[Ducati] Confessions (part 2)

[Ronald Betts]

Great stuff Ted. Really brings back those memories.  I havent heard of the 
Bultaco Lobito 100 in years. A friend of mine had one and it was a real 
bitch. I watched him try to start the little bear one day and it went 
something like this. Open the fuel cock and push the tickler on the carb 
untill it spilled gas on the engine case. Standing on the left side of the 
bike , That's where the kick starter was,bars in hand,he jumps on the 
starterlever and the thing lets out a very large backfire and shoves his 
knee into the underside of the handlebar. OK, it's running, right? He swings 
his injured leg over the bike, sits down, pulls in the clutch, kicks it into 
first gear, revs her up and hammers the clutch. Theing takes off in 
reverse,yes two strokes are stupid and will run in either direction 
depending on ignition timing,and promptly smashes his boys on the gas tank.I 
pushed the bike home for him that day as I sure as hell wasnt going to ride 
the wicked little spanish torture machine. Funny thing was a year later I 
had a Pursang for the district 38 Hare and Hounds in the deserts around 
Adelanto CA and an Astro for saturday nights at Ascot Park. Sure wish I had 
kept them. Write on Dude !



Peace...Ron"Desmohead"Betts 95 900 SP
I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it!





>From: "Ted & Vicki Brisbine" <brisbine at charter.net>
>Reply-To: Ducati Owners Group <ducati at ducati.net>
>To: <ducati at ducati.net>
>Subject: [Ducati] Confessions (part 2)
>Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 18:56:32 -0700
>
>The chrome bullet
>
>My brother Keith put me in touch with a guy who foolishly thought he no 
>longer needed his beautiful little Honda S90. What sleek little numbers 
>those were. Somehow Honda managed to morph their sick idea for a motorcycle 
>frame (pressed sheet metal) into a gorgeous little black and chrome bullet. 
>Not a very fast bullet, mind you, but it almost kept up with cars on the 
>highway. Shortly after handing over a small wad of 1967 dollars I found 
>myself in a euphoric state, cruising down the road at near 60 miles per 
>hour on my very own cycle. It had rained a little that day and the air 
>blowing up my nostrils smelled so sweet.
>
>The bike I'd love to have today is the S90 just the way it was on that 
>heavenly day. But the motorcycle world was a different place then and real 
>dirt bikes were scarce - especially small, inexpensive ones. I didn't 
>appreciate what a great little mini sport-bike the Honda was, and in 
>desperation tried to turn it into a dirt bike. The call of the cow trail 
>was strong and my friends were desecrating their S90s as well. Off came 
>those slender little silver fenders. On went the giant rear sprocket. 
>Replace that low hanging muffler with a straight-tube side-pipe, complete 
>with Snuff-R-Not.  A fashionable alternative to crunching one's stock rear 
>fender when looping over backwards on a hill-climb, was to cut a piece of 
>thick aluminum sheet and bend it into a disposable or re-shapeable rear 
>fender. Knobby tires and dirt style handlebars completed the 
>transformation. Dare I say that the Honda was starting to look gnarly? No, 
>I'd better not. Wadkins might be listening. Later on, this would seem a 
>poor excuse for a dirt bike but the days spent with friends exploring the 
>local hills were priceless. I was finally making my own tire prints in the 
>dirt but was too busy having fun to look back and notice. Maybe some 
>pathetic kid on a bicycle was doing that for me.
>
>On the day that I traded the Honda in at Johnson's Cycle, I looked at the 
>thing sitting there in the parking lot. It was just another bastardized Jap 
>bike. Did the new owner get the original parts I had removed? I don't even 
>know and at the time couldn't imagine why anyone would care. Years later 
>his Dad might have found them in the stuff left behind in the family 
>garage. "Ah. I can just fit those fenders into the garbage can along side 
>last night's pizza box."
>
>So what would persuade me to part with my Holy Grail of moto fantasies? 
>Well, that story starts years earlier - 1965 to be exact.
>
>Spanish Fly
>
>I was still the kid on the bicycle, having ridden to town to visit 
>motorcycle shops. Keith had just bought his first bike, a 250cc Ducati 
>Monza road bike, which he promptly tried to turn into a dirt bike. See how 
>mixed-up we were back then?  Inside the tiny Ducati shop was the heady 
>atmosphere of moto-mania. Proud new owners of gleaming Italian machines 
>were wheeling their mounts in and out. The motorcycling boom years of the 
>sixties and seventies were getting underway and ordinary folk were 
>discovering the intoxicating elixir of combining a lightweight motorcycle 
>with a beautiful spring day. In that simpler time before helmet laws and 
>driver's license endorsements, all you needed in the way of special 
>equipment was a pair of sunglasses.
>
>My career as a walking database of motorcycle performance statistics was 
>just getting off the ground and my concept of engine size back then was in 
>a different realm. A 250 Ducati was a big motorcycle and a Triumph 
