about 5 feet 8 inches tall, with a barrel chest and that famous handlebar moustache. Rick told me that he plans to continue to build off-road trucks and compete in four-wheeled racing in Baja. An incredible rig was in progress in the garage. Fittingly, he planned to suspend the Baja off-road racer with motorcycle shock absorbers front and rear.
Rick Sieman set to enjoy a "meal" of desert tortoise. The tortoise took on enormous symbolic significance when environmental groups managed to stop the Barstow-to-Vegas desert race to "save" the animal from the wanton killings that were supposedly taking place each time the race was run. No deaths by dirt bike were ever documented, but the race remains banned. The desert tortoise, meanwhile, continues to decline in population thanks to raven predation and loss of habitat to development. Photo courtesy of Rick Sieman.
Halton: What made Dirt Bike such a success?
"Don't listen to the gloom and doom eco-Nazis. They're just pissed because they see you having fun, and they're such mean spirited jerks that they want to put a stop to your joy..."
Sieman: To me, for a good book (industry word for magazine) to be a success, it has to be one that sells like wildfire, one that people love dearly. Now, perhaps Dirt Bike's graphics weren't modern. Perhaps the writing style was a little loose. All I know is that we wrote for people who liked what we wrote and like the way we said it. We wrote for riders who ride...
I was Mr. Know It All, Rondo Talbot. I would attend these Dirt Bike editorial meetings every week or two and the topic would be thrown out, "Well, what should we do with the magazine?"
I would pontificate about what I thought we should do and was then politely ignored. It's a most uncomfortable position to truly know what your readers want, proffer that advice and be totally ignored.
You've got to understand that I was out there riding virtually every weekend. Riding dirtbikes, racing dirtbikes.
The funny thing is that all I wanted to do was ride. My tastes are as common as pig's tracks. All I wanted to do when I got home from work was go out and sneak in a couple of hours or riding before darkness. I didn't care where, I didn't care what kind of bike. I wanted to go out and thrash around, break a sweat and have a ball. So I realized that if I like this and everybody around me likes this, then that's what were going to do. We're going to give 'em what they like!
Look at the success of Howard Stern! Why does Howard Stern succeed? He's crude. He's lecherous, sure. But Howard Stern knows what people really have on their minds. He understands the needs of the basic grunt.
I understand the needs of the basic dirtbiker. They want to get the hell away from the monotony of their normal life. They want to blow the cobwebs off. Every jump in their mind is thirty feet longer than it was, five feet higher and they want to have these dreams and thoughts carry them through the next workweek. Understand that basic premise and you will understand how a magazine should be.
I was looking at a recent issue of Motocross Journal, which I refer to as Motocross Urinal. I'm sorry. I really don't care that Jeremy McGrath has a problem with his nipple ring irritating him when he's riding. I don't care what food he eats. I don't care what sounds he plays in his luxurious van as he heads down the highway. I could give a rat's ass. That doesn't mean anything to me as a normal, real-world dirt biker.
I'd rather hear what a 53-year-old fireman does to keep his old XR 500 going and where he goes riding. I'd rather hear his opinions. I'd rather spend five hours with that guy drinking a case of beer than one minute reading about the celebrity off road set .
You know what Hell means to me? For me, Hell is not a burning pit full of molten lava. For me, Hell is being forced to work on the staff of People Magazine, turning out bubble-headed, inane puffery!
Halton: You've been a vocal proponents of our right to ride on public land for quite some time, even going to federal court to defend that right. Did the two-stroke ban surprise you?
Sieman: Not at all. In fact, this is only the first step in tightening the screws toward the complete elimination of not only new two-stroke bikes, but all two-stroke bikes, no matter what the year.
You see, one of the agendas written in the 1972 platform of the Sierra Club is... "the elimination of all forms of motorized recreational vehicle activity of any sort on public lands."
I know for a fact that within three years, the Green Sticker plan will have an inclusionary rider added to take the cutoff year back to all motorcycles made after 1990. The tactics are clear, but our so-called industry leaders apparently can't see writing on the wall. Unless something is done, within a decade only emissions-legal four-strokes will be legal for use on public lands, and you can bet your ass that even these will be limited severely.
Doubt it? Take a look at what the outboard motor industry is facing. The cost of a typical small boat motor will increase $1,000 to $3,000 by next year.Snowmobiles are a target. Weedwhackers, lawn mowers, snowblowers... you name it. They're all firmly fixed in the gun sights and the trigger finger is tightening.
