Motorcycles have never been as good as they are today. And where in 1969 the 67 hp of Honda's CB 750 Four were really too much for the secondary chains and rear tires of the time, now you can just buy a 100% reliable engine with two hundred hp on board. That 200 hp requires a dozen electronic slaves to prevent the engine from jumping forwards or backwards when braking or accelerating, which limits the torque in the first two gears and the top speed in the last two gears. is that the rear wheel does not bounce when downshifting? Those kind of things?
To me it seems a bit like eating two strips of Viagra and then looking in the Wehkamp – or let's call it 'FonQ' – catalog for new coasters for the dining table.
Another somewhat confusing piece of information I recently received from a friend whose house had been burglarized. Her house, car and motorcycle keys were taken. New door locks were quickly arranged. Her car was a lease car, which was simply exchanged.
But a pair of new keys and an ignition lock for her motorcycle cost around €1.400. Because a modern key has been trained and must be read into the on-board software of a modern motorcycle. And that costs… apparently something like € 1.400…
Then you come to the story that not everything was better in the past, but it was clearer and more affordable. When the ignition lock of my 1971 Moto Guzzi recently gave up the ghost, I was able to connect the wires using only the on-board tools. En route I visited TLM in Nijmegen. There they advised me to buy an imitation Guzzislot. Imitation locks were better. The lock and keys cost €35 and I bolted my new addition to the showroom to my good twin. Finished!
Riding a classic motorcycle can therefore be defended as 'economically responsible'. You can always get away with that battle cry in the Netherlands. But there are more ways to explain why you drive classically. People who, for social reasons, do not want to admit that classic driving is simply more fun and much more intense than driving a brand new car can always go crazy about the sustainability factor of classic driving. Because what has already been made does not require any irreplaceable raw materials. Imagine the plastic consumption of all those modern motorcycles alone.
Soon all Chinese plastic mines will be empty! So what? Moreover, classic motorcycles in the Netherlands are inexplicably so cheap that 80% of the motorcycles offered go abroad. So if you buy a good classic here, you will be doubly well off, because you hardly have to depreciate it. But above all, on a classic motorcycle you experience everything that marketers and engineers, the only two groups in the motorcycle world that have rejuvenated, have taken away from us.
On a classic motorcycle you are a motorcyclist. No passenger with limited input. On a classic motorcyclist you experience what modern motorcyclists miss, or even can no longer handle. A modern motorcycling acquaintance and I once switched motorcycles during a trip through the Ardennes. On his motorcycle I felt like a significantly better pilot, a mechanical surgeon.
Something like that today too; During the home situation after a KTR event, the rear chain of my old side-valve vehicle broke just outside a village.
Young guy on a HoSuYammasaki stops (at least) and sneers: “You keep tinkering with an old guy like that, don't you?!”
I said: “The chain broke, the fish got loose. That's what you get with old-fashioned chains.”
Fortunately, my partner, also on an old side-valve truck, had some chain links with him.
So after about 10 minutes of tinkering, we were able to continue with the only injury being greasy claws.
Less than 10 km further on we see our young guest with his moped on the side of the road... deflated.
I stop and ask: "Don't you have a computer on board that beeps loudly to warn you of such disaster, or did you not have enough money for this option?"
You understand; we didn't become friends that day...
: )