Loose Lines

Collected works of motorcycling's nastiest columnist

Notes on being in the right place at the right time...

In 1986 I launched a motorcycle magazine in the UK. Back then, a plausible line in chatter would persuade a distributor to get a magazine into the shops without any kind of promotional budget and if you were really clever the printer wouldn’t even demand the money up front. These days, more money is spent on promotion than on printing a new magazine... and it was a time when desktop publishing was just coherent enough to make production of a basic magazine plausible, without any need to go near expensive typesetters.

As well as having no publishing experience I had almost no writing experience – save for the odd article published in Motorcycle Sport and Engineering Today - and only a minimal grasp of the English language (readers were often kind enough to write in pointing out repeated instances of the same mistake – and I did mostly learn from experience). The only thing I had going for me was a love of motorcycles and a hard gained knowledge of used bikes, which along with a lot of help from friends and mechanics, made for the basis of the first couple of issues. The plan, which largely worked, was to get the readers, in future issues, to write about their biking experiences. And, just to emphasize the different ethos of the magazine, there would be no advertising.

The Used Motorcycle Guide came out as a quarterly, which neatly solved any cashflow problems as the money from the first issue paid off the printing costs and financed the second issue. A5 in size, black and white throughout save for some spot colour on the cover and inner pages – 80 pages packed out with info and hardly any photos, for 99 pence when the glossy Bike magazine sold for a quid.

The second year it turned bimonthly with double the initial print run (with a full colour cover but cheaper paper inside), which was about as good as it got – selling 30,000 plus copies an issue. Even when the print run went as high as 60,000, the magazine didn’t really sell any more copies.

That kind of sales, back then, put it ahead of some of the glossy magazines, peaking as the fourth best selling magazine in the UK (then only eight or nine magazines). That level of success meant it didn’t take long for some companies to copy the idea and launch their own versions, usually hilarious because of all the mistakes contained in their adaptation of the buyer’s guide. The UMG even inspired a couple of car magazines, though they didn’t last long!

Other people reckoned they could do even better with glossy, full-sized magazines whilst the established magazines redesigned and reinvented themselves with much denser copy – gone were the huge swathes of artistic white space. Most of the new magazines went bust with the major exception of EMAP’s titles which more or less totally dominated the market.

I ran the UMG rather like I did my motorcycles, in total neglect mode, taking a particular delight in turning up at the distributors looking like I didn’t have two pennies to rub together even when it was making serious money; they mostly took pity on me and didn’t demand the excessive loot that was normally required to keep the print run of a magazine going strongly – the glossies spent huge sums on promotion to keep themselves on the shelves of the major newsagents.

Over the years, a graceful decline in circulation was largely compensated by increasing the cover price and cutting out various bits of the production cycle as desktop publishing programs improved. The real killer was when major newsagents decided, in their infinite wisdom, to compare, not the circulations of similar publications, but how much money they generated in a given period. By then, the glossies cost twice as much as the UMG, which rather than coming out monthly appeared six to ten times a year depending on how energetic I felt. And there were more than twenty motorcycle magazines on the shelves.

This wasn’t amateur hour any more... the only way out was to go glossy, increase the price and come out every month, as well as bung the distributor a huge promotional budget. By then, the magazine market was mostly superbike orientated, an area I had hardly any interest in and I had little faith that throwing huge quantities of money at the UMG would transform its fortunes. I was actually so far out of things – spending most of the year in Thailand didn’t help – that almost every motorcycle magazine I liked actually went bust!

Even with a fast tumbling circulation, the relatively low print cost, cover price increases and almost zero overheads meant that the magazine was still profitable, albeit at a much lower level than in the past... bear in mind, with a portable computer I needed no fixed abode and could throw it together from some far flung corner of the world when the boredom got to me. The freedom more important than the money.

This benign neglect came to an end in 2000, when the profit seemed to be ready to do a disappearing act – an increase in print costs, for instance, would’ve been nasty. It takes up to four months to get a clear picture of the sales of a magazine, so there’s a certain art to exiting the scene before it goes bad! If you launch a monthly magazine it can take three months to find out how you are doing – meaning you’ve coughed up for another two or three print runs.

Having published and edited the magazine for fourteen years, I was ready to close it down and do a disappearing act but it was obviously more amusing to sell it as a going concern – for once, the enormous cost of setting up a new magazine working for me, as there was some value in the UMG as a going concern. An advert was placed in the magazine and on the website, in which I emphasized that it had been run into the ground in the same way I rode my bikes!

Anyway, what was later described as a frighteningly large sum was quickly thrust into my hands by a rather outsized chap with a beard (who demanded to remain anonymous) who turned the maga­zine monthly, added a lot of pages and improved the look of the rag – he lasted two years before bailing out (or selling on at a profit, for all I know) and as of July 2002 it was published by Morton’s Motorcycle Media, who had the major of advantage of being able to cross advertise in their other motorcycle magazines. The magazine was finally closed down in May 2003 but the website lives on!

I kept the website (www.net-motorcycles.com), which basically contains all the articles from fourteen year’s worth of the magazine up to the end of 1999 plus lots of new stuff and caries on in the spirit of the original rag – almost zero overhead, written by its readers and just a place for people who love biking to hang out with minimal hassle (no registration, free access, etc.).

In almost every issue of the magazine, I wrote a column called Loose Lines – ranging from the antics of motorcycle dealers to lounging around in Thailand, it usually managed to include something about, er, motorcycles. The best of those columns follows...

Issue 1 Summer ’86: Running out of customers...

The huge decline of the UK motorcycle market continues to leave observers gasping for breath. Each year the dealers hope there will be an upturn but they are continually disappointed. Large dealerships shrink whilst others go bust or relocate to damp sheds in back lanes. The reasons for this decline complex, ranging from the ridiculous learner laws, the prohibitive cost of new motorcycles, the awful weather, to the economic recession. With little income to spend youths are just not able to buy new bikes and anyone over twenty is confronted by the strange situation where a rapidly declining country inflicts horrendous rises on the cost of housing to the tune of four times the inflation rate. Given the choice of spending their lives in a grotty bedsit and riding a flash motorcycle, or mortgaging their lives for 25 years and riding to work on a five year-old Honda 90, it’s obvious which one is paramount in Thatcher’s Britain.

The small number of remaining motorcyclists have opted for a few machines that represent the ultimate development of the multi-cylinder motorcycle – Kawasaki’s and BMW’s share of the market actually increasing in the face of overwhelming odds. To sell a new motorcycle, these days, the maker needs a cast iron reputation for reliability and longevity, as well as motorcycles that excel in their particular field. Get it just slightly wrong and the bikes begin to pile up in the warehouse.

Because so few new learners have taken up motorcycling since 1979, fewer and fewer people are available to buy the bigger machines. With little by way of a home industry to worry over, the government is free to impose increasing taxes and stupid laws, further restricting the number of punters. Because of this, the relatively buoyant secondhand market has begun to suffer and 1986 will see many dealers who have depended on used bike sales in 1985 going bust.

Indeed, last year used dealers were often selling bikes at lower prices than you could find in the private ads. As the situation becomes more desperate for traders, they will increasingly have to resort to more and more nasty tactics in order to survive. The few decent dealers with proper mechanics will be forced to drastically cut back on both overheads and hourly charges, but they will stay in business in the hope of an upturn in the nineties.

The antics of the cowboys, who if they had the cash would doubtless be happy slum landlords or used car dealers, are not restricted to the back-lane boys. Dubious practices becoming the norm for long established dealers. A tale of one North London trader aptly illustrates this point. The dealer recommended by various acquaint-ances as being both honest and reputable. Selling a 1981 BMW R65 for 800 notes, they assured me that the 23000 miles on the clock was correct and that the rattling head on one cylinder merely required a service. I didn’t buy the bike because the alloy on the engine casings was very corroded as if the bike had been standing for a long time; the paint on the tank worn through – something I figured would take a lot more than 20,000 miles.

I later learnt that the bike had nearly 100,000 miles on the original clock and was seized. The dealer ran a breakers as a sideline and had swapped over the cylinder from a crashed bike, and used that bike’s clock to con some poor sucker into parting with his cash. The odds pretty good that the other cylinder would’ve given trouble within a few thousand miles. Just for the fun of it, I rang the breakers to ask about the used R65 engine they were advertising. Naturally, it was a low mileage job out of a crashed bike that they assured should be in perfect condition. And, no, there wasn’t a guarantee.