Halton: Is that why you moved to Mexico?
Sieman: It's sad to say this, but I moved to Baja to have some freedom. The United States has turned into a virtual nightmare of overregulation. Freedom as we used to know it has virtually disappeared.
Right now, in the small community where I live, I can open up my garage, fire up my KDX200, and go riding out in the hills, with absolutely no hassle. No helicopters are hovering in the sky to write me a ticket. No eco-police are closing land and putting up fences.
Only one rule exists here: Common sense. Don't bother anyone, and they don't bother you. If I'm riding off road and see some cattle or horses, I ease off the throttle and carefully ride around and don't disturb them.
In Mexico, they have a law that makes sense: all roads, paved or dirt, must be open for public use. If I come to a gated fence, I'm expected to close it after I pass through it. This means that you could hop on your dual-purpose bike, and quite literally explore the entire Baja peninsula with no problems, as long as you use your head.
When being accused of "destroying the environment" by riding my bike off-road, I must respond with a hearty, "Bull****!" Think about this for a moment: In the great southwest, the wind blows hard many times during any given year. And when the wind blows, literally millions of tons of sand and dirt are tossed into the air and moved around in a random pattern. Dunes are destroyed and new dunes are created. Sand washes change shape. The character of the landscape alters dramatically almost overnight.
What person in their right mind would say that my bike passing over that same terrain will effect any measurable change? Don't listen to the gloom and doom eco-Nazis. They're just pissed because they see you having fun, and they're such stiff-backed, tight-assed, black-hearted mean spirited jerks that they want to put a stop to your joy. It might sound simplistic, but it all boils down to that.
Life is short. Enjoy it.
Ride! And ride free.
Index of Super Hunky Articles said:
Link to MonkeyButt said:
Monkey Butt Tales said:Super Hunky
MONKEY BUTT!
Rick Sieman 's 640 page book is now in its third printing, and if you're a real dirt biker, this is for you. Read what it's all about:
WARNING! STRAP YOUR HELMET ON BEFORE YOU READ THIS BOOK! IT'S A WILD RIDE! Outrageous, hard-hitting, hilarious, brutally honest, wildly entertaining and loaded with inside stories about the dirt bike industry, MONKEY BUTT! ch ron icles more than 30 years of this amazing phenomenon. Everything from bench racing and tall tales, to the huge land battles with the Phantom Duck, can be found in these pages.
If you've been a dirt biker at any time in the last quarter-century, you'll find plenty here to make you smile, some stuff to make you mad, and things that will stun you. Want an inside line on who really runs the AMA? It's here. What almost killed the motorcycle industry? The real story is in these pages. Want to get behind the scenes of the tests and stories that you read? MONKEY BUTT! tells the amazing saga of Dirt Bike Magazine, from Day One. “... I'm sure there's a number of things in here that will get both of us in a fair amount of trouble, but this is as close to the truth as you're going to get. - Paul Clipper /Trail Rider “... Finally, a book for those who remember what it used to be like in the Good Olde Days.” - Rondo Talbot/Mr. Know-It-All
“ .... This book is going to rattle a lot of cages, and it's long over-due. “Tom Fiala
“... A ch ron icle of the glory years of dirt riding, MONKEY BUTT! takes you through a time of radical changes, from the early days of crude, ill-handling bikes, to the current generation of high-tech marvels. It's also a behind-the-scenes look at the land use battles, and the motorcycle industry, recounted with humor, honesty, and great insight. You will be educated and entertained, for Rick is a very funny man who tells it like it was.” - Gil Vaillancourt/Works Performance
“ .... You are about to embark on a strange and wonderful journey through the rise and fall of the motorcycle industry, and I can practically guarantee that what you read here will not exactly be what you thought it would be. - Paul Clipper
Rick has a limited number of autographed copies available for $20 plus postage. Go for it!
Back
©Copyright 2008 SuperHunky.com All Rights Reserved
Ten Worst Dirt Bikes of All-time by Rick Sieman said:Ten Worst Dirt Bikes of All Time
by: Rick Sieman
Pick the Top Ten Worst Dirt Bikes of All Time? Wow! Where does one start? Surely not with the current crop of dirt bikes. You would be hard-pressed to find a genuine lemon among the new iron-but how far back do you go?
