burden2
24th November 2008, 21:58
This yarn is about the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life so
far and I’m over sixty. Get ready to laugh, nay to howl, giggle and
guffaw at the antics of two teen-aged bikers at the height of their
riding passions.
In every group of riders there is a collection of colorful
nicknames. This isn’t unique to motorcyclists but some of the
specific names are. There are certain nicknames that are found in
every group of riders; they are universal. Two of these, perhaps the
most universal, are Tiny and Buzz. You think about any group of
riders you have been associated with and you will remember there was a
Tiny and a Buzz. A Tiny, inescapably, is a great large fellow.
Picture Little John in the legend of Robin Hood. A Buzz is likely an
insouciant personality always ready for a good time and particularly
appreciative of a prank. This story is about a Tiny.
In our mid-teens Tiny and I liked to think we worked in a real
motorcycle shop but it wasn’t quite the case. It was a shop and we
were its precocious mechanics at the ages of 16 and 17 but the main
lines sold were a garden tiller and the Lambretta motor scooter.
There was a small trade in various kinds of floor scrubbing and
servicing machines, the kind other boys our age zoomed up and down the
aisles of grocery stores after hours drifting the turns and trying to
drive like Parnelli Jones or one of the other speed gods of the day.
I don’t have to tell you we had our rides and tooled in to the shop
every day on them. It was summer work which fitted our school year
and the year of demand for repairs on garden tillers and motor
scooters. I suppose we were really seasonal laborers.
My ride was an AJS twin, model 20B, built in 1954 with 550 cc’s of
engine. Tiny had countless different rides in his time but this
particular summer a Maico 250, two stroke (older guys like me call it
a “ring-ding”). It was doubling as transportation and track bike as
most of our bikes did in those days. I must introduce you to this old
Maico. It was light, quick and as temperamental as Queen Cleopatra
herself at the worst time of the month. But when everything was
working right it was most impressive. It would get off the line with
Tiny aboard leaving just about everything else behind which is a gas-
tank full of praise because the 250 class was very competitive then as
it is now. Unfortunately the times when everything was working just
right were rather rare for the Maico. It was generally just a cranky
b*****d.
So it was one fine summer day that the two of us finished up at the
shop and were about to hit the cobblestones for some riding. The
bikes were in front of the shop parked along the sidewalk and we both
piled aboard. The docile and dependable AJS fired on the first kick
as was its custom. Then the kicking and kicking of the Maico
started. We had hopes for a better result on this particular day
because Tiny, who was a formidable tuner of two stroke engines, had
just overhauled the ignition: new points, plug, condenser (very
important) and careful adjustments of timing, gaps and stuff like
that. Still the Maico grudged no more than the occasional bang and
pop. Firing up a two stroke was a grand ritual back then. Tiny
flooded the carb, then emptied the carb by laying the bike on its
side, opened the throttle and cycled the engine to clear the gas out
of the top end, then flooded it again all in an effort to get just the
right fuel and air combination in the combustion chamber and hear the
sweet music of ring-ding, but the little motorcycle just obdurated
which means it was acting very stubbornly. Tiny worked and worked on
this project and as he did he heated up, sweated and started to take
on the look of a frustrated and very dangerous animal trying to get a
foot disentangled from a snare. The tension mounted and built but
then all at once was relieved when the bike suddenly and noisily came
to life. The sound was that of a long riiiiiing, trending upward in
pitch until you turn the throttle off, then many short ding, ding,
ding, ding, dings, with the pitch lowering as then engine slowed back
toward idle. A few long, sustained bursts of this staccato and the
engine had purged itself of wet gasoline and was just about putting
out all the horsepower that had been optimistically designed into it.
Tiny clunked his eager mount into gear and aimed it for the open
road. But before I tell you what happened next there is something
else I must explain about single cylinder two stroke engines.