The above a fairly mild example, after all it’s unlikely to actually endanger anyone’s life, just lose them a lot of cash. The more lucrative and dangerous activity of repairing crashed bikes has become a minor industry over the past few years. It’s impossible to buy crashed bikes directly from an insurance company on a one-off basis but the cost of bikes is so low for breakers that there are large margins for profit. Many are the badly repaired bikes that find their way into the private adverts masquerading as normal sales so that there are no comebacks when things go wrong.

Buying used motorcycles, then, has become a bad scene. With dealers unlikely to pay more than 400 quid for a bike they can sell for a grand, unwilling to back up their sales with cheap and efficient servicing and often trying to sell machines that should really have been scrapped, there seems little reason to ever enter a dealer’s showroom again. Especially true because dealers have become rather short-tempered and non-communicative as their profits disappear and overheads keep on increasing. Until they mend their ways they will just keep on going bust.

Of course, there is another side to the motorcycle market that is very exciting for motorcyclists who want to find a bargain. With few new riders and large quantities of unsold motorcycles on the used market, it’s a buyer’s market. A market where a new middle­-weight bike can be discounted by twenty percent to shift it out of the showroom and then immediately lose another quarter of its value! Little wonder that so few new bikes are sold.

The problem with used bikes is knowing how well they have been maintained and how long they are likely to last. There are some motorcycle engines that will just keep on running, regardless of how ill-treated they are, while there are others, especially those rushed on to the market recently, that have inherent faults that will do nasty things to bank balances. Also, many of the new design innovations, such as mono-shock suspension, do not last very well when subjected to harsh winters, and require constant maintenance – maintenance that is not easily possible because the designer didn’t bother with grease nipples! In trying to figure out the merits of various designs, simplicity and lack of excess are often the only criteria to fall back upon. The vast array of models over the past twenty years makes life both interesting and confusing, best to concentrate on bikes that are both fun and practical!

Issue 2 Autumn ’86: Some electrical tips, dealer paybacks and what happens when enthusiasm overcomes reality in British biking – I still hate Tritons...

Things are getting pretty tough out there in the big, bad world of wheeling and dealing that goes under the name of motorcycle trading. And, it’s not just the dealers who are playing dirty tricks. The public are getting their own back at long last!

As one poor breaker found out to his cost. Buying a CX500 that wasn’t running but looked in good condition, at an auction, the nice little earner turned bad when he returned to his dilapidated workshop. Amidst oil speckled pornography and ancient canine droppings, close examination of the CX revealed that the reason why it wouldn’t run was that the seller had removed all the engine internals! Tut, tut.

Relatively mild when compared with the great GPz900 switch. Some chap had seized his GPz engine while out on the racetrack. A quick stripdown revealed two sets of pistons with broken rings and severely scored bores. As he was broke and it was the end of the season, he decided to reassemble the engine with some spare rings from a different mill. The result, a motor that made some strange noises and emitted clouds of smoke.

Unperturbed, he borrowed a friend’s identical GPz, swapped numberplates and rode along to a couple of dealers. After much haggling he agreed a deal, telling the trader he just had to scoot back home to pick up the doc’s. Replacing the numberplate on the stricken GPz, he gingerly rode back to the dealers, coasting the final few yards to let the smoke and noise dissipate.

The dealer checked the frame and engine numbers but didn’t even bother to switch on the motor. The seller pocketed his pile of used notes and disappeared into the depths of the metropolis.

The postscript to this story is almost as strange and illegal as the first hustle. The dealer sold the GPz two days later, at quite a generous profit, telling the youngster, who was trading in a 125 and signing away several years of his life on the finance, that the smoke and noise were normal for this model, sir, and would clear up after a few miles.

When the new owner went back to the shop to complain about a seized engine, the dealer acted as if he had never seen him before and refused to discuss the matter. It’s a tough old world!

Anyone who has been riding motorcycles for any length of time will have had their own particular brand of mechanical heartache. My own, a Triton that I foolishly purchased when enthusiasm and ego overcame commonsense and financial prudence.

A pre-unit 650cc engine fitted into a Slimline frame combined with clip-ons, rear-sets and alloy tank to grab attention and put acquaintances riding middleweight Jap’s firmly in their place. I should’ve guessed that I was in for loads of trouble when all four valve covers disappeared after the first ride. A couple of springs between the covers soon solved that problem.

Then the engine refused to turn over on the kickstart. After wasting lots of time and money replacing the clutch plates, I realised that the problem was caused by the Triumph’s quaint habit of using woodruff keys to stop tapered shafts rotating against each other. One new woodruff key later, I had an engine that would turn over again.

Removal of the primary chaincase also revealed why it didn’t leak any oil and why there wasn’t any of the typical clutch drag with a cold engine. No oil! Both halves of the chaincase heavily scored, leaking copious amounts of lube on reassembly.

Not the only place where oil was spoiling the nicely polished alloy. The cylinder head gasket was also proving that British craftsmanship left a lot be desired. Removal of the cylinder head revealed a nice couple of cracks around the stud holes. Ever tried to buy an eight stud alloy head in good condition? Don’t bother, they’re all cracked!

The deeper I went into the engine the more problems I found. Funnily enough, the bike had actually performed very well, with a nice growl and kick at six grand that almost made the front end of the agile chassis go light. But riding for a hundred miles always resulted in some bits of the chassis falling off or some part of the engine making strange noises, leaking too much oil or failing. No real fun at all, which is why I sold the thing and went back to the Jap’s.

Unlike some British bikes, the Jap’s never bothered to design their electrics so that the bike could be run without a battery or even start on a dead battery. British bikes actually went to the trouble of producing power from the alternator when the points need it. Something called Energy Transfer Ignition overcomes this problem. An electronic device called a capacitor is placed either in parallel with the battery or takes its place completely. The capacitor is able to store electrical energy, thus can either take the place of a battery or help out one that has lost most of its storage capacity.

Early seventies Nortons had such a system fitted, You can visit your friendly auto-electrical shop and see if they stock old Lucas equipment or go hustle your local electronics shop where you’ll pay a fraction of the cost. Ask for an electrolytic capacitor, minimum ratings of 18V and 10000pF. It should come with some screw terminals and the connections are positive to positive and negative to negative. Rubber mount it with some old inner-tube and a jubilee-clip or two. A much cheaper way of replacing a worn out battery – with most old Japs (won’t work with the modern stuff, too many black boxes and no kickstart) there’s enough power at low revs for the lights to be used without stalling the engine. At your own risk, though!

The other common electrical fault on Jap bikes is failure of the alternator leading to rectifier and regulator burn-outs. Most alternators can be cheaply rewound; much more sensible than paying out for a new one that is just as likely to fail again.

Car regulators and rectifiers can be fitted, although the rectifier is designed to fit inside car alternators and are soldered into the circuit. The connection points are tags that stick out from the diodes. The three leads from the alternator can be soldered on to any of these tags, just make sure that the regulator lead goes to the same alternator lead as in the original circuit. Total cost, less than a tenner!

Issue 3 Winter ’86: The UMG was often produced in strange places, Bangkok more than most – and this flashback to my early days in the Orient instills some nostalgia for a time when Thailand wasn’t a mainline tourist destination...

The air-conditioner sounded like it was on amphetamines. It didn’t do much to the midday heat. Staggering from my bed in the fourth floor flat, I only fully realised where I was when I saw the crazy traffic out on what the Thais optimistically call roads. It was then the shakes started. Visions of my previous days’ attempt at actually riding a motorcycle in Bangkok had all the clarity and terror of my failed efforts at indifference to the fist sized cockroaches that insist on scuttling across the walls of this room. Snippets from the insanity bureau.

Trying to wipe the grin off my face, I figured how much better off I’d have been staying in the deep-freeze UK, rather than becoming financially crippled by my involvement with a publishing project so strange and delinquent that I refuse to go into any further details. You understand, I’m in Bangkok on business. It was only the realisation that Loose Lines was two blank pages that pushed me into the dubious act of hiring a motorcycle for the day.

Those who have never had the pleasure of visiting the City of Angels will be unaware of the joys in store for them. Thai drivers make London cab psychopaths seem mild. The road surface defeats even the most long travel trail bike. All road regulations cancelled (if there were any in force in the first place). The horn the most popular form of traffic control.

New motorcycles very expensive, most people ride around on small two strokes that can trace their birth back a couple of decades. Who said old Jap iron doesn’t last? Engines often housed in cut-down frames with a mixture of cycle parts from whatever happens to be available.

When a replacement part’s required it’s often produced in one of the many small workshops that litter the centre of town. With average wages running at 15 dollars a week and a naturally skilful people, these workshops can knock up anything from a silencer to a piston at prices that make heavily taxed imports obsolete.

