Why were the 70s and 80s so good?

[moko]

The Honda stepthrough. Electric starters. And a booming economy.

The Honda made motorcyling respectable. The electric start made it easy.

In the 50s and 60s bikes with any performance were a man's man thing. Kickstart only , you needed to be hard. And the image was bad, big hairy bikies raping your daughter. Along came the step through, and the daughter was a biker. Woo-hoo. And the big bikes had leccy legs. Now wimps could ride (still are ).

And the economy was booming . Everyone had a job. Pay was good. Bikes were cheap Petrol was dear, cars were too. No-one was on a benefit.

Add it all up, and everyone flocked to their neighbourhood bike shop. Every local shopping centre had a bike shop, they were as common (almost) as fish n chip shops. Intersections in down town Auckland were pemanently smoky - two stroke smoke from the 20 or 30 bikes waiting to drag off from the front of the queues at the lights.

And then it all collapsed. Mrs Grundy legislation. Scared mums. Cheap Jap import cars. A recession. The growth of a massive benefit dependant subclass. By the mid 90s I thought I was the last survivor of a lost species. I really thought that bikes would die out completely. They very nearly did.

Too many crashes. Those chickies on the Honda stepthroughs didn't know how to ride. Wimpy bikers - the wusses who needed electric starts weren't going to stand up and resist the Gubbernmint. Cheap cars. With back seats .

Take heed. Don't let the 90s be repeated!

Pretty much the same story here mate,in the mid-70s there were something like 2 million bikes registered in Britain and it was very rare for a young guy to go straight to a car.Honda did a great pr job here as well,"You meet the nicest people on a Honda" and they outsold everything in Britain.Cars were relatively a lot more expensive than bikes and you didn`t need to pass any kind of test to ride anything up to 250.Mainly because of this the accident rate was horrendous and the Japs shot themselves in the foot by ignoring Government requests to cool it and just bought out more and more powerful 250s.The result was a learner 125cc/15 bhp limit brought in within a few days that left a lot of people with 250`s they couldn`t ride.Great days for me,you could pick up almost new 250s for peanuts for years afterwards.A lot of people lost money,got stuck with bikes no-one wanted and they couldn`t ride,no riding schools back then so they`d have had to buy or borrow a 125 to pass the bike test to able to ride their 250,most didn`t bother and there was a lot of bad feeling,a lot of people put off bikes forever.At the time biking was very much under threat and the casualty rate so high that there was serious talk of banning bikes completey or them having all kinds of protection lumped on.O.K. it was heavy handed but the manufacturers basically gave the Govt the finger every time they tried to get them to at least stop the learner-bike power race and a lot of voter`s 17 year-old sons were getting killed or crippled.Bike sales dwindled and it became quite unusual to see another bike,loads of the dealers went to the wall and there was even talk of a couple of the Jap manufacturers winding up in Britain.That was the time when there was a lot of cameraderie,bikers were a dying breed.
Mid 90`s and things started to pick up,oddly it seemed to stem from the commuter market,guys were going up from 250s to things like the 600 Diversion as they decided to get back into using a bike for more than just riding to work,the 600 Bandit came along and suddenly there was something fairly cheap that was a lot of fun as well and things took off.The slightly worrying thing here for a few years has been that despite the current boom a massive chunk of the market is the same old guys coming back to bikes rather than new blood,average age of bikers here is 40.However now things have swung around,again it`s a lot cheaper for a young guy to buy and run a bike than a car and the learner market is really taking off,the Honda 125 Sports(it`s as fast as the average lawn-mower!!) and trailbikes are selling in numbers not seen for several years.more and people ride all year round here now as well despite our notoriously cranky weather,better gear,better tyres and brakes and better everything now mean that wet weather isn`t a big deal and heated grips here are fast becoming very common.Funny thing is that the big safety concern isnt the youngsters it`s midde-aged guys on sports-bikes chucking them into hedges,same generation that used to do it on 250s back in the 70s

[Coyote]

I ask you,how many people borne in the 90's will still be able to fix a car/bike compared to the "ancient people"...