Two strokes have no valves or camshaft, breathing in and out through
ports in the cylinder wall. If you have ever wondered what makes a
two stroke run in one direction in preference to the other I can
answer that question for you: not much. A minor change in the
ignition timing will convert it from running clockwise to running
counterclockwise and it will be just as content and cantankerous and
produce the same power curve in either direction. Now back to the
story.
Face red and breathing hard, Tiny braced himself for the rush of
acceleration, wound the little scrambler up to somewhere near peak
torque and dropped the hammer. The bike immediately shot backwards
sliding the bulky rider up the length of the gas tank with the
handlebar catching him at the hip joints, arms and legs flailing in
the air as it careened backwards down the sidewalk. Eyes bulging and
mouth gaping, Tiny had the expression of what could only be the most
outrageous astonishment, such a thing as I had never seen before nor
have I since. To the interested observer it was only hysterically and
overwhelmingly hilarious. Well maybe you’da hadda been there. What
happened next was almost as good. Due to steering geometry
motorcycles are not very content going backwards in a straight line
and soon the front wheel had gone to lock on ne side or the other and
bike and rider were dumped in a heap against the brick wall of the
building. Like the dun in Kipling’s Ballad of East and West, “in a
woeful heap fell he.” Not me, though. I was doubled up in paroxysms
of laughter which did not remit for some time and left me with stiff
abdominal muscles the next day. I laughed till I cried, then laughed
till I hurt. Then I laughed some more, actually a lot more. Then I
got out of reach because for some strange reason Tiny wasn’t sharing
in the joyful glee of the moment. It’s very hard to run for your life
while howling with uncontrollable mirth. Ask me. I’ve done it.
For months after that event and right on through the next school year
I would suddenly remember the shocking suddenness with which the bike
had lunged backwards and the look of total disbelief on Tiny’s face
and I would burst into howling fits of laughter again. I can fairly
say that Tiny got over it sooner than I did but 45 years later I am
now only occasionally troubled by these fits. Of course writing this
little note on the subject has brought it on again and I have been
giggling like an idiot since I started.
far and I’m over sixty. Get ready to laugh, nay to howl, giggle and
guffaw at the antics of two teen-aged bikers at the height of their
riding passions.
In every group of riders there is a collection of colorful
nicknames. This isn’t unique to motorcyclists but some of the
specific names are. There are certain nicknames that are found in
every group of riders; they are universal. Two of these, perhaps the
most universal, are Tiny and Buzz. You think about any group of
riders you have been associated with and you will remember there was a
Tiny and a Buzz. A Tiny, inescapably, is a great large fellow.
Picture Little John in the legend of Robin Hood. A Buzz is likely an
insouciant personality always ready for a good time and particularly
appreciative of a prank. This story is about a Tiny.
In our mid-teens Tiny and I liked to think we worked in a real
motorcycle shop but it wasn’t quite the case. It was a shop and we
were its precocious mechanics at the ages of 16 and 17 but the main
lines sold were a garden tiller and the Lambretta motor scooter.
There was a small trade in various kinds of floor scrubbing and
servicing machines, the kind other boys our age zoomed up and down the
aisles of grocery stores after hours drifting the turns and trying to
drive like Parnelli Jones or one of the other speed gods of the day.
I don’t have to tell you we had our rides and tooled in to the shop
every day on them. It was summer work which fitted our school year
and the year of demand for repairs on garden tillers and motor
scooters. I suppose we were really seasonal laborers.
My ride was an AJS twin, model 20B, built in 1954 with 550 cc’s of
engine. Tiny had countless different rides in his time but this
particular summer a Maico 250, two stroke (older guys like me call it
a “ring-ding”). It was doubling as transportation and track bike as
most of our bikes did in those days. I must introduce you to this old
Maico. It was light, quick and as temperamental as Queen Cleopatra
herself at the worst time of the month. But when everything was
working right it was most impressive. It would get off the line with
Tiny aboard leaving just about everything else behind which is a gas-
tank full of praise because the 250 class was very competitive then as
it is now. Unfortunately the times when everything was working just
right were rather rare for the Maico. It was generally just a cranky
b*****d.