After all, before the dirt bike boom (circa 1970), there were a lot of clunkers being foisted off on an unsuspecting public. So, after considerable thinking (about ten minutes) I decided to limit the selection to dirt bikes that I actually tested. This meant that our starting year was 1970. And this makes a great deal of sense, in that the dirt bike boom started in the late '60s.
WHAT MAKES A BAD BIKE?
I feel that a truly bad bike should have few-if any-redeeming values. There have been great-handling bikes with fragile engines and transmissions. There have been powerful machines with less than stellar handling-and then machines with a bit of both.
The real losers, though, are those with more faults than virtues. Machines that will spit you off for no apparent reason. Or bikes that are so dull and listless that you'd rather be riding in a Buick station wagon with the windows rolled up. Then you have dirt bikes that have all the reliability of a candle in a windstorm.
FLAWED WINNERS
Throughout the years, I have fallen in love with flawed-but great-machines. Consider the Maicos of the early and mid-'70s. They required a great deal of prep, set- up and TLC, but when they were dialed in nothing else could run with them. Riders put up with a wimpy primary chain drive, reluctant clutches and bogus ignitions.
Think about the CZs of that same period. Heavy. Crude. Poor shocks. But almost unbreakable.
How about the various Spanish bikes? All built from inferior materials, but they were speedy and handled like magic. Those who took the time to learn how to live with them were rewarded with stunning handling and correct powerbands. Novice riders who bought the Bultacos, Ossas and Montesas of that period ended up pulling out their hair by the handful, promptly sold the strange beasts and then bought reliable Japanese mounts.
Then we had the off-brands: Puch, DKW, AJS, KTM, Penton, Sachs, Greeves, American Eagle, Rickman, Rokon, Harley-Davidson, Steens, Bridgestone, Bronco Apache, Chaparral, Carabela, Cooper, Monark, Zundapp, Yankee and a few others that will probably come to mind later on.
ODDITIES THAT BOGGLE THE MIND!
Some truly strange things have appeared on dirt bikes. Consider the following:
* The Bridgestone Hurricane Scramblers of the late '60s and early '70s had a rotary shift pattern that was bizarre beyond belief! You would shift up through all six gears, then when you hit the shifter one more time it would go back to low gear. Imagine the surprise when the rider was in top gear, all tucked in and howling down a fire road, and snicked the lever one more time, only to be greeted with low gear and 11 million instant rpm!
* Rokon came out with the first automatic trans (actually, a torque converter) with the power delivered via a rubber belt. This beast also had to be started like a lawn mower; you had to pull a stupid rope. When it got hard to start, you would be sucking wind in a hurry. When that torque converter belt got wet, it would slip and smoke like a worm on a barbecue.
* Greeves found out that the kickstarter would not clear the footpeg when starting, so you had to fold up the peg by hand and hook it onto a restraining ring. Nice touch.
* Numerous Euro bikes came with paper filters. When the engine backfired, the premix would saturate the paper and it would pass about the same amount of air as a can of peaches. If you rode through water, your ride was over. Gag, puke, cough, wheeze.
* The IRZ carburetor. It came stock on Ossas and was virtually untunable. This wretched carb had two needles and two completely separate fuel circuits. Taking it apart required the patience of Job and the hands of a brain surgeon. Putting it back together was even worse. Jets were expensive and nearly impossible to find. Some fun.
* Hatta forks. They came stock on various Kawasaki "enduro" bikes. The ads billed them as "101 ways adjustable, unfortunately, none of them were correct. Mr Hatta designed landing gear for bombers during World War II and was quoted as saying, "It's easy to make a suspension for a bomber. It only has to stroke once. A motor cycle is confusing. It has to stroke numerous times."
REAL LOSERS!
When all things are considered, a list of duds is crystal clear. The following is a compilation of dirt bikes that meet all the requirements of what is truly bad. It's based on frightening traits, unreliability, poor handling, mechanical woes, dumb engineering, freaky response and un-fun riding feel.
THE LIST!
10. 1974 HUSKY 450 DESERT MASTER. The head engineer, Reuben Helmen, designed this lost cause at the urging of his cousin- who he promptly disowned. This bike was 35 pounds heavier than previous Huskies, worlds slower, had an awkwardly spaced gearbox and a stupid power curve. It also had ancient Girling shocks that lived to puke seals and forks that had more metal shavings than fork oil in each leg. The exhaust burned your leg, brakes were gruesome and shifting was ugly. It also seeped mung and drool out of every gasket surface. Handling was best described as spooky. The engine pinged like it was running on kerosene and items fell off the bike like they were held on with Scotch tape.
