All too often, bikers are faced by the question of what to do when there's more than two. What if you've got a family or a harem to look after? You'll want to spend time with your child/pet/father/love slave, but you also want to go for a ride. How do you attain a happy medium?
Well, back in 1976, Sandy Miller came up with a novel answer to that question: he ordered a three-seater trike with a trunk, speakers, and a tape deck, hauled by a typical (for the time) raked chopper. This was the first page I saw when I flipped open the November '76 issue of STREET CHOPPER, and it is possible that the image of the trike with its trunk roomy enough for cases of "bikers' brew" will remain burned into my mind forever.
As a side note, trikes may not have been the official theme of the issue, but they were certainly being pushed hard by advertising-ads for two trikes are within three pages of each other.
I've noticed something about these old issues: they're lacking in tech sheets. Information about the engine, frame, and accessories has to be crammed into the body of the text (if the bike's lucky enough to get it) or the captions. Such is the case of "The Stork," a two-page feature sandwiched between the Bendix Rebuild and Prince Products' "Filter in a Bag." The Stork, built by someone or someones called "The Raja," (Roger Casanno, I'm told) was named because of the 40-inch over stock girder frontend. The head-on shot of this bike is pretty damned impressive, and I say that even after seeing last month's great article on Sugar Bear and his frontends.
Dain Gingerelli showed us how to pick out a custom fairing for our bikes, in particular the "quarter fairing" used for street bikes. It's not so large that it detracts from the look of the bike, but it does cut down on the whole windchill factor. He even showed us how to put one on, and after looking at the Honda he's outfitting, I can't imagine the thing without a fairing.
Dain also covered the Laguna Seca races, a two-day event that drew a great number of West Coast riders. The pictures here are an interesting mix of bikes, some obviously vintaged, others that could pass on today's racetracks in appearance, if not engine power. Laguna Seca Raceway could probably be described as "challenging" (and I say that favorably), as one part of it, a corkscrew, has "taken its toll of broken machinery and bones. Yvon du Hamel, rider for Kawasaki, seems to crash there every year..."
At long last, it was time for the comic adventure of Bob Clark and his bike at Sturgis. Four bikers haul ass into Deadwood, thinking, "Am I ever hungry! Am I ever thirsty! I need a drink! Is it Everclear?!" And to be honest, folks, I really don't think they were talking about the band.Deadwood-that outlaw town made famous once again on HBO-was home to the chopped segment of the Black Hills Rally, a lot of booze, and "friendly little grudge races" settled out on the street in true outlaw fashion.
And so our column comes to an end. Change is afoot here at STC Headquarters; from a new mother company to newly tweaked layouts. Wherever you are (unless you're on a bike), why not grab a beer and enjoy the end of fall?
After all, as the comic dutifully points out, it's five o'clock somewhere.