Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

It was all I could really do, because I could certainly no longer ride a motorcycle properly. All my bastard shit hurt. My helmet ground into my thudding skull and the rest of my body throbbed with a strained ache I'd only ever experienced the morning after a big fight with angry bouncers. As I sourly burped my way past the Mount Stromlo turn-off and the bitumen got twistier, my riding skills deserted me altogether. I must have been about a kilometre behind as I saw the rest of the crew turn off onto the dirt and head up into the Brindabella Ranges.
The DR, its knobby tyres and I just could not get it together.
'Shit,' I chanted over and over as I lurched and yawed up the winding track that had the traction of greasy kitchen lino. The dirt was hard-packed, but heavily peppered with shiny buried rocks that caused the bike to skitter alarmingly from side to side. I couldn't stand up on the pegs because I was too busy hanging on for grim death and it was getting colder the higher I climbed. Yesterday afternoon, I had been planning on entering the Dakar. Today I was planning on throwing up in my helmet.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p205

[Biggles]

'You good?' he asked, helping me wrench my bike upright.
I nodded. I was okay physically - again a breathing, sweaty testament to the sanctity and glory of body armour.
‘I”ll ride it up to the level bit for you,’ Miles offered kindly.
‘I’ll have your flamin’ babies for you if you do,’ I muttered, but I don't think he heard me. I then watched agog at the ease with which he did just that, with Ian right behind him. I took a deep breath and commenced to clump up the cliff face after them. In ten metres perspiration was cascading off me and I was puffing like a blown horse. In twenty metres black spots were exploding in my vision and there was not enough air on earth to satisfy my needs. I stopped, hands on knees and retched emptily into my helmet. It smelled like old lollies. Miles, Ian and Mick watched my glacial progress from above.
'When were you giving up the smokes, Borne?' I heard Miles ask from on high.
Since my remaining time on earth was measured in minutes, I didn't waste it replying. I resumed clumping up the hill, got on my bike and went at it again.
 But the scenario I just described was to repeat itself several more times. Sometimes Ian helped me, sometimes Miles helped me. Once, Mick almost ran over me, which would probably have helped by putting an end to my misery.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p222-3

[Biggles]

I have always known there are demons in the night. Fanged, red- skinned horrors, playing at the edges of your vision and capering through your mind as you ride.
Hemingway, in ‘A Farewell to Arms’, understood the night to be a time and place of great 'otherness' and wrote: I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist...'
A mate sent me the above wisdom just before I set off at 11 pm one muggy Friday night on a run unlike any I'd ever done - and the words rang with a fierce truth. I am no stranger to night riding. I actually quite like it. I am also no stranger to banging out big miles, and I don't mind that, either. But doing 1000 kilometres in a twelve-hour period and riding 250 kilometres past my destination and then 250 kilometres back was something I'd never done before.
How this came to pass is not as important as the ride itself, though you probably need to know why I wedged myself upon a tiny, screaming 600cc Yamaha R6 and howled northward from Sydney through the murk. A man called Dave had invited me along on what he called a ‘FarRide'. A FarRide is a type of ride undertaken by a group of blokes known as FarRiders. They are a unique breed of motorcyclist, for whom the ride is purity incarnate - the be-all and end-all. Some of them have accomplished distance-riding feats that beggar belief and which prompt the question, 'Why?'
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p244-5

[Biggles]

And this is the Darkness before the Dawn, too. The time of night when people become werewolves and rip their neighbours' throats out. The time of night when nothing is possible but anything is likely. The time of night when you're most mortal, and yet feel immortal.
I'd consumed a Red Bull twenty kilometres back, and am now so wired I could do duty as a dingo fence. But I am comatose compared to the twenty young bucks having an ice-smoking party in the Kempsey servo I stop at. Three old cars, plastered with the Koori flag and various land rights logos are parked there. Around them, drinking and yelling and wrestling are some of Kempsey's more excitable residents. To have ridden straight out would have been an act of cowardly wisdom. To stop, turn off my bike and fuel up is the act of a crazed man - which I doubtlessly am by this stage of the game. The ice-smokers don't bother to stop smoking when I pull up, but since they only have one pipe between them, many of them are free to engage me in manly banter.
'Heeey, bro/ one of them says, his eyes glistening with insanity, 'Det your bike?'
'Yep,' I lie cheerily, willing the petrol faster into my tank and spilling some because my hands are trembling.
'Heeey, bro,’ the lunatic smiles wickedly, 'you're shaking .. hee hee hee . .. we'll hev to ride your bike for you ... hee, hee, hee.
Then he stalks back to the group to report that he's scared the motorcyclist so badly he is shaking like a leaf.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p249

