W/NW : Motorcycles

Some custom work on the streets of NYC:

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Robert Pirsig rode a 1964 Honda Super Hawk during his adventure written about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I rode one, too, but found the seat so hugely uncomfortable that I switched to a BMW R69S.
 
Pico said:
Robert Pirsig rode a 1964 Honda Super Hawk during his adventure written about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I rode one, too, but found the seat so hugely uncomfortable that I switched to a BMW R69S.
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Guess we're all different -- I've had no problem with the level of comfort on my SuperHawk, and have done five 1000+ mile rides with it, and have put almost 20,000 miles on it in the last 6 years. Admittedly, the gas tank's capacity forces you to take a break after about 110 miles!

Interesting that the other couple in Pirsig's book (the Sutherlands) rode an R60.....

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MZ's top designer, I thought, was Walter Kaaden. If he ever defected to Yamaha, this is news to me. Somewhere in the archives I have a magazine issue featuring an interview with him not long before his death, and he was still residing in East Germany. One of their best riders, Ernst Degner, did indeed defect to the west in the 1960's, not the 1970's, and was alleged to have taken a machine with him for the benefit of Suzuki. Degner was like a son to Kaaden and I'm not sure he ever got over this betrayal as he perceived it. It all ended unhappily for Degner also and he eventually committed suicide.
Cheers
Brett
 
Iron Horse Motors (BMW) in Tucson handled MuZ bikes in the '90s and I got to ride the very fast 500cc Rotax single they had at the time. Wow!.

Ted
 
I used to ride a 250 ETZ in the early 70's. I'll try and trace a picture of it. Nicknamed "the Camel" on accounts of it's big 21 litres tank. Decent comfortable cheap ride, but you had to mix oil and petrol/gas in the tank. A messy job and it didn't make for an optimum mixture control. I had an engine seize once. Their could wreck the big end if you were not careful with the amount of oil.
But like Fed's and Kievs, thoses Iron Curtain bikes had their appeal. Even had a czeck CZ prior to the MZ. Vibrated like hell and oozed oil, but very good for DIY. Plus it spewed so much blue smoke, it kept the fancy Jap bikes behind....Well almost !
 
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Inspired by the MZ (their 125s were popular here in Norway during the late 60s an early 70s, being cheaper than the competition): Here´s a moped built here, I guess 1958 or 59, a Tempo. They had German 50cc Sachs engines. The factory also made motorbikes, mostly 125cc, also with Sachs engines.

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More Iron Curtain wheels : Simson Schwalbe from DDR. Still quite a few around.
MZ style 2 stroke moped.
 
Here's a relatively rare (in the USA) Japanese motorcycle - a 2009 Suzuki TU250X 250cc single cylinder. Amazingly, it has fuel injection. Perhaps because of that it gets 75-80 mpg. I was taken by the retro look when I saw it a dealer's store last summer and bought it.
 

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tedwhite said:
Here's a relatively rare (in the USA) Japanese motorcycle - a 2009 Suzuki TU250X 250cc single cylinder. Amazingly, it has fuel injection. Perhaps because of that it gets 75-80 mpg. I was taken by the retro look when I saw it a dealer's store last summer and bought it.
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What a lovely bike! This is the one I am lusting after, alas Suzuki does not bring it into Thailand

Enjoy yours!
 
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