So it was one fine summer day that the two of us finished up at the
shop and were about to hit the cobblestones for some riding. The
bikes were in front of the shop parked along the sidewalk and we both
piled aboard. The docile and dependable AJS fired on the first kick
as was its custom. Then the kicking and kicking of the Maico
started. We had hopes for a better result on this particular day
because Tiny, who was a formidable tuner of two stroke engines, had
just overhauled the ignition: new points, plug, condenser (very
important) and careful adjustments of timing, gaps and stuff like
that. Still the Maico grudged no more than the occasional bang and
pop. Firing up a two stroke was a grand ritual back then. Tiny
flooded the carb, then emptied the carb by laying the bike on its
side, opened the throttle and cycled the engine to clear the gas out
of the top end, then flooded it again all in an effort to get just the
right fuel and air combination in the combustion chamber and hear the
sweet music of ring-ding, but the little motorcycle just obdurated
which means it was acting very stubbornly. Tiny worked and worked on
this project and as he did he heated up, sweated and started to take
on the look of a frustrated and very dangerous animal trying to get a
foot disentangled from a snare. The tension mounted and built but
then all at once was relieved when the bike suddenly and noisily came
to life. The sound was that of a long riiiiiing, trending upward in
pitch until you turn the throttle off, then many short ding, ding,
ding, ding, dings, with the pitch lowering as then engine slowed back
toward idle. A few long, sustained bursts of this staccato and the
engine had purged itself of wet gasoline and was just about putting
out all the horsepower that had been optimistically designed into it.
Tiny clunked his eager mount into gear and aimed it for the open
road. But before I tell you what happened next there is something
else I must explain about single cylinder two stroke engines.
Two strokes have no valves or camshaft, breathing in and out through
ports in the cylinder wall. If you have ever wondered what makes a
two stroke run in one direction in preference to the other I can
answer that question for you: not much. A minor change in the
ignition timing will convert it from running clockwise to running
counterclockwise and it will be just as content and cantankerous and
produce the same power curve in either direction. Now back to the
story.
Face red and breathing hard, Tiny braced himself for the rush of
acceleration, wound the little scrambler up to somewhere near peak
torque and dropped the hammer. The bike immediately shot backwards
sliding the bulky rider up the length of the gas tank with the
handlebar catching him at the hip joints, arms and legs flailing in
the air as it careened backwards down the sidewalk. Eyes bulging and
mouth gaping, Tiny had the expression of what could only be the most
outrageous astonishment, such a thing as I had never seen before nor
have I since. To the interested observer it was only hysterically and
overwhelmingly hilarious. Well maybe you’da hadda been there. What
happened next was almost as good. Due to steering geometry
motorcycles are not very content going backwards in a straight line
and soon the front wheel had gone to lock on ne side or the other and
bike and rider were dumped in a heap against the brick wall of the
building. Like the dun in Kipling’s Ballad of East and West, “in a
woeful heap fell he.” Not me, though. I was doubled up in paroxysms
of laughter which did not remit for some time and left me with stiff
abdominal muscles the next day. I laughed till I cried, then laughed
till I hurt. Then I laughed some more, actually a lot more. Then I
got out of reach because for some strange reason Tiny wasn’t sharing
in the joyful glee of the moment. It’s very hard to run for your life
while howling with uncontrollable mirth. Ask me. I’ve done it.
For months after that event and right on through the next school year
I would suddenly remember the shocking suddenness with which the bike
had lunged backwards and the look of total disbelief on Tiny’s face
and I would burst into howling fits of laughter again. I can fairly
say that Tiny got over it sooner than I did but 45 years later I am
now only occasionally troubled by these fits. Of course writing this
little note on the subject has brought it on again and I have been
giggling like an idiot since I started.