The largest cycle I saw, a Yam XS650 – a bike completely unfitted to take on the madness of Thai traffic. There was also a sixties Honda CB450, the appearance of which I found reassuring as I owned one for three years. Every little piece of recognizable reality helps in a town where the craziness is sincere.

My first encounter with the traffic came as a mere pedestrian. Trying to cross a junction that made Central London seem like a village square, I had to admire the skill with which vehicles actually managed to avoid hitting each other. Families on small motorcycles, overloaded buses, hurtling cattle trucks, speeding taxi’s, old Jap cars low on their springs, three wheel taxi’s that looked like they had escaped from a golf course, and just about everything else you’d care to name...

The noise, smell, dust, pollution and speed intoxicating stuff. The only way to cross the road, to actually walk into the traffic, hoping the cars slow just enough to make it safely to the other side. Much to my surprise, this works, although the more psychotic drivers try to blast you away with their horns.

Hiring a bike in Bangkok fraught with danger. The usual con is to demand a huge deposit for a bike that conveniently falls apart after the first few miles. There’s no insurance and few people bother with silly things like helmets.

Buying anything in Bangkok involves a strenuous round of bargaining. The first offer was fifty dollars but pointing out that I wasn’t a rich American tourist nor financially imprudent Australian, reduced it to forty... I offered ten dollars. That got me one of those wide but dubious Thai grins. I would’ve been quite happy to walk away if I couldn’t get a good deal - the more I contemplated riding in Bangkok the more I realised how much I disliked suicide. He eventually came down to twenty while I offered fifteen. Walking away for a few yards saved me that final five dollars.

The bike definitely had a Suzuki engine, looked like it might once have come from a mid-seventies TS250. Now in a homemade frame that reduced the seat height to about 25 inches. It started first kick, huge clouds of blue smoke and an engine that rattled like an out of control NSU Quickly.

I’d only offered my passport as a guarantee that I’d bring the device back at the end of the day, so I assumed I had one of the better bikes. Jumping on the seat revealed suspension as taut as a fifty year-old hooker. The front brake lever mostly free play. Adjusting the TLS drum helped but the cams looked like they could lock up the brake at any moment. I hoped the owner wasn’t figuring to sell my passport after the bike delivered a terminal blow to my life.

Dropping the clutch revealed the engine had little power at low revs. Whacking open the throttle produced a neat wheelie down the relatively quiet side-street. As soon as the front wheel touched the ground, the bike wanted to veer off to the left. Backing off the throttle stalled the engine... the only way to travel slowly, scream along in first or second gear!

Great, thought I, the handling abilities of a bent Tiger Cub and the power band of a Kawasaki 500 triple. Applying both brakes at the approach of a main road didn’t help, backing off the throttle and slamming into first gear cut the speed enough to lean the bike into a sudden gap in the traffic. Then things got really bad!

Four lanes of traffic trying to crisscross each other in a mad melange. The heat was already burning a hole in the back of my head. The engine refused to run at all unless strung out on full throttle. A bus full of school kids thundered past and turned across my front wheel. The kids waved. I struggled with gears, brakes and handlebars, flicked the bike inside the bus. The engine spluttered, whacking open the throttle, heading for a hole in the traffic with the front wheel a foot off the ground, I flicked up through the box, gaining speed, aiming the bike where there were gaps and getting a headful of abusive horns when I forced open holes in the traffic.

The bike devoid of instrumentation, no idea how fast it was skimming over the heated tarmac. Working on the principle that I had to keep ahead of the traffic to minimise the chances of attack from behind, for a short time I was in with the mindless momentum of the vehicles.

Then the front wheel hit a huge pot-hole. The old forks didn’t have a chance. I was kicked high off the seat and figured, at the very least, my spine had been cut in half. The bike leapt in front of a lorry that swerved out of the way. I was in the middle of a road that went on for miles, no way to stop and I didn’t have any health insurance. Throttle against the stop, unreliable brakes, the heat, grit and fear making it difficult to focus and I was surrounded by manic, grinning natives out for revenge...

Issue 10 March/April ’88: Lounging around in Bangkok (again)…

Rain, rain and more damn rain. I just find it so hard to believe the amount of water that keeps pouring out of the sky. I nearly blew two and half grand I didn’t have to spare on a nearly new Honda CBR600, but such was the constant battering of the Fowler frame by the winter weather that I decided to spend money I didn’t have on laying low in Bangkok for the maximum amount of time allowed over the winter by the publishing constraints of the Used Motorcycle Guide.

Those who have been reading these scribblings for a long time will recall that I once tried to ride a motorcycle in the crazed mess that the Thais call traffic, in a fairly desperate search to find something to fill up two pages of the UMG, and in the process hired a dilapidated cycle of dubious parentage to take on the natives, result­ing in some amusingly deranged antics to stay alive.

I can now report that it is quite possible to ride a bike in Bangkok, but there are certain things that you have to bear in mind. For instance, if you’re silly enough to fall off and injure yourself, as far as I can ascertain no-one will spring to your aid until the police arrive – everything has to be left untouched until they can deduce who was to blame for the accident. If this doesn’t trouble you, you’ll find it too hot to wear a lid and impossible to find insurance.

Language difficulties prevented me from finding out whether or not they have such things as driving tests (so much for professional journalism) but judging by the traffic chaos I very much doubt it. The major problem, there are far too many cars to fit into the available road space in the centre of town.

Long, long queues of cars stretched out, only slightly relieved by the auto’s swinging from lane to lane. Hundreds of small two-strokes flit in and out of this traffic in an apparently random manner. Viewed from the relatively safe pavements (save for rabid dogs, huge pot-holes and dubious looking youths) it all looks quite insane, a quick way of committing suicide. Viewed from the seat of a motorcycle that works well enough not to intrude into one’s concentration, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Unlike most of their Western counterparts, Thai drivers are actually aware of the existence of screaming two wheel devices. Probably because economic reality for most Thais means they have to start their road life on either push-bikes or motorcycles – all too aware of the precarious nature of their existence.

That said, there are still dangers. The most common cause of bike accidents appears to be dumb canines wandering out into the road, although if the diarrhoea inducing Chinese restaurants I was unfortunate enough to visit are any guide, if you survive such collisions­ you can always sell off the carcass.

I actually managed to borrow a Kawasaki AR140, similar to the AR125 on sale in the UK, save that it has drum brakes and a broader spread of power. I did have the chance of borrowing a Honda CB750K but decided that it would’ve been pointless trying to shove such excessive mass through the traffic.

The watercooled Kawa proved ideal in the dense traffic, so well balanced that I could manoeuvre around the cars at little more than walking speed. Like London traffic, the pace tremendous and you have to make a mental effort to adapt if you’re not used to it. Fortunately, they drive on the same side of the road as the UK, one less problem.

One ride of about three miles after a liquid lunch sticks in the mind. The sun was high and the only way to stay cool, ride as fast as possible. The race started off with a maniac in a tut-tut (a three wheel golf trolley type taxi, with handling that makes a Plastic Pig seem safe), who could use the relative compactness and narrowness of his machine to sneak through traffic gaps. He was trying to mow me down until I did a sudden right-hand turn between a couple of cars, slicing in front of a sixties Honda CB72, whose rider took such effrontery as an excuse for a race…

The most dangerous moment in Thai traffic occurs when cars and taxis go past temples – the drivers take their hands off the wheel to offer a wai to Buddha. Thus when I tried to lose the CB72 by doing an illegal right-hand turn into a road with a temple at its corner and run up a bus lane for a few yards, I encountered a beat up Datsun veering into my path – the driver grinned happily as he put his hands back on the wheel and swerved his auto in front of a bus.

Then the engine tired to cut out and I almost ran down a rather beautiful young Thai girl as the bike lurched around whilst I fiddled with the reserve tap. By the time I sorted that out, a coach was playing tag with my numberplate and using that favourite Thai instrument of torture – the horn. As Thai bus drivers are famed for driving whilst drunk I quickly turned down some back lanes.

The scenery off the main road always interesting, the kind of mixture of wooden shacks and high-rise apartment blocks that would give a good socialist enough ammunition to call for the worldwide abolition of capitalism, save that the Thais have the civilised habit of locking up communists before they can make any trouble.

In the centre of Bangkok, the one-way system means you could travel miles out of your way unless you know the short-cuts down the back lanes. The only problem, the tut-tut drivers’ go berserk cutting up other vehicles, trying to deliver their passengers as quickly as possible. There’s the odd stretch where a cooling 70mph breeze can be attained.