[Biggles]

9 am to 10.30 am
The final forty kilometres. I don't know what they were about, and I don't care. If you want to find out, do the miles and see. I know is I pull up outside Nambucca's V-Wall Tavern on a glorious sunny day. An immense feeling of achievement fills my sugar-crazed body. I have done it. I have challenged myself and been found worthy. I am unhurt, unbooked and so gloriously alive I almost kiss Thommo, the first FarRider to arrive just after me, but that would have been very strange for both of us, 'cos we've not yet met.

11 am onwards
That afternoon, I manage to eat two T-bone steaks (one for lunch and one for dinner), drink a metric shitload of beer to flush away the evil energy-drink gravy that has been coursing through my body, and indulge myself in some very appropriate self-congratulations. My sense of achievement is vast. I even manage to sing some Johnny Cash songs with the jukebox. When my buzzing, demon-filled head finally hits the pillow in the small, air-conditioned cabin I have rented in the caravan park behind the pub, I am sure I hear familiar voices whispering: 'You done good, bitch. See you next time.’
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p253-4

[Biggles]

Victoria should be proud of itself. It has created the single most boring road in all of creation and stocked it with police cyborgs. I saw four different patrol cars taxing motorists for exceeding the 110 km/h limit on a road one could do 200 km/h on with absolute confidence. It's a road I have done 200 km/h on. It used to be the road you made up time on during your trip to Melbourne by putting your head down, your bum up, and aiming for the horizon with the throttle nailed to the stop. It was the done thing.
But not anymore. Now it's just a magically eternal cash register for the government.
 
But I grinned, I bore it, I agreed with Jon Bon Jovi that there should be no silent prayer for the faith-departed, and then I turned off the Hume at Euroa. The Merton Gap warmed the of my tyres, Marc Bolan informed me that Telegram Sam was my main man, and I pulled up outside the Country Club Hotel in Yea right on sundown. A light rain had just started greasing up the roads.
Jamie handed me a filthy scotch as I lurched through the pub doors, stiff from the road. We toasted my safe arrival, put on our gear and made for Uncle's house like vampires fleeing the dawn. One hour later, and ten hours and forty minutes after I left Sydney, I was in the warm embrace of good mates. There was a great fire, a functioning hot water system, several fridges full of beer, and a safe place to rest my head. Done right, this motorcycling caper rewards the soul on many levels.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me  Boris Mihailovik  p261-2

[Biggles]

When I returned from taking Tom home, I needed to find a place to park the Wing. We didn't have a garage so I parked the bike in our carport, in the space where my pickup normally sat. I did not want to leave it outside. Our house had a double front door and a large living room. Since Marguerite would be in Omaha for some time to come, and my son and I were the only ones home, I decided to park the Wing in the living room, right in front of the fireplace. As I rolled the Wing through the double doors onto the carpet, the words of my friend who told me to get a Goldwing, ran through my head. 'They don't leak and they don't break." It took a little manoeuvring, but I finally got the Wing settled into a position and dropped the kickstand. A Goldwing looks a lot bigger sitting in your living room, than it does outside!
I found myself strangely tired, so I went to the kitchen and mixed myself a large drink. I returned to the living room, sat in my easy chair, stared at the Wing, and thought about what I had just done.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p11

[Biggles]

