Let’s just go back to basics for a few moments. A motorcycle consists of… an engine, plus somewhere to keep fuel, a frame, two wheels with suspension, a seat, a handlebar and the necessary controls including some kind of brake.
Oh, okay, maybethreewheels. That accommodates the trike in the picture, one of the very earliest De Dion Bouton trikes. It might not look like much, but its engine powered an outstanding number of motorcycles built by other manufacturers all over the world. It probably has more responsibility for popularizing motorcycling than any other bike.
Now let’s flash forward to the present. Nowadays, a motorcycle consists of the above plus some highly desirable additions: a gearbox, mudguards and lights. But that is not all. It also has… what do you call these bits of plastic that jut out at the front? And the ones that disguise the side of the machine, and hide the engine? And that outré construction, whatever you call it, that extends and disfigures the rear? Why is the tank that odd mushroom shape? Or, on that other motorcycle, why does it sweep down to disguise the tank’s and generally the motorcycle’s shape?
Yes, I understand that some of that helps with the aerodynamics. But does it have to look like a deformed alligator, or a crippled Transformer? How do those… excrescences on what might be a fairing if it actually protected the rider from the wind, help with the machine’s purpose? Is that bulge above the headlight really a radar set? Seriously?
Meanwhile, this other expensive-looking binnacle above the headlight (or not, it’s difficult to tell where the headlight is) shows all sorts of things in full, living color. Why? Why do we need anything other than a display with maximum visibility (black on white is always good) that tells us how fast the engine is turning and how fast the motorcycle is proceeding down the road? Surely that is all that any rider would actually need?
“Why is that man taking an engraving of us?”– “Probably because our motorcycle is so beautifully simple!” — “Or perhaps because of our matching pullovers.”
Let us not even look at some of the instruments and systems displayed on that binnacle. Or let’s; it provides another opportunity to be gobsmacked by the excess. Anti-lock braking? Traction and cruise controls? The abovementioned radar? A fuel gauge? Really? What’s wrong with a reserve tap? Why would you bother with a clock? The last thing I would be interested in on a ride is the time. I ride to get away from clocks. On it goes, and on and on. Look, here is a gear indicator. A rider who doesn’t know what gear he is in doesn’t deserve a motorcycle.
Eventually it reaches such absurdities as collision avoidance systems. Any rider worth her salt will already have collision avoidance: in her head, using her eyes, her reflexes and her brain.
Oh, over here is a touring motorcycle. It has enough wind protection to make you feel as if you are in your living room, watching the road on a TV screen. Well, in truth of course even your living room does not have heated couch seats. On top of that… but I won’t go on. The absurdity of turning a motorcycle into a two-wheeled convertible motor car is all too obvious. To me, anyway.
Along with radar, the innovation that staggers me more than any other is the automatic transmission. Surely, one of the greatest joys of riding a motorcycle is the opportunity to shift gears, keeping the engine in the fat part of its power band and anticipating the work it will have to do in the next minute or two, helping it to maximize its performance and (just incidentally) making that joyful noise that separates it from more overly complex vehicles.
Just what do all of these things add to the experience of riding a motorcycle? Note that we say ‘riding’ a motorcycle, like riding a horse. Not driving, like driving a wagon. The word, all by itself, carries some of the pleasure we find in controlling a machine that calls for all of our attention and all of our skill if we are to make the most of it. The plethora of odd and painful innovations I have listed, plus so many more that I have not, aim to strip the experience of that pleasure.
Let us, as I requested at the beginning of this diatribe, go back to basics. An engine plus somewhere to keep fuel, a frame, two wheels with suspension, a seat, a handlebar and the necessary controls including some kind of brake. Yes, add a gearbox, mudguards and lights by all means. But then stop.
“If you overdo something it becomes less valuable and it quickly turns from success into failure,” says Bruno Marchevsky. He’s an engineer, and he’s not suckin’ diesel!