9. 1981 HONDA CR450. Actually, it was a 430. A 430 with a hopelessly spaced four- speed gearbox and a powerband like the tip on an X-Acto blade. It shook the steering head like someone removed the bearings, and tracked like a buffalo on steroids. The front number plate looked like a hangnail, and the suspension was a mass of confused Showa leftovers that didn't like each other. -This bike would get into a high-speed wobble at 38 mph, stalled easily and the odd spacing in the gear box always kept you over-revving the engine or bogging below the power curve.
Oh sure, it had a lot of power, but the power delivery was freaky. It would either hit hard, or hesitate, but you were never sure which would happen. Geared for off-road use, low gear would take you out to 45 mph, while fourth gear might squeak up to 80. Topping off its list of bad habits was that it was hard to start when cold, harder to start if you dropped it and when it got hot, and it tended to foul plugs and ping.
8._ROKON 340. Brought out in the mid'70s, the Rokon was supposed to be the answer for those of us who hated to shift. All versions of the Rokon were very heavy, and loved to plow straight-on ahead, even if you sort of wanted to turn at the time.
To start the big Sachs engine you had to tug at a rope-starter, which took a strong arm and an even stronger patience level. It came poorly jetted, and when it loaded up you would rip half the calluses off your hand before getting things spinning.
We talked about the belt drive earlier, and the less said about this the better. The thing was fast and had disc brakes to slow it down. Sadly, they worked intermittently, and the master cylinder often boiled over, leaving you with a lever that came back to the grip and a corner that rushed up to meet you. Gearing down was impossible with the torque converter, which meant you free- wheeled into turns and down hills. Spooky.
7._YAMAHA SC-500 SCRAMBLER. Another four-speed brute, this 1973-'74 two-stroke single ran hot, detonated fiercely, stalled constantly and seized regularly. After testing the bike, I noted: "It's gray and black; so is a turkey." Brutally fast, the SC-500 was cursed with state-of-the-dark forks and a pair of chromed shocks that would have faded on a busy barroom door. It shook its steering head like a dog coming out of a swimming pool and the rear end hopped around like the frame had a hinge in the middle. All things considered, the only thing this bike did right was not leak around the gas cap.
6. HARLEY-DAVIDSON BAJA 100. H-D brought this little stinker out to capture the small-bore trail bike market that was dominated by Hodaka at the time-the early '70s. They contracted with the Italian Aermacchi factory, which responded with a hopelessly tall, short-wheelbased, underpowered, ill-handling package that nearly defied belief.
Still, H-D put together a desert racing team that started to dominate the trail bike class, so people went out and bought the Bajas in droves, only to find out they weren't buying what was being raced.
The race bikes had everything changed! The stock bikes came with rigid footpegs, no horsepower to speak of, a huge overlay sprocket on the rear wheel that constantly came loose, a tank shaped like a mailbox, a saddle that felt like plywood and a strange metal hook strategically placed to rip your crotch off if you crashed. It also had stupid bars, dumb fat grips from a street bike and a suspension that had more side-to-side travel than up-and-down stroke. I called it "a re-hashed Italian street bike with no redeeming traits." Yes, we promptly lost the H-D ads at the magazine.
5. CZ 250 ENDURO. It was hard to believe that CZ would foist a pile like this mid-'70s bummer off on the public, but they did. Seeing a chance to get a piece of the enduro market, they simply took a late '60s frame, a dated engine, electrics that would have trouble lighting-off an .049" model airplane engine and suspension components that did little more than hold up the bike.
It had rigid footpegs, a huge, bulbous tank, an exhaust that burned the leg, a speedo that didn't work and various bits and pieces that were attached with pure afterthought technology. The first time I fired up our test bike, the horn fell off on the ground. After I rode the bike 100 yards, the battery fell out and the wiring loom melted. In the next 20 minutes, the plug cap came off, the air filter fell off, the muffler cracked and wedged into the rear wheel, the gas cap leaked, both fuel lines cracked, a tire went flat and the throttle stuck wide open.
The feeble engine was also horribly over-geared, the kickstarter would stick on the frame, fork seals weeped like a garden hose and the motor mounts fell out. This mount signaled the beginning of the end for CZ sales in the United States, and rightfully so.