Whilst enjoying such speed I was suddenly brought back to reality by a truck carrying bottles of Coke turning into my half of the road. An excursion off the edge of the tarmac into a sewage filled ditch solved that problem, much to the annoyance of the cat-sized rats. Didn’t actually fall off, the depth of the muck such that I didn’t even get my feet wet. Took three attempts to get the Kawa up the side of the ditch.

I decided to head back to the main road, with about two-thirds of the journey completed, hopeful that I’d arrive home safely. Apart from the odd pot-hole, a sudden tropical downpour and ignoring­ the demands of a police officer to stop, I did manage to return it to the sanctuary of an air-conditioned apartment.

Riding bikes in Bangkok is great fun, especially as their winter is as hot as our hottest summer and you don’t have to wear a lid; no-one seems to give a damn about minor traffic misdemeanours and bikes are so cheap to hire and run.

Issue 11 May/June ’88: On pillions and passengers...

Although I do possess a car driving licence, I have never actually owned a four-wheel device. Thus my experiences in automobiles have mostly been limited to the passenger seat and have been characterised by an almost complete sense of boredom. Even a spirited ride in a Fiat X1/9 failed to elicit much more than a polite yawn. Safe in the cocoon of steel and glass, I’ve always been able to relax in the knowledge that the driver had much more skill and experience than myself, was unlikely to spin his expensive tin box off the road.

Were I to get my grubby hands on one of the cars to which I might admit to having a passing interest (start with a Porsche 911 and work your way upwards) I would doubtless mow down a row of pedestrians or cause a mass pile-up in the time it takes to say the transport minister is a $#%^&&.

I suspect that it is not just the cars which are boring, car drivers are as well. Suggest pumping the tyres up to 100psi and taking off for a night of debauchery in Merthyr Tydfil, I usually receive a look reserved for suggesting that having sex with teenage girls is an amusing way to pass an evening; lend a car driver a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson, in an attempt to educate them on how to drive cars in an interesting manner and the book’s immediately misplaced and forgotten; lend an early Psychedelic Furs tape (imagine the Sex Pistols with a sultry saxophone thrown in – if you dare) and they play it at a volume more suitable for the geriatric nonsense churned out of Radio 3.

After half an hour in the passenger seat I start acting very strangely, it is nothing for me to turn off the ignition at an inappropriate moment, give the steering wheel a quick jerk and only the thought of having to walk home has so far prevented me from sticking the gearbox in reverse whilst someone’s Ford Fiasco is plodding along at a steady 60mph...

I never had this kind of trouble the few times I have been foolish enough to allow myself to be transported on the back of a motorcycle. Rather than give the pilot the benefit of the doubt, I always immediately assume that they are some kind of speed-crazed lunatic with drug blitzed brain cells and a desire to scare me shitless. The cornering I can just about take, it’s the braking that gets me – they always seem to leave it to the last possible moment, as if they have never heard of the benefits of engine braking and thinking ahead a few yards. When the pilot finally condescends to use the massive power of his triple discs, I’m forced into the kind of physical proximity that would be highly enjoyable with a sixteen year-old Oriental gal, but unless you’re into black leather for the wrong reasons, is a trifle embarrassing.

The other thing that frightens me is the way my knees are left sticking out in the airstream, perfectly situated for a quick kneecapping if the rider misjudges the gap between the cages by more than a few millimetres.

I wouldn’t dream of distracting the rider whilst on the pillion and boredom just doesn’t come into it, the elements all too intrusive and the potential pitfalls of motorcycling all too apparent when perched on the back of some speeding motorcycle with nothing to do except for holding on, pondering the likelihood of a dose of gravel rash – if you’re even slightly paranoid I guarantee you’ll end up a total wreck after half an hour on the back of some rapidly ridden motorcycle.

It’s this knowledge which fuels the delight I take in giving car drivers their first taste of motorcycling, malice accentuated by the behaviour of many of these, er, people when behind the wheels of their tin boxes – a sweet kind of revenge on all those blind Herberts who have had the audacity to make sudden manoeuvres with no thought about their effects on my forward motion, all those heart-stopping moments when you thought the end had come and only the combination of quick reflexes, experience and a healthy dose of luck prevented the risks of a National Health Service rescue operation.

Oh yes, place some innocent car driver on the back of my motorcycle and I’ll transform from a relatively sane rider into a crazed hoodlum out to mentally maim my passenger. For this kind of business you need to forget all about these modern, silky smooth multi’s – what’s needed, some hoary old bastard like a Yamaha XS650, preferably hopped out to 850cc and running on the original suspension – I mean, if that kind of combination leaves the rider with white knuckles and the need for a change of underwear, just think what it’ll do to some car driver used to the civilised progress of a bland auto.

It’s important to remove the mirrors, or at least angle them to stop the pillion from catching the huge grin; if he sees that you’re wearing a blissful smile as you shoot through London traffic at ninety, he may catch on, which would spoil the whole effect.

Traffic jams an ideal place to educate the pillion, the heavier the traffic the better. After all, if the gap is only just big enough for a motorcycle to get through, there’s no way some plod mobile is going to catch up with you, is there? The bike ridden on the throttle and brakes, with vivid bursts of acceleration followed by death-grip braking – do this at speed on an XS, you’ll soon have a buckling, weaving monster that’ll come close to removing the passenger’s knees if indulged between rows of stationary or slow moving cars.

There’s also the noise and vibes which all add to the feeling of imminent destruction. It’s just a pity that the pillion has the protection of a crash helmet, but this can be reduced by digging out an old open-face job with no visor and dodgy strap fitted in a way that helps to strangle the hapless pillion under acceleration and temporarily blinds him by letting the lid fall down over his eyes under heavy braking.

Whilst town riding’s the most likely place to really scare passengers it’s always worth clocking up a quick fifty miles out in the country (the pillion so nonplussed from the town riding that he won’t think to object that the quick spin around the block has been extended) in the hope that a sudden downpour will leave them even more wretched and will give the rider the chance to indulge in a few lurid slides, which on something like an XS get very lurid indeed.

A few 100mph bursts will leave the passenger’s eyes bloodshot, whilst the excess weight out back will have the bike nicely oscillating across a few lanes of carriageway (you can really scare people by taking your hands off the bars to help stop such sick-making machina-tions). The fun seems almost endless.

Not that it always works. I recall one occasion when I piloted an XS across Cockroach City in a downpour with an innocent on board. I knew just how easy it was to lose the back tyre on the slippery road surface but this didn’t stop me turning on the gas hard enough to scare myself a few times, take the usual chances by speeding between rows of snared up traffic, playing Russian Roulette with the appalling disc brakes and arriving with a suitably manic grin at the thought of the state he’d be in – not only was he shaking a lot less than me, he even had the audacity to commend me on my sane and safe riding style.

Issue 12: July/Aug '88: Fear and loathing in the classic game...

I normally view the term classic with a deal of fear and loathing usually reserved for such things as maniacal ministers of transport and rabid looking dogs growling in breakers - to comment on the relative intelligence of these two nuisances would probably invite an outraged letter from the animal rights people. Having owned enough British bikes to realise that the breed usually encompasses a dreadful piece of engineering, evidently haunted by malevolent spirits intent on breaking both my ankle and bank account, when I see prices equivalent to the cost of new Jap middleweight twin for bikes that aren't even in good running order I feel just a little sick.

Being a little too young to have experienced British bikes when they ruled the world, my own ownership of such devices has, by necessity, been limited to old Triumphs that have suffered at the hands of half a dozen, or more, owners, often been tuned and equally often bodged together with parts that have seen much better days. Their only saving grace, back in the early seventies, that they could be bought for a couple of hundred notes and responded well to being thumped with a large hammer when they went wrong. The secret, run them just on the right side of self-destruction - an horror story evoked by either an expensive rebuild or a couple of weeks slinging them back together, trying to make the disturbed bits actually work again.

In an oblique sense, the Triumph twin engine could be termed the classic British vertical twin, but as the design was only just about acceptable back in the fifties and the rest of the British stuff was so bad this isn't much of a compliment.

It is ironic indeed that if you modify a British twin into a usable and practical machine (which is either a very expensive or time consuming exercise) then all the classic collectors would look upon the non-standard modifications with horror. As the UK's National Motorcycle Museum provides an excellent forum for viewing original British motorcycles, I can see absolutely no justification for retaining shoddy engineering on bikes that are actually ridden.

The truth about British motorcycles is that they are ideal devices for people with more time than money - if you can spend a couple of months rebuilding one to a decent specification and a couple of days a week maintaining them, then you're on to a viable proposition. Unfortunately, the greed of people who own these bikes and the silliness of the people who pay excessive money for them, means that if you have more time than money you're never going to be able to afford one.