Coming off the Keys, I missed the turn for Highway 997, to go back through Homestead and on up Highway 27. Neither of us noticed; we were just following the crowd. I knew something was wrong when I saw a road sign out of the corner of my eye that mentioned Miami, but I didn't notice the mileage. The next thing I saw was the Miami skyline. The traffic was picking up in volume and speed by the second. All of a sudden, the road had gone from two lanes to four. Now I'm on an eight-lane road, surrounded by cars and trucks running at seventy miles per hour. I had only experienced this type of traffic in a car a couple of times and found it scary. On the Goldwing, it was just plain terrifying. I had no idea what road this was, or where it was going. I just knew we had to get the hell off as soon as I could get the Wing safely in the far right-hand lane. This was not going to be quickly accomplished. The speed kept increasing, and cars were changing lanes with reckless abandon. I am not an overly religious person, but I promised God if he would just let us live through this I would never come back to this place again. I knew we had to get off and head due west. If we could do that, eventually we would run into Highway 27.
After twenty or thirty terrifying minutes, I see an exit for a county road that heads west. I don't care how far west it runs. At this point, I just know it will get me off suicide alley and get me heading west. I hit full throttle, make a couple of moves, and make it to the exit lane. At the bottom of the exit is a stop light. Stopping the bike for just a few seconds was a welcome relief. Marguerite and I had both worked up a sweat. The light changed and I made my left turn, heading west.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p29

[Biggles]

I was hoping to get to Clewisfon and find a motel for the night. In the Corps, we used to joke about night flying. "Only fools and owls fly at night. Do your feet fit a limb?" or "Night operations are characterized by darkness and periods of reduced visibility." I was a little nervous about the whole thing. I didn't want to worry Marguerite, but this could turn in to a real bag of crap. We had a long way to go before we reached any level of civilization, there was very little traffic, and any mechanical failure or accident would be serious. I was getting tired, but had to reach civilization for any hope of a room.
I kept telling myself to just keep the scan going and stay alert. After a while, everything was okay. The air was cool. Marguerite and I were getting comfortable with sights and sounds of night riding on the Wing. We kept hearing these little popping sounds. There were things hitting our helmets and leather jackets. I could see swarms of bugs in the headlight, and watched them bounce off the windshield. They weren't soft and squishy. The bugs were hard. When they hit the back of my gloved hands, it hurt. The swarms would come and go. Eventually, Marguerite noticed the dead bugs accumulating on the seat in between us. The bugs were also piling up in between my legs. I was able to take my hand and sweep some of them away. We actually thought if things got any worse, we could just stop and use the Wing cover for shelter and spend the night on the road. When we considered how many mosquitoes would descend on us, we decided to let that idea go.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p30

[Biggles]

A couple more Harleys had just pulled up. We didn't see the people come in because just about that time, the waitress showed up with a whole armload of food. I really don't know how she could have stacked that many plates on her arms, but was doing a great job. She placed Marguerite's food down and was just putting my cheese omelette in front of me, when someone pulled the chair out beside me and sat down. I was still concentrating on what the waitress was giving me, but I glanced to my right. The first thing I saw out of the corner of my eye was a titty nipple and some breast sticking out of a black leather circle. The nipple had a gold earring pierced through it. This sight broke my concentration on the cheese omelette, and everything else. I looked straight at Marguerite's face. If she saw anything unusual, it didn't show on her face. I risked a sidelong glance. The pierced nipple was still there. There was a short, greasy looking guy sitting down next to Marguerite. He was middle-thirties, about five-foot-seven, plump, dark long hair with the standard Harley rider bandana on his head. He was wearing a black tee shirt with the words, "Connoisseur of Cheap Wine and Sleazy Women". The guy looked like he needed a good bath, his hands were greasy, and it had been some time since he cleaned the grease out from under his fingernails. I looked at him, and then at Marguerite for some reaction. She had on her best poker face.
I heard the titty nipple say to me, "Gee hon that looks like a really great omelette!'
There's no concentrating on an omelette when a titty nipple with an earring in it sits down shoulder to shoulder next to you. I turned my head to complete the look and answer this person. She was middle-thirties as well and had a real weathered look. She wasn't unattractive, just hardened. Her hair was long and she had the Harley rider bandana scarf fashioned over a ponytail. Her ears were adorned with extremely heavy looking, long earrings that were made from horseshoe nails. The earrings hung down almost to her shoulders and tugged heavily on her earlobes. Her weathered face had a nice smile. She was wearing a black leather outfit with a bib front and a strap going up and around her neck. The bib had two holes in the leather, allowing the nipple area of her breasts to stick out. The nipples of both breasts held gold earrings. A gold chain connected the two earrings. The whole arrangement made my nipples hurt.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p33