4. YAMAHA YZ490 (MOST YEARS). Yamaha introduced the YZ 490 in 1982, after a solid run with the YZ465. Sadly, the 490 was heavier than the 465, nowhere near as reliable, horribly difficult to start (hot or cold), came with a grim suspension, vibrated enough to bring blisters to your hands and was impossible to jet.
If you jetted it rich enough to keep this dog from seizing, it would blubber, puke, foul plugs and produce no power. If you jetted it to run strong, it would invariably seize. It came with air leaks, a wandering ignition, gimpy motor mounts and the worst case of Yamahop at high speeds since the original DT-1. Yamaha issued a mountain of service bulletins to try to fix the problems. None of them worked.
3. PENTON 125 MUD LARK. In 1973, John Penton was selling some great race and enduro bikes that were being produced by KTM in Austria. However, he was forced to buy a whole load of the Sachs 125B engines in order to get a supply of the "good" engines. So, to get rid of the B engines, John contracted with Wassel, an English fabricator, and they threw together a frame, a set of wretched Betor forks, ginky shocks and a layout that made you feel like you were sitting on the edge of a pinball machine.
John called it the Penton Trials, but not even Batman could have ridden it in a trials event. There was no power at all, the gearbox was spaced oddly and it wouldn't turn without plowing the front end. So, in desperation, John renamed it the Mud Lark, a sort of all-purpose play machine. In fact, it was a no-purchase dirt bike, and will go down in history as one of the few bad business decisions ever made by savvy John Penton.
2. ANY THREE-WHEELER. Yup, the All- Terrain Cycle, or ATC, was introduced by Honda to let people who didn't have the skills to balance a regular two-wheeled bike ride in the dirt. Cute little buggers, the ATCs sold like crazy. Then savvy people started noticing that they handled like a shopping cart loaded with bowling balls with one locked front wheel going down a flight of stairs.
People started doing wonderful things like riding over their own legs and biffing over
the bars when the things got into a high- speed wobble-you know, anything over 20 mph. Suspension on these early three-wheelers? Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zero. Just three balloon tires were there to take the impacts.
As the years passed, the ATVs got more and more powerful and they gave them forks and shocks. This let the unstable triangle wallow around, as well as defy the laws of physics when trying to turn. The rest is history. Three-wheelers are no longer being made. However, be warned! They're still out there, wiggling and lurching around the trails and sandpits of America.
1. And the winner (or loser, actually) is:
THE 1971 SUZUKI TM-400R CYCLONE! It weighed 242 pounds, dry, and delivered about 40 hp at 6850 rpm. Sometimes it delivered it at 4400 rpm. At other times, it would deliver it just when you least expected it. You see, the Cyclone had a weird ignition that would go from a starting mode to full advance whenever it felt like it. Even a change in temperature would change the power hit.
Picture this: you're exiting a hard- packed turn in second gear and you roll the throttle on. All of a sudden, the engine lurches into the fat part of the power curve and the rear end leaps out about three feet. The chassis shudders and sends you sailing into the clear blue sky in a nice arc. Moments later, you thump into the ground, painfully, and then a microsecond after that, the Cyclone lands on top of you.
Adding to the bizarre powerband was a set of forks that went rigid on square bumps and rear shocks that faded from anything hotter than headlight glare. Many companies produced endless handling and frame modification kits. None of these things seemed to help much, but the bike cost only $995 brand new and people kept buying them, trying to make them work. They all failed, to one degree or another, to tame the Cyclone.
The legacy of the TM-400 can be summed up in an ad that appeared in a newspaper:
"For sale-1972 Suzuki TM-400. Only ten hours on bike. Possible injury forces sale. $500 or best offer."
I think you should. It's better than the lunch you had with Pancho Villa.VintageDirt said:. . . Maybe I might post my sappy letter that I wrote years ago, tells how I feel about Rick.
VintageDirt said:Maybe later, in the mean time...here's the real deal from SH archives
http://wesbaca.com/HarleyDBarticle.html
fatcat216 said:Could one of you fine gents please offer up a taste of Superhunky history/biography to the kids and newcomers? The little blurb on the site doesn't spell it out.
It's a pretty good bit of dirt lore. You guys lived this stuff. Come on you silver tongued dirt fools. Tell the kids about "the day". Somebody cover his life, somebody else "the Book" and someone else the magazine.
edit: Since you old coots don't want to educate the youngsters I'll attempt to edit in some info for the kids.
:
Gravity Worx said:"Quack Quack and don't look back" .
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