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Post by oldchopperguy on May 25, 2014 3:07:11 GMT -5
I came across an old print ad on eBay for the basis of my street-licensed GO KART SRCAMBLER mini-bike. It prompted me to run a for-fun one-time pole as to just WHICH was more macho in 1962? My "animal" chopper "OLE BLUE" or my "animal" mini-bike, the "THERMO-NUCLEAR SUPPOSITORY"...
Now THIS is NOT a "no-brainer"... Read the copy before choosing... LOL!
The chopper is pretty self-explanatory... Hand-built Harley motor, about 2,300 cc with 250+ hp @ 3,300 rpm. Verified top-speed of 142 mph. Best quarter-mile time, Oswego Dragway, 1962: 10: @ 136 mph (my 76-pound gal-friend, Janice, the Flying Squirrel aboard, sans helmet and most clothing...) Bad-to-the-bone, with a thunder from her "shotgun" straight-pipes that broke the neighbors' living room windows...
The mini-bike is more complex... about 225 cc (punched-out McCulloch MC-101B 2-stroke kart motor) with 40+ hp @ 22,000 rpm. Best quarter-mile time, Oswego Dragway, 1962: 12:50 @ 102 mph (my 375 pound butt aboard). Pure EVIL, with a high-pitched banshee screaming exhaust that broke the same neighbors' windows again... Same year... HeHeHe... I DID apologize and replace the windows both times... LOL!
Now, to get "Ole Blue" going, all I had to do was twist her ear and hang on. However, the mini-bike required a "specific" launch to avoid a backwards cartwheel... I would put a foot on the back axle, free-fall forward and when my nose was a foot from impacting the concrete in front of the front wheel, I'd go WOT... The rear wheel would instantly hit about 150 mph wheel-speed and in 2 seconds, emerging from an acrid cloud of burning rubber from the "Not for HIGHWAY USE" hand-cart tire, I was hitting over 60, and slammed back onto the "proper" seating position, and in another few seconds, the little 5-inch wheels on a 3-foot wheelbase, were turning over 100 mph.
Just "why" one might ask did my lovely and daring "Flying Squirrel" not run the mini at the strip? She said she was insane, but had NO death-wish! What a shame... I do believe with her petite pelt aboard, the mini-bike might just have broken into the NINES!!!
The mini got her name from a decal I had made up on the gas tank... It read: "THERMO-NUCLEAR SUPPOSITORY... Instructions: 1. Start engine. 2. Insert vehicle rectally. 3. Open throttle. 4. Kiss your butt goodbye!
The only difference between the mini in the ad, and mine, was headlight, tail-light and of course, the BIG MAC engine. For the record, the Max-Torque centrifugal clutch engaged at 8,000 rpm. And you have NOT lived until you've "done the dime" with NO gears or CVT tranny...100+ with RPM'S ONLY!
So there you have it, boyz and girlz... It's 1962, I'm SIXTEEN and just WHICH ride IS more macho?
Enquiring minds want to know!
Ride safe... at least, safer than these!
Leo in Texas
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Post by ramblinman on May 25, 2014 3:24:54 GMT -5
when i read the choices, i thought "really... really Leo?" such an easy choice, ldo. but then i read your stories, oh my! leaning towards the mini-bike after reading. need a big set of nuts to ride that thing so it's gotta be more macho, no?
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Post by oldchopperguy on May 25, 2014 3:47:16 GMT -5
when i read the choices, i thought "really... really Leo?" such an easy choice, ldo. but then i read your stories, oh my! leaning towards the mini-bike after reading. need a big set of nuts to ride that thing so it's gotta be more macho, no? I once broke my hand just STARTING that beast! Oh, how I loved that chopper! But, the mini-bike was THE nastiest ride I ever took down the freeway! From zero to sixty it would be a match for a modern crotch-rocket!!! But HANDY! I could ride it to the train, carry it on-board and have transportation when I got to downtown Chicago. No parking problems, just carry it inside where I was going to school. I could go to a ballgame and bring it in and sit on it when there was standing-room only... And still run with the 80 mph freeway traffic! At my size, all you could see was ME going down the road... Wish I had pictures! Noisy little booger! Ride safe, Leo |
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Post by flyangler on May 25, 2014 5:49:31 GMT -5
I'll vote the Mini, although that could change on further reflection . Pretty scary rides.  |
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Post by spandi on May 25, 2014 7:48:07 GMT -5
102 mph on a mini bike, ARE YOU KIDDING? INSANE! (Gotta love that Big Daddy Roth "Rat Fink" mini bike!) But I voted for "Ole Blue" anyways.  |
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Post by oldchopperguy on May 25, 2014 14:54:50 GMT -5
It's a hoot, but I built and rode both bikes and I can't even decide myself which is "more macho"... LOL!
