A Key West Cafe Racer

Last Wednesday was British Motorcycles in Key West Day. I finally got to ride with Chuck while he was blatting through town on his BSA 650.It's a work in progress and not quite ready to take to Highway One but it looked and sounded lovely riding around town. Those were the days when motorcycles were much more spare and essential than today. We took off riding without cell phones or GPS and amazingly enough we not only arrived, frequently but we had fun traveling hopefully too.Facing facts: Chuck is an engineer by trade and loves messing around with machinery so he's just the man to won and maintain a forty year old motorcycle that needs rather more attention than my 40 year old twin. Chuck has the BSA nicely tuned too, nicely enough he could start it barefoot:I took off down Frances Street and let Chuck pass me, looking good, on our way to lunch.The Beeza sounded like a million dollars with pretty much open pipes and a firm hand on the throttle. Chuck grinned at me later and said he spotted a neighbor looking rather old fashioned at him. "Middle aged hooligan!" he referred to himself cheerfully. Following Chuck I got occasional whiffs of burnt engine oil from the right cylinder but it was impressive to see how easily he could change gears in flip flops on the elderly gear box and how smoothly the bike took the turns in town, no popping or back firing or hesitation.It is a much finer way to get around Key West than on some anonymous scooter. And you tend to make friends as you go. Here Chuck got a copy of Motorcycle Classic slipped surreptitiously to him with a BSA featured on the cover.
Chuck is always trying to palm off old finds on me but my wife has a one motorcycle rule which is fair enough. Otherwise I wouldn't mind at all having a second machine under the house, an old Moto Guzzi perhaps and riding that around town I too might be seen grinning like this: In a world filled with unnecessary complication the BSA is the perfect antidote. Get on and ride and damn the electrons!

Vignettes XLI

We end the year with a photo of two brave souls on their vacation in Key West. Len and Heidi from Wassau Wisconsin came to town for a week to enjoy the sun and get away from their restaurant business for one short week.

We had lunch at Salute at Higgs Beach, fish on salad, one of my favorite Key West dishes and hard to screw up. It was a lovely summer day with a hint of outdoor air conditioning. We talked about life Up North in a small town versus life Down Here in a small town. We talked about the economy and how things aren't doing so well Up North but still seem okay Down Here. Len was amazed particularly by how busy local restaurants are.One has to wonder what the New Year will bring and the prognostications are nothing good for a lot of people. Unemployment is not going to going down they say, and Canada's economic bubble is supposed to burst any time now. All of which could mean fewer tourists for our visitor dependent economy. Yet Key West still has the weather and the ocean that it has always had and compared to the last Great Depression when the city went bankrupt this time around Key West seems quite strong economically speaking.Property values are dropping and will likely go lower but taxes are not, as a result dropping. By some mechanism that I can't quite grasp the State of Florida wrote a law to protect homeowners against rapidly rising housing costs such that if property values were to drop taxes wouldn't. It seemed an unlikely proposition a few years ago but the mechanism is keeping local government funded for the moment. Florida has no personal income tax and property taxes are the lifeblood of local government. No doubt the drive to wreck government at all levels will drive change on this as well. And with hundreds of foreclosures across the county property values even here will presumably have to continue falling which will put pressure on taxes.

Still, the sun continues to shine as freezing weather does it's worst Up North. The sun was shining on this astonishing offering at the Yamaha shop on North Roosevelt. I wonder where they found this lovely BSA 441 Super Victor An unwanted Christmas present perhaps? I wonder what my wife would say were I to ride this home in the New Year... With all the gloomy economic news I feel really lucky to be in a place where I enjoy living with a job I like and friends I like all at the same time. It has been rare for me to be so content in my very travelled life. My dog is really cool, my motorcycle is probably the best I have ever owned and I am still enjoying taking pictures and throwing them up here for people, 600 or more of you each day, to look at. Requests are always welcome by the way. On the subject of friends, Wayne and Chuck and I were out walking Sugarloaf Loop and Wayne burst out laughing when he saw this graffito:"I hope that doesn't sum up 2011!" was the thought as we walked by.