Motorcycle enthusiasts are always claiming that motorcycling is a classless pursuit, the sheer enjoyment of riding bikes breaking down barriers, but when it's so difficult to get hold of old machines at reasonable prices that have the potential for conversion into reliable and practical hardware, then the whole scene becomes more than a little sad.

Look, don't get me wrong. I think a sixties Bonnie looks really neat, sounds lovely and has a useful amount of midrange performance as well as commendably low running costs (until the engine blows up), but the basic design is so unsuited to taming the massive vertical twin vibration that major work has to be undertaken to make it practical. And much the same could be said of various BSA's and Nortons. The only British manufacturer to come close to making a decent job of the engine design was Royal Enfield... just before they went bankrupt!

And, for sure, many British motorcycles had bags of character but when a lot of that spirit majored in self-destruction it's hardly a sterling recommendation. Owning a British bike can be quite an experience but defining them as classic and selling them for silly money is just a waste of potentially good motorcycles.

If I was shoved in a corner with a shotgun rammed halfway down my throat, I might admit to once having owned a classic motorcycle... naturally, this wasn't British (as those that are classics I couldn't afford even back in the seventies) but from those inscrutable Orientals. The object of my affections, a ten year-old, 1967 Honda CB450 - a device that was ruined when reincarnated as the CB500T (although there were enough basics left even in this form to provide a reasonable piece of hack transport - but, for all their similarities, don't confuse the two ).

As someone who was bought up on a Honda CD175 and had a disastrous flirtation with a Triton, the CB450 was natural fodder for my motorcycling ambitions which, for reasons we won't go into here, centred around big vertical twins. I was happy to find that all the 450 required of me was an oil change every 750 miles and a modicum of care with the throttle whilst the engine was warming up (if you revved the balls off it before the oil circulated you'd knock out the camshaft bearings quicker than a new Triumph twin would start leaking oil at its pushrod tube seals).

Like many of the other sixties Honda twins, the engine was a tough old hunk, whose internal engineering purity was reflected in its external lines - it looked massive, dominated by the DOHC cylinder head. Short of stroke, with valve timing extreme enough to blow air out through the inlet ports when turned over by hand, the engine could run up to 10,500rpm without imploding - you could take it to 12k in the lower gears if you felt like really pushing the mill. Valve bounce eliminated by fitment of torsion bar valve springs operating through rockers mounted on eccentric shafts, with the adjuster's screw and locknut situated on the outside of the cylinder head - would've made setting up the valves a cinch had not Honda demon­strated the precision of their engineering by specifying ex­treme­ly small clearances.

Although rumours abounded concerning the way the torsion bars snapped, this usually only occurred when they were reassembled incorrectly. No, the real weak point was the small end bearing that was part of the non-detachable con-rod. Once this started to wear, the piston could flap about, taking out the rings. Luckily, this needed a combination of high miles and abuse before it occurred.

Spend an afternoon balancing the carbs, setting the ignition timing and valve clearances (all with minimal tools), the engine would tick over between 500 and 600 revs with the kind of quietness that defied expectations of air-cooling and highly tuned motors. The pistons moved out of phase, producing perfect primary balance, a torque reaction along the crankshaft that shook things about at low revs and an off-beat exhaust note that snarled wonderfully above six grand and on the overrun.

43hp at 8500rpm claimed; equated to a top speed of 110mph and fuel consumption of at least 70mpg. What we have here is an engine design so far ahead of its time that it left the Brit's looking like vintage relics, and one, that in terms of overall usability, Honda have still to better over 20 years later!

Between 30 and 90mph, the bike an absolute delight to use - stick it in fourth and growl around or drop it down a gear, really screw it from the power band up to maximum revs. Really was a ball to ride at these speeds. Rather than demanding something back in return from the rider for such a sporting nature, below six grand the CB450 was commendably tractable, climbed steep hills in top gear with just the merest hint of throttle, albeit with little hope of acceleration. Only in town did things become a little nasty, with a clutch that dragged the longer the bike had to suffer the indignity of traffic, the cable needing continual adjustment.

Until the small-end went, the Honda provided years and years of fun at minimal expense and with a degree of style and individuality (well, it was rare and had a weird hump-backed petrol tank) that should've demanded much more than the 160 notes I paid for it back then. Of course, the suspension was horrible but easily modified or replaced, and it was a bit heavy at 410lbs.

Anyway, that engine has to be the classic Honda motor. Its bottom half was scaled down and formed the basis of the late sixties/early seventies 250 and 350 twins, that sold in such vast numbers all around the world. Its DOHC top end gives the precision of a Ducati Desmo head with much simpler maintenance. The combination of the two provided a mix of performance, economy and reliability that, shockingly, has yet to be bettered by any other Japanese twin.

Issue 13 Sept/Oct ’88: Inspired by the launch of a rival magazine…

Were not my blue eyes my best feature (if not my only good characteristic) I would put on some black shades and go a little crazy. As it is, I’ve had to temper my anger by playing an old, scratched copy of Never Mind The Bollocks Here Comes The Sex Pistols at a zillion decibels on my twelve year-old Hi-Fi system far too late in the night (or early in the morning if you insist on preciseness, although if that’s your neurosis I fear you’re reading the wrong magazine) to cover the screams, safe in the knowledge that even if the roof is about to fall off, the walls of this Victorian edifice are sufficiently thick to save me from a visit from underemployed, over-inquisitive social workers.

You have to understand the UMG is a cleverly crafted entity that has been waiting for the recession to happen. Whilst many of its readers are already deep into their own personal recession, the country­ at large is in Boom Time, fuelled by easy money from the rapid rises in house prices (although even an august organ like the Daily Telegraph­ is openly questioning how much longer it can go on – everyone I know seems to want to be a slum landlord and my reply that drug dealing has more morality goes down not at all well), tax rebates and easy living in London. Such boom time has even penetrated the Welsh border and done strange things to the housing market – but that is the least of my worries, although if the next issue of the UMG is published from Merthyr Tydfil you’ll know exactly why!

No, what’s getting me is that the country isn’t yet in ruins, the economy shattered, the pound even weaker, unemployment up to five million, riots in the street (they are still happening, just don’t get reported any more), the police wielding machine guns and… and all those arrogant car drivers reduced to buying secondhand motorcycles, finding out how much fun they can get out of even relatively mundane machinery because they can’t afford to run an auto any more.

The primary effect of the latter, the transport minister wetting himself because there were too many voters to legislate off the road; the secondary effect, the UMG becoming the best selling motorcycle magazine in the country - I’d have enough spare dosh to cruise around on a Honda CBR600 all day and be able to pay the fines for riding helmetless…

Which reminds me, is there actually a whole generation of motorcyclists who have never done 100mph sans helmet? Or even 10mph? It’s a symptom of our society that whilst women are being raped, old ladies mugged and just about everyone robbed (or all three simultaneously if you are born under an unlucky star), the mere act of shooting down the High Street without a helmet will have engines revved, sirens blared and whole squads of pork mobiles screaming up the road after the offending rider.

Rumours have reached my ears that law abiding citizens are so fed up with the burden of stupid laws flung upon their innocent heads that they are getting up at five o’clock in the morning, riding helmetless down country lanes – just for the kicks! The idea of getting up at 5.00am so foreign to my nature that I’ve no intention of checking this out or even trying it.

Crash helmets the only bit of motorcycle clothing that work well without looking absolutely hideous, keeping the head dry and warm even in atrocious conditions – I’d only want to ride helmetless on the odd (very odd) warm and pleasant day. Riding helmetless a very strange experience in itself, the motor sounds like it’s about to explode – its noise doubled – hit anything above 40mph, eyes start to water; wear shades, at 100mph it’s impossible to turn your head without having the glasses snapped off by the gale; look down at the tarmac whizzing away beneath you and the awareness of speed takes on a terrifying aspect, removal from the cosiness of a full-face helmet­ all too apparent, but the sheer exuberance of the act is so much tied up with the basic motorcycle experience that the infliction of the helmet law can only be described as a crime against humanity.

The fact that you or I have to either break the law or go to live in a more civilized (and preferably warmer) country does not do anything for my current mood of disaffection. Having recently had the contents of the UMG described as negative by one rival publisher (a rather strange description given the number of letters I’ve received­ from readers who’ve been inspired to take up or come back to motor­cycling­ by the magazine), I was reminded of various personnel officers­ who took exception to my disinclination for wearing silly things like shirts and ties in favour of the strange necessity of sporting a tatty motorcycle jacket; quite simply, I’m not interested in playing the game!