[Biggles]

On one corner, we noticed a guy wearing what looked like a caveman get up. He also wore a horned, Viking style hat and was holding a rubber chicken. His ride was an old Harley trike, the kind police used years ago. His bike looked in perfect condition. He was waving at everyone that passed by and seemed to be having a hell of a good time. At the next light, a guy pulled up next to me on a really old Harley. He was a little, bitty, skinny fellow wearing a chrome German army helmet, sunglasses of course, black leather jacket with colours on the back, jeans, and really big, black boots. His lady riding on the back was enormous. I didn't know how he could hold the bike up. She too had a chromed helmet, jeans with knee length boots that were very high-heeled, and a reddish colour fake fur coat that was shaggy. She looked like a grizzly bear in high heels sitting on the back of the bike. The bike had two large flags mounted on the back, one American and I couldn't tell what the other was. It was quite a sight. The crowning touch was on a small platform mounted over the front fender. The platform covered with a green artificial turf rug. On the platform stood a little, bitty Chihuahua dog, wearing a little, bitty chromed German army helmet and sunglasses. I almost forgot to put my feet down as we came to a halt at the light. This guy and his bike stole the show for that trip up Main Street.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p36-7

[Biggles]

Just as I put the nozzle in the holder, I heard a scraping noise behind me. I turned around and saw the Wing slowly moving forward down the hill. The side stand was scraping on the asphalt. As the Wing moved forward, the side stand was slowly collapsing to the rear, which allowed the Wing to fall to the left. I stepped down off the fuel pump island just in time to halt the forward motion, but not the fall to the left. It was a slow motion fall, only I'm between the Wing and the pump island. The Wing was coming down and pinning me on the island. I fought as hard as I could to keep the Wing from coming down hard enough to hurt anything. At the last second, I managed to move my legs to keep them from getting hurt between the pump island and the Wing. I am in a semi-sitting position, with my butt on the pump island, and the Wing resting on my chest and legs. I can feel the moisture soaking through my jeans and cooling my ass. I can feel the sweat forming on my face as I strain the Wing up. There is no one around to help. I am embarrassed to be in this position and feel stupid that I didn't see this coming. 
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p68

[Biggles]

It was taking all strength I had to keep the Wing from collapsing any further. I remembered a technique from motorcycle school, to help get a bike up if you were not strong enough or were unable to lift it on the two wheels. The technique called for starting the bike, putting it in gear, making sure the rear wheel was on the ground, letting out the clutch, and adding a little throttle, while simultaneously pushing the bike up. By doing this, the bike should pull its own self up. Of course this was on level ground, not pinned against the pump island on wet asphalt, on top of a damned mountain. In sheer desperation, I decided to try. I had put the Wing in neutral before I got off, which my first mistake on a hill. I got the key on, hit the starter, and the engine fired right up. I managed to slide my left foot to a position that I could just get a toe on the gear shifter, and clunked it into first gear. I took a deep breath and added throttle, letting the clutch out. The Wing jumped. I rocked off my butt at the same time and sure enough, the Wing came right up. The Wing and I came up so fast I almost went over the seat. I hadn't let off the throttle quick enough, so I just grabbed the clutch. The engine raced, the Wing started rolling down the hill, and I did a couple of ungraceful hops running alongside. I jumped to throw my leg over the Wing, like they used to do in the old-time cowboy movies. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, I had the Wing and myself under control.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p69

P.S.  I'd never heard of this technique.
Biggles

[Kev Murphy]

 Sounds sus? Never heard of this before.