I guess it boils down to the basics that the chopper was arguably the most macho ride... BUT... riding the mini-bike was arguably the most macho activity. Which makes it about a wash. "Even money".
Digging through the old memory bank really stirred up some long-forgotten recollections of good times past. I hadn't thought about that insane mini-bike in fifty years. Then I found that ad on eBay. The memories come flooding back... The incredible irresponsibility of youth, the almost uncontrollable mini-bike that I got street-licensed through a loophole in the sixties Illinois licensing laws, and the old chopped hog. I put nearly half a million miles on "Ole Blue" and built and re-built her three times! I spent the equivalent price of FOUR new 1960's houses on that monster! And made the bulk of that money street-racing the old gal.
Back then, no insurance, no helmets, no mufflers, no inspections... U-build it, U-ride it... We put kart motors on Schwinn/Whizzer frames and went near 100 on bicycles. (Heck, downhill mountain bike racers go WELL over 100 mph on bicycles today!) Now THAT is MACHO!
We chopped anything that resembled a "motorcycle"... No dope, no booze, no satanic video games... We just had all-American fun on wheels. Dangerous? Oh yeah, but not nearly as dangerous as the stuff kids do today.
Most of us survived to make it to old age, and many, like me, now enjoy life on two wheels on safe, sedate and plain-vanilla motor-scooters. They really are the perfect choice for us aging bandits... LOL! With SCOOTERS you don't need to remember to shift gears... You don't need to remember how to get your arthritic bones over the seat... You don't even need to remember whether it's your FOOT or your HAND that applies your brakes of choice... Now, if I could just remember to put my feet down when I stop at a red-light... Oh, yeah, AND remember where I parked the scoot... LOL!
Most scooters are not exactly "fire-breathing-macho" but they sure are fun! Maybe, just MAYBE as much fun as the crazy stuff we built in those "Leave it to Beaver" days gone by. Nah... but ALMOST!
Make some 2-wheel memories today... They are a LOT of fun to look back on a half-century down the road!
 <------ Me, on "Minnie Mouse" heading to Wally World for cat litter... Even at 80 mph, most definitely Not very macho... LOL!
Ride safe,
Leo
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Post by earlylight160 on May 26, 2014 6:14:30 GMT -5
That mini kinda gives a new meaning to the word suppository. *LOL*
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Post by oldchopperguy on May 26, 2014 13:04:11 GMT -5
That mini kinda gives a new meaning to the word suppository. *LOL*
It REALLY does... LOL!
Few people younger than 65 have any knowledge or memory of just what the 1960's 2-stroke kart motors were REALLY capable of. Apples-to-apples, cc's to cc's, they may have been even more "over-the-top" than today's crotch-rocket engines... A little 8-pound magnesium engine of 200cc or so, which you could hold in one hand, and pumping out 25 to 50 hp at rpm's up to 30,000 or so... A trio of them would push a go-kart to 200+ mph on a track!
And ONE of them was enough to push a mini-bike to "warp-nine"... Beam me up, Scotty, these kart-guys are NUTZ!...
Just once in a great while, the old-school stuff was a one-time thrill, which, by common sense, was never to be duplicated again!
Ride it like ya' stole it...
Leo
PS: One of the old "Frankie and Annette" Beach-Party movies near the end, featured Harvey Lembeck (as "Eric Von Zipper") making his escape on a twin-engine sixties' kart... If you happen to catch that movie, it gives just an inkling into the INSANE performance they had. That kart had two fairly mundane motors (I can't recall if they were McCullochs or West Bends) but Von Zipper's shenanigans on-film briefly show the effortless "donuts" on asphalt, and the jackrabbit acceleration to 50 or so that even a modest kart of the era could churn up! Worth suffering through the whole movie to see!
If a modern-day little nipper EVER got hold of one of those toys, he'd NEVER settle for video games again... and if somehow, somebody EVER started making them again, you couldn't keep them in stock! The adrenalin rush is IRRESISTIBLE... LOL!
At least as of a few years ago, Chrysler was STILL making the West Bend Power-Bee 820 kart motor, for use on railroad track-maintenance machines. With diligent searching, you MIGHT find one NOS... Hmmm... While not a 40 hp McCulloch, at 8.2 cid and from 8hp up to 20+hp depending on how it's set up, you could STILL have a LOT of nasty and purely dangerous fun with one!
Or two... On SOMETHING small... |
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@ 136 mph (my 76-pound gal-friend, Janice, the Flying Squirrel aboard, sans helmet and most clothing...) Bad-to-the-bone, with a thunder from her "shotgun" straight-pipes that broke the neighbors' living room windows...