>Bonneville was otherworldly. Harley? Well, they weren't really the same 
>species were they? Their tires looked like they came off a Chevy Nova, for 
>Pete's sake. They were for crusty old farts who fought in WWII. In the Duc 
>shop that day was a copy of Cycle World which had a test report on a 
>wild-looking thing with fiberglass body parts called a Bultaco. (Imagine me 
>trying to put the accent on the first syllable) It's a 250 . but wait. Look 
>at the acceleration chart! This thing is faster than a 650 Triumph! How can 
>this be? The Bultaco Pursang Metisse was a Spanish bike with a frame and 
>elegantly integrated yellow bodywork designed by two British gents named 
>Rickman. You can't get much more exotic than that. I bought the magazine 
>(my first) and I still have it in my eternally expanding collection today.
>
>About the time I bought my Honda S90, Johnson's Cycle became a Bultaco 
>dealer. I believe this was at the urging of Keith's good friend, Larry 
>"Short" Greedy. I could take a side trip here and wander back to the day 
>Short pulled up at our house on his brand new Triumph TT Special. Yes, he 
>was riding that glorious, short-piped creature on the street with only a 
>license plate and brake light to make it "legal". And of course he had the 
>requisite sun glasses. The memory of that bike idling in our driveway with 
>its front wheel throbbing up and down with the beat of its twin pistons 
>makes me all twitterpated even today. OK, back to the future past. Keith 
>reported his first Bultaco sighting to us in great descriptive detail, as 
>is his custom. My mouth began to water and I could feel destiny coming on. 
>A real, designed-from-scratch dirt bike. Better than any converted 
>roadster. Better than a Honda Scrambler even. These were the days when 
>motorcycles were made out of metal. Bultacos had classy polished aluminum 
>fenders and all the right dirt-riding features.
>
>First on the wish list went the Bultaco Lobito 100. I was riding a 90 and 
>this would be a step up. But the real story was the handling, the off-road 
>prowess, the plush, long-travel dirt-bike suspension. Do I hear someone 
>snickering? Remember this is nearly a decade before the monoshock. I had 
>just bought the S90 so I figured it prudent to just save my money and wait 
>for the right time to start mentioning larger motorcycles around the border 
>guard. I continued to work for my dad as an electrician's helper and soon I 
>felt that the Bultaco Campera 175 might be within financial reach. Now 
>we're talkin' size.  I was saving most of my $1.50 per-hour wage, while 
>scheming over various pieces of Bultaco literature. (Which I still have in 
>my file) The mighty Matador 250 was the zenith in the street-legal dirt 
>bike line-up. The ad line read, "The stump jumper you can cruise on the 
>road". It was what we would now call a dual-sport but leaned heavily toward 
>the dirt. Back then it was a bike that could, and did, win the famous Six 
>Days enduro - a serious woods bike. But it was so "big" and nearly $900 
>with tax. Best only to dream a little.
>
>But then something happened. My friend Bill (who rode, what else, a 
>modified S90) lived in a new apartment complex. They had moved in before 
>the place was even finished and the driveway/parking area was still just 
>fresh brown dirt. A neighbor had just bought a new Bultaco Matador and 
>promptly sprayed the luscious black and red gas tank with a can of 
>flat-black paint because he "liked the color." It looked so menacing and 
>when he opened the throttle in that dirt patch the forward thrust was, 
>quite frankly, astonishing to 90cc riders like Bill and I. And then there 
>were the tire prints left by that big meat 4:00 knobby. I was left reeling. 
>Dang! There ain't no 175cc toy in my future. From then on it was the 
>relentless march of DESTINY.  When I hung out with my friends at the Arctic 
>Circle Drive-in, I would lean up against my '58 Olds and watch them waste 
>their money on pop and fries. Not me. That money will buy some part on my 
>Matador. Dad talked me out of buying a used Matador that fall and I'm glad. 
>I've only purchased four new vehicles in my life and one was a 1968 Bultaco 
>Matador.
>
>No tear was shed that day for the abandoned S90. Where the Honda merely 
>plodded along, me and my Bultaco roared up the local hills. Five minutes 
>after leaving my house I could be standing on top of Saddle Rock, surveying 
>the valley of my youth. We had a lot of fun together. One day while doing a 
>bit of 4th gear roaring, the gear broke. A friend helped me tear down the 
>motor and effect the repair. I remember that, at his suggestion, we baked 
>the cases in my mom's oven to expand the metal for reassembly. "What's that 
>funny smell?" The Matador had a pretty hideous looking headlight and wasn't 
>much fun on the road anyway, so off came all the street equipment. From 
>then on I just rode stealth from my house to Dry Gulch and the freedom of 
>the hills. The Bultaco was sold in 1971 but there is a whole other story 
>between here and there.
>
>The next part is "Ya ma ha's too hot" which was previously posted.  Next up 
>after that is "Seriously German."
>
>Ted
>
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