[Biggles]

We left Swift Current just after sunrise. The traffic was nonexistent; our only road companions were a couple of long-range truckers. We listened to their conversation on the CB.
Unlike a lot of trucker conversations we have heard in the lower forty-eight, which normally always centre on low pay and lack of female companionship, these guys had an in-depth discussion on Canadian economics that only once punctuated with profanity.
We were paying close attention to what the truckers were saying and the next thing we knew, we were airborne. The road surface had separated and we had just flown off a good eighteen-inch shelf in the road. The trucks were about 600 feet behind us and both started screaming about the big bump. We hit hard enough to bottom out the suspension. We were doing sixty-five miles per hour at the time. For a split second, we thought we would lose control. We just sat real still and I tried not to make any steering inputs for that split second. The Wing settled out nicely. From listening to the truckers, the weather may have caused that section of the road to sink. Had this happened to us going the other direction, we would have been killed and so would the truckers. Absolutely amazing. The truckers stayed with us all the way to Moose Jaw.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p95

[Biggles]

I noticed as the day wore on, the Wing had been handling funny. I didn't figure it out until I was doing my post-ride checks. The temperature extremes we had experienced in Omaha had greatly affected our tire pressures. The tires had been okay when we stopped in Omaha, but the Wing sat there for the entire weekend, with temperatures in the upper twenties (^oF). I didn't check the pressures before we left. Now, when I checked, both tires were low. The low pressure in the front tire had been affecting the handling, at both high and low speeds. I made a mental note to be more attuned to temperature change. I had done so in the mountains because I knew both altitude and temperature would have a big effect. I just didn't realize it would have such a big effect at lower altitudes.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p189-90

[Biggles]

We finally got around Mount Tobias and passed by a little town nearing the lake. According to the map, the next town south would be Wofford Heights. We continued to ride, until the road ended at Highway 178. No Wofford Heights. We knew we were in the right place, but all we had seen was a big lake, no town. We retraced our route back to the northern end of the lake and took the turn into the little town we had passed earlier. Our butts were killing us, we had to get off, and I couldn't wait to ask directions.
The lady clerk in the convenience store watched us get off the Wings and come inside. You could tell that she had already labelled us as "the bikers from Hell”. We all got something to drink. The clerk watched our every move. I said, "Ma'am, we were trying to find Wofford Heights. Could you help us?" She gave me a strange look and said, "It isn't there anymore. They moved it. It's all flooded and under the lake now." I asked, "Where did they move it to?" She said, "Up here." I'd had enough. "Is there a motel and restaurant close by?" The clerk just pointed up the road to the east. We left the store and headed up the road to the east.
Winging It  Marguerite & William Spicer  p224

[Biggles]

The roar in "Roaring Twenties" was the sound of an overheated stock market, not motorcycles. However, it was a great decade for hundreds of now-vanished manufacturers.
George Brough was a motorcycle maker who really captured the spirit of the times. His Brough Superior models were "the Rolls-Royce of motorcycles" and that wasn't an empty boast – the bikes were so well made that when Charles Rolls and William Royce examined one of them, they gave Brough permission to use their names in his advertising.
Most Brough Superiors were sold with engines outsourced from James A. Prestwich. Those "JAP" motors were supplied to many other builders, but Brough's came in special tunings that allowed him to guarantee that his SS100 model would really go 100 miles an hour. Each of Brough’s machines was specially fitted to its owner, like a custom suit. They were fast, comfortable and built to last, so it's not surprising they remain sought after to this day.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 3  (day numbers up to 365, not page numbers in this book)

[Biggles]

In '62, American Honda sold 40,000 motorcycles through its 750-dealer network. When management set a target of 200,000 units the following year, Honda's ad agency, Grey, knew they had their work cut out for them.
Grey's creative types proposed a set of print ads showing students, women and couples - not the "typical" motorcyclists - on Honda's 50cc step-through Cub. The ads proclaimed, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda". In 1964 Grey produced a "nicest people" TV ad that ran during the Academy Awards.
The campaign not only launched Honda in the U.S. market, it redeemed the image of motorcycling as a whole.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 7

[Biggles]

Here's a note from the Department of Scary Thoughts: many early motorcycle "carburettors" were just pans of gasoline that were heated by an open flame. Vapours produced that way were then burned in the cylinders. Back then, "crash and burn" was not simply a figure of speech.
Spray carburettors were obviously much safer, but early carbs lacked throttles. Riders controlled speed by simply choking the air intake, or by changing their spark advance.
Oscar Hedstrom, the engineer behind Indian "motocycles" was one of the first people to devise a throttle-controlled carburettor. That was in 1901.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 13

[Biggles]