The current game appears to be pretending that Britain is in a massive boom and the Japanese motorcycle manufacturers are going­ to get rich from selling bikes of quite hideous designs to a bunch of yuppies with more money than sense, Whilst the last few words might be true, the rest is a huge fallacy with no basis in reality. Take away all the government funded industries, which just about takes care of the little that is left of British engineering, and Britain ain’t producing any goods. The frightening prospect of spending my old age dressed up as a Celtic mystic to amuse Japanese tourists looms ever closer… but if the ship is as fragile as glass it hasn’t yet cracked up, and I’m beginning to have serious doubts as to the coming recession – in fact, only pride prevents me throwing in my lot with the optimists, dumping the UMG and starting a new magazine – how about Motorcycle Money Maker? – or merely buying a house or three and waiting for the price to double.

Luckily for UMG fans, if I wanted to die of boredom I would’ve carried on working as an engineer and not inflicted this vicious little periodical upon the world. If all the foregoing is more than a little confused that’s merely because I’m more than a touch puzzled as to just exactly what is going on out there, All my predictions point towards a massive collapse of confidence and everyone around me is running happily to the bank, finance company and general­ loan shark to get all the credit they think they can handle, as if every day has suddenly turned into Christmas. My only consolation, they are not buying new motorcycles!

And in view of all the mindless optimism that’s assailing these weary bones from all directions, I find that more than a little strange. I mean, hell, you can’t even get as crazy as some little rocket-ship like a GSXR750 for much change out of thirty grand in the four wheel game and even adding the cost of some ultra-flash leathers, a crash hat with 40W stereo built-in and an ego-building-course-by-mail would leave some change out of a mere five grand. The kind of dosh some stockbroker would blow on a couple of weeks holiday in the sun. So why aren’t they selling in vast quantities?

Luckily, that isn’t my problem and, save for a lack of used machinery too far in the future to get paranoid over, something over which I have no intention of losing any sleep. Of course, the strangest­ thing about the motorcycle market is that there are so many magazines on the shelves. Whilst rumour holds that at least two of these titles (one relatively new, the other long established) are due to be axed (and may’ve been by the time you read this) the motorcycle magazine market­ has become so strange that anything could happen.

The fact that, if everything has gone according to plan, I’ve just put 60,000 copies of this issue into the newsagents can be taken as an indication that I’ve finally been overtaken by the madness of this publishing game, assailed by a sudden and rare fit of optimism or that the recession is about to happen – the UMG perfectly poised to pick up the suddenly impoverished populace and aid them to a better and more amusing way of life. If Loose Lines has been renamed Letter from Bangkok then you’ll know that something has gone seriously­ wrong. Or to get even more vague, when the going gets crazy, the crazy get even.

Issue 14: Nov/Dec '88: Motorcycle design sucks...

Whatever happened to motorcycle design? Oh yes, I know you can buy some high tech Japanese multi that has been honed to perfection on the computer aided design screen and bungs out enough horsepower per litre to make manufacturers of racing cars plain envious, but how much do you want to bet the design of the resulting motorcycle has been determined by a bevy of production engineers, stylists and marketeers with the real engineers who actually do the work placed in a troubled secondary position where any real innovation will only be incorporated if it's in line with other factors that have little relevance or interest to real motorcyclists?

I, for one, find it inconceivable that some Japanese engineer is going to stick to his guns in the face of corporate orthodoxy in a society governed by such strange mores that disgruntled employees have to spend the early hours battering and screaming at dummies of their bosses, just to get the angst out of their system!

Given an unfortunately intimate knowledge of the British engineering scene, in which disgruntled, underpaid engineers actually sabotaged designs at the drawing board stage, I can only guess from some of the unreliable and ill-conceived designs emanating from Japan that the psychological high of bashing images of the papasan early in the morning is somewhat lacking in effectiveness; and if I know the Asian mind at all well, behind the singing of company songs, et al, there is as much muttering and bitterness as at a British Leyland (or whatever they call themselves, these days) trade union meeting - in Asia, the surface calm has little connection with the inner turmoil.

There is a whole side to motorcycle design that is ignored and little understood, but one that can only work in the context of the whole motorcycle. Yes, I know, things like tyre and chain wear are neither very sexy nor exciting but given a bit of thought and clever engineering they could be improved to such an extent that the first manufacturer to make a radical advance would maybe just sweep the board in a world where many bikes seem interchangeable, save for their names.

There are some small bikes that go through chains and tyres in less than 5000 miles - they are not heavy, nor are they particularly rapid. It follows that the design of the rolling chassis is so terrible that nasty things happen to the consumables - it may just be that their manufacture is so cheap and horrible that nothing lines up once the whole is assembled but this is the modern world and we are talking Japan Inc, so surely things haven't become quite that desperate. And, anyway, the converse is also true, there are some heavy, powerful bikes that have much better chain and tyre life than could logically be expected.

Take chain wear - at least a 21 tooth gearbox sprocket needed for low wear rates and the swinging arm has to be mounted as near as possible to the engine sprocket. The latter suggests swinging arm bearings in the engine casings, whilst the former means a somewhat large redesign of most gearboxes (just try hammering on a 21 tooth sprocket in the small space provided for the usual 15/16 tooth job if you dispute this). The gearbox also has to be strengthened to take the increased load exerted by the larger sprocket.

But that's the easy bit. Just try to work out the relationship between swinging arm length, rear suspension movement and weight distribution with regard to both tyre and chain wear. Within this, the chain itself has to have an optimum strength - excessive build leaving the chain so heavy that it tears itself apart.

Tyre wear even more complex but an area that is actually getting better now that the Japanese have at least conceded that lower mass, stronger frames, better geometry and improved suspension are a more wholesome way of producing decent handling than relying on the grip and strength of the tyre for everything. But there's still a long way to go before wear rates become anywhere near as good as in the auto world. What if, for instance, the forces produced by rising rate rear suspension do nasty things to tyre wear - would you swap comfort for better wear? Reasonable tyre life from a mid-priced tyre should be at least 20,000 miles, if the Jap's applied their mind to the problem - with lighter mass and stiffer frames they're halfway there!

One of the most hideous sights in the world of motorcycle engineering, when some whizzo stylist bungs a drum brake into a cast wheel originally designed for a disc. Advances in pad/shoe materials have surely made the drum brake a viable proposition once again. Designing a cast wheel with a drum brake in mind should produce something that costs no more (and that's before the cost of discs, calipers, etc are taken into account) - by using different lining and shoe materials as well as SLS or TLS designs, different braking forces can be obtained in the same wheel to suit a capacity range from 100 to 500cc. The old problem of drum brakes overheating and distorting overcome by the basic strength of a cast wheel of which the drum is an integral part, whilst the large chunk of alloy gets rid of the heat rapidly. I see no reason why shoe life should be less than 30,000 miles, the whole act maintenance free save for the occasional cable adjustment.

Mention fuel economy of a middleweight bike to some car owner, they will become even more incredulous that anyone would actually forsake the comfort and convenience of some four wheel jalopy - considering that 100mph plus bikes could do 70mpg back in the sixties, an 100mpg average shouldn't be too difficult in this high tech decade - and if that sounds impossible it is only because the Japanese haven't given a damn about economy for the past several decades.

The very things that make, say, a CBR600 so damn powerful - low friction losses, highly efficient valve-gear, air-cheating GRP, etc - could equally make it very economical with a change of emphasis and use of a single carb (which also dumps that time consuming carb balancing, costs less and saves weight).

All the things that help a modern motorcycle to become more user friendly - and just think how easy life would be if maintenance was reduced to just the odd oil change - also reduce the cost of production. Motorcycling is not really about inexpensive commuting, it's really about getting Porsche type kicks on the cheap. And, I doubt very much if the Japanese can conceive that once having achieved correctness in these basics of motorcycle design (which the British manufacturers had sorted twenty years ago), they should combine it with stunning looks.

Issue 15 Jan/Feb ’89: Grabbed by nostalgia…

A funny thing happened to me the other day. Well, okay, it was actually a few months ago that it first occurred, but what the hell, when you’ve actually survived for thirty-odd years a few months seem to be just like yesterday. I was playing at being a pedestrian at the time – you know the kind of thing, dodging rabid Doberman dogs, crazed ex-mental patients and the odd acquaintance who assumes that ownership of a motorcycle magazine equals loadsa­ money equals an easy touch – when I saw the damn thing.

The whole experience really threw me. There I was considering fire-bombing a rival out of business (that’s what comes of hanging out in Bangkok for too long, where the odd grenade thrown into a rival’s emporium is merely a matter of course and a large bribe to the pigs if things go seriously wrong) when I was stopped in my tracks by a Honda CB360G5.