I was born in November 1989

And I fix my bike cause I can't afford to have the shop do it

I got into bikes because my Dad was a trail biker at my age. Some high maintenence broad stopped him from riding in the 80s, and he got back into them during his midlife crisis. Luckily my brother and I were helped to get into bikes too

[Coyote]

Cheap cars. With back seats .

Cars may have back seats but bikes are kinkier

[TonyB]

I don't know why regos shot up in about 1970, but the boom times ended because imports of cheap Japanese used cars made car prices cheap enough so normal people could afford one instead of a motorcycle.

Thats it in a nut shell. I saw an aerial photo of the Chch Polytech Sulivan Ave campus taken in about 1980- the motorbike park was HUGE, and it was full. When I was there in the mid 90's it was rare for there to be more than 2 or 3 bikes and the park would have only had room for 10 bikes

[Motu]

As previously mentioned Symonds St in Auckland outside the University was just a sold row of bikes,and they lined every side street too - our Prime Minister's C90 amoungst them.I went to ATI in the early '70's for night school and day courses...we had a bike park on Institute grounds at the top of Wellersly St.If you were early you could park under the prefab buildings for cover,otherwise they parked in the open 3 deep.You had to thread your bike out past all the others...but everyone could handle a bike so there were no problems with knocked over or damaged bikes like seems to happen these days.

[Swoop]

...the motorbike park was HUGE, and it was full. When I was there in the mid 90's it was rare for there to be more than 2 or 3 bikes and the park would have only had room for 10 bikes

Yes. Our roading planners cannot see this simple fact of why we have so many cages on the roads... and on nice sunny days as well!

[Pixie]

I don't know why regos shot up in about 1970, but the boom times ended because imports of cheap Japanese used cars made car prices cheap enough so normal people could afford one instead of a motorcycle.

That was about when jap bikes came to the fore.(that is,when the bullshit spouted about them by british bike owners was proven to be bullshit)

A bike was now a viable form of transport and not an unreliable hole to throw money into,with a puddle of oil at the bottom.

[Bonez]

That was about when jap bikes came to the fore.(that is,when the bullshit spouted about them by british bike owners was proven to be bullshit)

A bike was now a viable form of transport and not an unreliable hole to throw money into,with a puddle of oil at the bottom.

The old man was converted once he bought his Yammy 750 triple, weak coils aside. Not a Brit in sight after that Now has the audacity to ride another Axis powers' m/c.

[Pixie]

Fords? The streets were full of 'em - Falcons, Zephyrs, Fairlanes etc - good family cars and held their value too.

Anglias etc for those too poor to buy a big car (Chrysler and Holden didn't cater for THAT segment of the market).

What were hillmans and vauxhalls then?

[scumdog]

What were hillmans and vauxhalls then?

At that stage Hillmans were yet to be second cousins twice removed from Chryslers and a Holden was a Holden - except for the Claytons Holden, the Vauxhall Viva aka Holden Torana.

[Bonez]

What were hillmans and vauxhalls then?

Lets not forget all those humble Morris models that were floating about at the time either.

[Pixie]

The old man was converted once he bought his Yammy 750 triple, weak coils aside. Not a Brit in sight after that Now has the audacity to ride another Axis powers' m/c.

I got one of those.My 3rd bike,bought from Whites in Newmarket for $4200 new.

[Pixie]

At that stage Hillmans were yet to be second cousins twice removed from Chryslers and a Holden was a Holden - except for the Claytons Holden, the Vauxhall Viva aka Holden Torana.

The Avenger AKA the Plymouth Cricket in the US was as much a Chrysler as the Capri AKA Mercury Capri in the US was a Ford

[scumdog]

The Avenger AKA the Plymouth Cricket in the US was as much a Chrysler as the Anglia was a Ford

Hmmm, a Cricket was just a rebadged Hillman Avenger, a second cousin twice removed so to speak.
An Anglia was always Ford - right from the 1940s at least

And Anglias had turned into Escorts by the time Avengers made the scene.

[Bonez]

I got one of those.My 3rd bike,bought from Whites in Newmarket for $4200 new.

You my find this interesting then-
http://www.yamaha-triples.org/librar...le/76cycle.asp