It is impossible to overstate the impact of the first truly mass-production four-cylinder, disc-braked motorcycle. When the CB750 was unveiled at the 1968 Tokyo Motor Show consumers gasped and the world press (and rival companies) were taken by surprise. It had been developed by a small team  working in total secrecy. The team leader was Yoshiro Harada.
Harada toured the United States a few years earlier, meeting American riders and Honda motorcycle dealers when Honda introduced the CB450 twin. That bike had sold poorly in America respite the fact that it outperformed much bigger British twins. He realized that the U.S. with its wide- open spaces, would embrace a big, powerful bike The decision to make it 750cc was based on the knowledge that Triumph and BSA were developing 750cc triples. It would be a four-cylinder bike to evoke Honda's Grand Prix racing heritage (and up the English). Finally, it would produce at least 67 horsepower, since the most powerful Harleys made 66!
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 23

[Biggles]

A few hundred motorcyclists got rowdy in Hollister on the July 4th, 1947 weekend. Townspeople admitted it had been no worse than what the cowboys did each year at the annual stock fair (and in fact the town staged motorcycle races in Hollister again just a few months later.)
A few days after the so-called riot, a photographer staged a photo of a beefy, threatening looking drunk, slumped on a motorcycle surrounded by empty beer cans. Life Magazine ran it, tnggering a media frenzy that lasted well into the 1960s. In a bizarre example of life imitating art, real gangs motorcycle outlaws were formed in response to those stories.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 62

[Biggles]

The Mont Blanc Tunnel is one of the longest and highest tunnels in the world, connecting the highway systems of France and Italy through the Alps. When a transport truck caught fire in the middle of the tunnel, the smoke and flames trapped about 50 people. Of those, 12 survived. All of them reached the mouth of the tunnel saying, "That guy on the motorcycle saved my life."
 That man was Pier Lucio Tinazzi, an Italian tunnel employee who rode his BMW K75 in and out of the tunnel - a seven-mile round trip through choking smoke and fumes - to bring people out. On the final trip, he came across an unconscious driver who he could not get onto the back of his motorcycle. He refused to abandon him and dragged him to shelter in a small room off the tunnel. Both men died.
Tinazzi was posthumously awarded Italy's highest honour for civilian bravery, as well as the Federation Internationale Motocycliste (FIM's) gold medal for exceptional courage and service to the sport of motorcycling. Every year, several hundred Italian motorcyclists ride to the tunnel mouth on the anniversary of Tinazzi's heroic deed.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 69

[Biggles]

Long before there was a Daytona International Speedway, races and record attempts were held on the sandy beachfronts of Daytona and neighbouring Ormond, Florida.
At low tide the damp, hard-packed sand provided a straight, dead level surface that ran for miles. It was perfect for land-speed record attempts. In 1904, the pioneering aviator Glenn H. Curtiss rode his two-cylinder motorcycle 67.36 mph - a class record that stood for seven years.
In 1907, Curtiss returned to the beach with a motorcycle powered by one of his V-8 airplane engines. That motorcycle made about 40 horsepower - a heck of lot in the day. It reached a speed of 136.27 mph.
Curtiss' V-8 wasn't just the world's fastest motorcycle - it was the fastest thing on wheels, period. The daring young man held the land speed record for twelve years until Ralph dePalma went faster in a Packard car, also on Daytona Beach. That was the last time that the outright land speed record was ever held by a motorcycle.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner  Day 96

[Biggles]

Kenny Roberts had been frustrated that his Yamaha- powered flat tracker was nowhere near as fast on mile tracks as the Harleys. Then Kel Carruthers stuffed a four-cylinder TZ750 road racing motor in a flat track frame. The bike had far too much power even for Roberts. Carruthers had to rig it with a "kill switch" that shut off one of the cylinders, or it would spin the rear tire all the way down the straightaways. Still, the one time Roberts rode it, he won on it.
That was at the 1975 Indy Mile. After wrestling with it the entire race, Roberts somehow found traction coming off the very last turn. The bike shot down the track and Roberts passed a shocked Jay Springsteen a few feet before the finish line. After the race, he blurted, "They don't pay me enough to ride that thing!" He needn't have worried, the AMA soon banned it.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner  Day 128