It was in pretty good condition, painted in a shade of green not that dissimilar to the infamous British Racing Green. I’d actually owned one of these devices for a few months. Fifty quid and a deal of white smoke out of the engine breather. Pleasant enough to chuck through traffic; but one dogged by a reputation for eating camshaft bearings in a manner that would’ve made the British motorcycle industry envious had not it been produced at a time when that once great engineering empire was all but extinct – if you were lucky, and had a mild right hand, the camshaft bearings might make it through the warranty; thrashed, only a few thousands miles needed to ruin the cylinder head.

For fifty notes I wasn’t going to complain and dumped the bike at a mild profit on some car owner once I’d become bored with it. At the time, my main machine was a Yamaha XS650 that kept me amused with unpredictable speed wobbles and wondering just when an 80,000 mile engine was going to blow – it never did – so I gave the little Honda hardly a second thought as it came and went.

So how come it caught my attention on that damp and wet Cardiff afternoon? I can only surmise that I was suffering from a surfeit of high tech imagery and the plain simplicity of the little Honda caught my eye. You understand, it didn’t quite match the impression made by a beautiful sixteen year-old Oriental gal but I was unable to dismiss it with my normal contempt for such banal machinery. I mean, hell, the engineering was way inferior to an early sixties CB77 and the street cred of thing only a little ahead of an ancient CZ, but I had to admit it, I actually dug its looks!

Although I will be the first to admit to the possession of some very strange tastes, I thought that this didn’t fully explain the G5 effect. For a while I thought I was turning into a boring old fart, would have to sell the UMG and seek employment with one of the other publishers of motorcycle magazines (such bitchiness, huh?) but further investigation revealed that these mid-seventies twins are taking over the role that British twins use to dominate before they became expensive classic fodder.

Just like when you own a particular machine, I began to notice all sorts of odd machinery chugging (or more usually roaring on open, rusted zorsts) around. Nothing new, of course, I was well aware of it when I started the UMG, but what was different was the type of motorcyclist riding them. These were serious guys; you can always tell real bikers by the ten, twenty, year-old leather jacket. So I wasn’t alone!

In fact, despite my abhorrence of its lack of functional integrity, I also quite liked the looks of the new Honda CD250, formed in that early seventies mould of plain and straightforward engineering – but what a thing to happen to the poor old CD moniker, so long representing sheer functionality that it’s now lumbered with a silly disc front brake (wonder if it will seize up before the disc wears out?).

Like the CB400/4 and XBR500, these devices can only be considered as concept bikes in which an old idea has been greatly corrupted by a bunch of stylists. Those with long memories will recall that I reckoned that Honda would sell a whole lot of CD250’s if they were priced at under a grand – well, that’s optimism for you, you might, if you’re lucky, just get one discounted down to 1600 notes. Only one word for it – pathetic! Japan Inc must be finished if this is the best they can do!

Things began to get rapidly worse. I almost bought a Honda CB500T (a dark brown one with a decent looking 2-1 exhaust…) and then there was the temptation of a Kawasaki Z750 twin, a motorcycle of such awful engineering (yes, I know they are full of torque and laid back to muscle around city streets) that I would have to move to another part of the country had I succumbed. I suddenly found that the Honda CBR600, a machine I’d long lusted after, appeared tacky, already looked out of date; alongside an old Suzuki 450 twin it began to look less and less convincing.

Deciding that a dose of fresh air would clear the mind, I relocated to an obscure seaside town where the local thugs apparently take great delight in beating up people from Cardiff - but a fourteen year-old leather jacket provides a degree of anonymity – the edge of poverty apparent in the number of youths who roar around on old Jap twins. There was no getting away from them!

I was particularly taken by a Honda CB400 Dream. Do you recall them? That dumpy tank and a seat line even more obscure than the CB500T’s (which was bad enough, a sort of Velo cast off gone tragically wrong). And an engine with all the sexiness of a lump of blancmange. I can recall my initial reaction when it was launched, one of near hysterical laughter – it just looked so silly compared to their earlier robust twins, with all the integrity of a motorcycle magazine ad rep. Then. This one missing a silencer, the pipe end welded up, the fumes exiting via the balance pipe to the remaining silencer, but even this seemed to have a certain quaintness.

Salvation almost came in the form of a Harley Sportster. For some reason, as obscure as the house across the road that intermittently has a red light in the window and an open door – very strange places, these Welsh towns – I’ve seen two of these devices chugging happily though the centre of town on a number of occasions; and I want one! Unfortunately, that would mean a visit to the Big Apple, a prospect about as thrilling as finding one’s roof has just fallen off. For all the Harley’s engineering backwardness at least the damn thing has some street cred. But such an easy escape was not to be!

I knew things were becoming seriously desperate when I fell for a Yamaha XS500 twin with aluminum so corroded that the white oxide had turned a dirty brown. Looked so bad that had someone tried to undo a spark plug the cylinder head would’ve probably snapped off before it moved. Much to my dismay, the owner wasn’t interested in selling it, leaving me so dejected that even the smile of the Thai girl who worked in the local Chinese take-away hardly had any effect. Definition of a very sad case, that!

Issue 16 March/April ’89: The strange charms of Thai hills...

Chiang Mai located amusingly close to the Golden Triangle, and, I suppose, not so surprisingly, doesn’t share the widespread poverty of most cities outside of Bangkok. This is Thailand with a difference. Bangkok having reached a climax of tourist popularity, no place for a wise lad to hang out, these days, so my winter sojourn was spent up-country where the scenery’s strange but strangely familiar. This I can’t explain but what the hell. Chiang Mai is supposed to be cooler than Bangkok but day time temperatures seem no less immoderate and can only be described as ace biking weather. A taxation policy that cruelly taxes large and powerful bikes means most of the populace rides around on sub 125cc motorcycles, with the odd drug dealer cutting a dash on a GSXR11. The most popular bike, the Honda scooterrette, at least half of the riders girls.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that most of the dubious bars have all but been closed down (they’re still open but...) by the influx of AIDS infected tourists and most of the discos that look vaguely safe to enter are mostly populated by huge Thai ladyboys whom you have to repel very gently as they usually keep going on a mixture of too much alcohol and too much speed and tend to slap a broken glass into the face of farangs who show a lack of respect – as happened to a hapless (and somewhat faceless) Australian.

Which reminds me of the story of the Oz tourist who in a Chiang Mai brothel couldn’t persuade a girl to depart with him and in frustration tore a 500 baht note in half – the police called (despite the fact that prostitution and brothels are illegal), he was arrested and sentenced to six months imprisonment – because when he tore the note in half he also tore the head of the Thai king in half! Playing God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols not recommended...

Okay, I know this is a motorcycle magazine but you can get to Thailand for less than 350 notes return, it costs next to nothing to live there and it’s a hell of a lot more fun to spend some of the winter in the sun (remember that, sunshine every day) and actually scoot around without a helmet, wind in your hair, a pair of shades and nary a care in the world.

The in thing in Chiang Mai is to go trail riding up in the mountains. I viewed this with a deal of suspicion, but then that’s the way I view most things. As long as you can keep it under some kind of reasonable amount of control, paranoia a useful bedfellow. For reasons that totally escape my comprehension, I have a great deal of trouble getting through customs without a major interrogation and I figured that riding around the Golden Triangle would immediately attract the Thai police, the CIA and anyone else looking for an easy arrest. But that was a minor problem compared with the fact that Thai bandits shoot tourists (and a jolly good thing, too, far too many foreigners around here) at worst or merely rob them, strip them naked and send ’em back.

I was told by one veteran that most of the routes were well marked and it was actually quite hard to get lost. Having taken a trip in a jeep to some remote village (so remote that they imported artefacts from Bangkok to sell to the gullible) where I was immediately assailed by people trying to sell me opium and young kids demanding one baht each, I found the route had managed to include sheer drops, slippery mud and fallen trees. It had felt distinctly unsafe in a four wheel drive jeep; on a standard issue Honda 125 trailster (no, not the XL but some distinctly peaky watercooled stroker mean machine) it would have been near suicidal – but then my idea of trail riding is a temporary excursion off the tarmac on to the grass verge to avoid some moron in an auto who’s done something extremely stupid; and that taste of dirt was usually so frightening that I’d had little inclination to indulge in the real thing. Actually going out of my way to get covered in mud, soaked and break a few bones wasn’t exactly my idea of passing time in an amusing manner.

But Thai beer is weird stuff. You can drink six glasses of the brew, feel no effect, then suddenly the room’s whirling around and it gets kind of awkward to walk. Before I could make it to the toilet to spew up the brew, it seems I’d agreed to go trail riding the next day.