Nostalgia Machines

On a weather note, winter appears to be over for the time being and Fall has returned once more. Yesterday we had a delightful day of warm sun, very little breeze and zero humidity. My wife and I took Cheyenne on a walk around Old Town and the weather was about perfect. My apologies to the dog walker who correctly identified me as the blogger with the pink Crocs (even though I was wearing black shoes on my way to work) and who very kindly said hello to Cheyenne. I never quite know what to say in these encounters, but I hope I wasn't as big a dolt as I felt I was. I am looking forward to more of these warmer days to compensate us for more of those cold weather surprises in the New Year.

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I stopped off at the First State Bank on Simonton Street and as I walked back to the car from the automated teller machine I saw this interesting arrangement on a Kymco scooter. I expect the owner needs to use a floor mounted basket but it seems very odd to me. One of the big advantages of scooters is that the floor space is open which makes for easy access and a comfortable space to put your feet. And now there's a basket strapped down there. Whatever works.

Chuck has lined up his three classic motorcycles in front of his house, one looking better than the next. It's obviously a BSA and I think it's an A65 single carb 650cc from the early 60's and Chuck got in exchange for a favor. Right now that looks like a deal but at the time it was running and I think it qualified as a "barn find" as motorcycle enthusiasts call them. I think it's fabulous.This is the kind of bike I think about when I sit astride my own 2007 Bonneville and to see Chuck's looking so original gives me goosebumps. Birmingham Small Arms was a company that grew out of making weapons (as the name implies!) and it went through a number of hands until close to the end when it became part of the Triumph group which subsequently incorporated Norton as well- Norton Villiers Triumph, or NVT. Production at BSA peaked in the 1950s with 75,000 machines built each year.It's all arguable, and people do argue about these bikes even though the last BSA was built in 1973, but BSAs were frequently regarded as better machines than the sportier Triumphs. BSAs were solid and dependable which is funny because by the end Triumphs and BSAs were essetnially using the same engines with different names.
The front of Chuck's house is starting to look like a corner of the Barber Museum with it's line up of old bikes. This Sportster started the parade and Chuck says it is his highway ride for those out of town trips that refresh the soul. The engineer in him never stops making thing s just so but apparently the Sportster is now a reliable daily rider. But this? This Puch 250 twin is a gem.Another of those crazy barn finds, everything is original and perfect and frankly, beyond belief. This speedometer has the original break in recommended limits. The key is made in Italy, of the straight nail type so popular in my youth.
This is another of those strange American anomalies when big US department stores (!) would sell European bikes under their own brand names. Technically this is a Sears. However it has peculiar technology all made by Puch, the Austrian motorcycle innovators. Sears sold the SGS 250 as the "Twingle" and odd name for a unique engine type pioneered in Europe. The two stroke cylinder fed by an offset carburettor is actually a sort of single with two pistons and two spark plugs in this configuration, diagram courtesy of Wikipedia.
The twingle was supposed to be relatively economical on gas and dead reliable. This one has a carburettor feeding the side of the crankcase:
The details on these bikes is amazing, a little wind deflector for the carburettor, tank knee pads... ...a fully enclosed chain... ...and not one logo...

...but two:

The cylinder is a work of art with the fins drawn back in a sort of elegant semi oval shape.

These are the shapes of motorcycles that appeal to me, curves and not angles.

Everything is on display.Two kicks and the twingle putters to life with a perfect idle.And off he goes down the street. The perfect around town ride Chuck says.

The Puch/Sears is good for 70 mph but apparently that's not a happy speed for a motorcycle almost as old as I am. No wonder really. 35 to 40 miles per hour is the comfort zone. Then there is the big bad BSA, no gentle puttering of the two stroke, no slight puff of white smoke here.However this one too starts on the second kick. A well tuned bike as it takes but a pair of......sandals.That big bad twin used to have straight pipes when Chuck got it. The lightly baffled mufflers sounded excellent, far louder than my Bonneville, but Mrs Chuck wasn't as excited as the boys...Look at that exhaust note!

I hope Chuck doesn't let his offspring loose on these wonders the way he did on his bike. Nice paint job.

Not suitable though for a proper Beezer.