The first I knew of this was when I heard a hammering on the door of my apartment at six the next morning. That kind of thing after too much beer leads to maximum paranoia and it was only when considering dropping a few storeys to escape what I had assumed was someone out for my blood that I saw the yellow Honda and realised what had happened. Or sort of. Any vaguely civilized person would’ve gone away after a few gentle knocks, this chap appeared to be trying to buckle the door out of its frame.

F..king Americans, I thought but didn’t utter as he was twice my weight. He was about forty but had the open face of a baby. He was actually a doctor but dissatisfied with gaining skills that would have exhausted most sane people he insisted on racing motorcycles and going trail riding in dangerous mountains. Before I could talk my way out of it, almost before I was fully dressed even, I was on the back of his bike, rushing through the early morning traffic. And that was bad enough. The stroker engine made an incredibly nasty noise that was close to splitting my head in half and I hate riding pillion; had not the Thais tended to execute murderers and had not strangulation of the pilot resulted in loss of my own blood when the bike crashed, I might well have sent the American on to a better life in the next world...

“Make a good story for your magazine,” he said, when we arrived at his residence, a quite large teak house littered with expensive and exotic motorcycles. At least that was what I guessed he said, as my head was still ringing from the open exhaust. I cursed the universality of motorcycling that had led me into all this – you know, mention that you’re into bikes to a fellow enthusiast wherever they come from and a whole evening has disappeared in tall tales and unlikely stories before you’ve realised what’s happened... I didn’t get where I was today by giving into childish Americans and it took only a few moments reflection to realise I had to knobble one of the Honda trail bikes.

This proved suspiciously easy as a non-standard coil on one of the Hondas had been slung under the petrol tank. Whilst the good Doctor was inside the house sorting out some provisions, I swapped over the low tension coil leads, sporting an ill-concealed grin.

This soon disappeared when the damn thing started up first kick. I began to wish I’d taken out some health insurance. Falling back on Plan Two, I revved the balls off the spare bike, secure in the knowledge gained from a youth misspent thrashing an NSU Quickly, that these highly tuned two-strokes wouldn’t last the distance once given a bit of stick (cue for 60,000 miler RD400 owners to write in or tear up the mag in disgust). Then it dawned on me, that given the totally unpredictable nature of such motors, it could just as easily fail at an inappropriate moment halfway up a mountain.

Full of visions of the Fowler frame doing cartwheels down a Thai mountainside, I gently rushed the Honda through the box with the merest hint of throttle. Plan Three was the easy way out. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it before. As soon as the American got far enough ahead, I’d turn off and rush away in the opposite direction. What could be simpler?

Fortunately, Plan One came into play before I had to risk retribution for my apparent attempt at stealing the Honda. The bike spluttered to a halt, like it had run out of fuel. The owner came rushing back up the road, did the kind of back wheel skid that had the local cockroaches running for cover. He gave me a funny look and spent the next half hour trying to kick it into life. No luck. I tried to hide the smile but it went away all of its own accord when he suggested leaving the dead bike there and taking me on the pillion...

Issue 17 May/June ’89: The joys of motorcycle magazine publishing...

Of course, it’s really all the fault of Mark Williams. For had not the creator of Bike magazine, in one of his more informative Running Out of Road columns, actually revealed just how easy it was to throw together a bike magazine, then the idea that I should consider publishing a motorcycle periodical would probably have never set in the Fowler brain. The fact that it took a mere ten years or so from reading that column to actually launching the UMG on a bored motorcycle populace, with newsagents shelves relatively free of bike magazines, lessens the irony of the current situation not one jot.

In 1989, I can happily reveal, it’s even easier to publish a magazine than back in the seventies. At least it would be were there not so many of the damn things already on the shelves. I must admit to initially sharing the apparent hysteria of other publishers as each new title hit the bookshelves, but not having paid a six figure sum to get in the game in the first place, and finding that the UMG’s sales continue to rise despite predictions of its imminent demise, I can now happily shrug off the usual paranoia and impart some pearls of wisdom gained from three years at the sharp end of the publishing game. Or not - as I’ve as yet no idea of what the next paragraph will contain.

The starting point is to find an angle in a market already bloated by an excess of motorcycles magazines. Fortunately, many of these mag’s are much or a muchness and there are at least three distinct gaps available. As I’m sure as a reader of the UMG you possess the intelligence to work these out for yourself, I won’t expand upon them. After all, large publishing companies spend huge amounts of money doing market research trying to find new ideas. Of course, if you desperately want the benefit of the Fowler brain, a check with a five figure sum (that’s $10,000 not $100.01, kids) will elicit my latest hot-shot concept of a glossy motorcycle magazine.

After the angle you need the money. If you have an expensive suit, a con man’s smile and a suitable line of patter, then you just might convince a printer absolutely desperate for work to give you a month’s credit. You understand, this is highly unlikely but not completely impossible, as printers are not sympathetic to actually taking risks. If you have a house with a net value of about four times the money you want to borrow, the bank will probably advance you the dosh but will wait like vultures for something to go wrong so that they can repossess your residence.

Not having worn a suit for about ten years, having teeth under constant supervision of my dentist and an ability to write much better than I speak, I actually had to pay upfront to the printers - to be fair, they’ve always been very helpful given my total ignorance of the printing trade. Remember, if everything goes wrong, the money can be set against past tax paid, so partially recovered.

Depending on the type and quantity of the magazine, basic printing costs will be anywhere between five and twenty grand. If you publish any more frequently than bimonthly then you’ll have to find two or three times that to cover cash flow over the first few issues. If you can find a distributor who will pay you some money after the first month and a printer to give you credit for a month, and sell a large percentage of the first issue very quickly, then you can get away with launching a magazine on a few hundred quid!

The other side of that coin is that for a bimonthly magazine you won’t know how many copies you’ve actually sold for four to five months; thus after printing three issues of the magazine you might find you’ve been selling insufficient to pay your printer, let alone make enough profit to zoom around on a Bimota.

You’ll just print a first issue to see how it goes? As one recent magazine found out, a first issue may sell sixty percent but the next one could just as easily do forty percent. And the distributors won’t give you such a high cut of the cover price for a one off... and by the time you get around to the second issue, some large publishing company will have probably ripped off the idea something rotten. So, forget that, if you can’t take the heat for three to four issues, you may as well stick to falling off your RD.

Naturally, the cost of producing a motorcycle magazine extends far beyond the mere(!) cost of printing the damn thing. If you don’t have any money, all you have to do is write, edit, typeset, layout, design, photograph and generally tear your hair out for the first few issues. The more friends that you can blind with images of instant fame, get them to do some of the work, the better; but most of it will be down to you as few will believe that you’ve suddenly transformed yourself into a motorcycle magazine publisher.

One advantage that you have straight away (and it’s one of the few so hold on to it) is that magazines can be produced on your kitchen table, however basic or glossy they end up after being printed. It’s not even necessary to have a telephone (don’t ask me how I know) or a fixed address (though probably desirable if you’re trying to raise credit) - your basic overheads are zero.

There are plenty of books in the local library that will inform on magazine production. Read them and then forget most of it. Most of the technical side will be done by the printer. The late eighties remarkable for the number of computer systems that will take all the hard work out of the process and save vast amounts of money in typesetting costs. If you can’t type you’ve got problems, if you can’t type, edit and amuse yourself at the same time, it’ll take an age to produce one let alone six or twelve mag’s a year.

Colour printing relatively expensive but the front cover will need it at the very least - the more basic the magazine the more difficult it is to persuade newsagents to take it. The glossier the mag the more that have to be sold to break even. UK mags selling between 15000 and 70000 copies an issue - a huge margin for both error and profit.

Seasonal fluctuation, the attractiveness of the contents and relevance of the competition will give any single issue the ability to sell plus or minus 5000 copies around its yearly average. No sooner do you think you’ve cracked the market than the next issue shows a serious fall in sales for no logical reason. Start with a low print run to limit the risk, it’ll take five years or more to build up to a high level of sales. Start with a huge print run, the cost’s prohibitive and it’s a fast way to go bankrupt. Such a huge number of variables in producing any one magazine that it’s quite amazing that there are so many on the market - though many take the easy route by copying each other.

And that’s where you and I have the edge... the UMG merely the kind of magazine that I would like to read. Fortunately, 1000’s of other motorcyclists enjoy reading it as well. Most publishers and editors far removed from the everyday reality of motorcycling, their ideas having no base would fail rapidly were they not backed by a corporate structure - you of course are in there in the thick of it, all you have to do is translate your idea of what a magazine should be into hard print - and hope like a hell that enough people agree!