[Ducati] Confessions

[Ted & Vicki Brisbine]

First I see the Rollie Free photo link posted here and then my wife comes home with the World's Fastest Indian DVD (Rollie's in the movie).   It reminded me of a story I wrote a few years ago (Rollie's in the story) about my two-wheeled experiences.  I've copied an excerpt here about a certain Yamaha that got me into trouble in 1970.  Maybe it will bring back memories for somebody.    Ted

Ya ma ha's too hot

With the street stuff striped from my Matador, I was left with no road bike. This will never do. My friend Willy had a street bike. Funny thing was, he was only fifteen and his parents didn't know he had it. He left it at my house until he noticed a few too many miles gathering on the odometer. Did I mention that it was a beautiful green 500 Triumph? I can still feel that mellow, throbbing pony underneath me. I should have bought a Triumph but instead fell for the allure of a bike I had read about in the magazines. Yamaha had brought out a two-stroke, twin cylinder, 350cc bombshell called the YR1 Grand Prix. What is a YR1, you say? It was forerunner to the famed (or infamous) RD series. It had a chrome-sided gas tank like the S90 but not quite so aesthetically pleasing. It was reputed to be faster than Willey's Triumph so I was on the prowl.

I found a local girl who had one and convinced her to let me take her (the bike) out for a spin. By now Willy was riding legal and he led the way up Stemilt Hill. I soon discovered this bike had a characteristic none of my previous bikes had. The brakes actually worked! Unfortunately I made this discovery on a decreasing-radius corner while trying to keep up with Willy. Can you say "rear wheel lock-up and subsequent high-side crash?" As in, flying off a steep bank into a rock-infested field. We had to chop the rear fender off with a hatchet so I could limp home. The girl was not happy. Turns out the bike was on long-term loan from her old boyfriend who was still making payments, so he was happy to sell the bike to me. I fixed it up and thus began a crazy year in the annals of my moto life.

The Yamaha was rather manic in personality. The motor was a big bundle of razzmatazz and loved to go fast. In fact, that's all it really wanted to do. Willy's Triumph was a strong runner and our bikes ran pretty even in a drag race but his didn't mind being ridden gently. I should have bought a Triumph.

When my friend Jim showed the slightest interest in getting a bike, I pounced immediately and began feeding him tasty morsels of information about another bike I had my eye on. Yes, the very one and only Bultaco Metralla. This was not to be a good combination. But we were young and only had our whole lives to lose. The best way to describe the Metralla is to say that it felt like being astride a large razor blade. Bultaco had built a championship-winning road racer and then decided to bring it out as a street model with minimal conformity to civilized conventions. Actually it was well mannered enough on the street but just a very, very effective tool for carving a corner. For a 250 it would really honk too. And honk is the right sound effect. Whip 'er the chocolate, as the Brits would say, and that two-stroke motor would pull and honk like a big goose. My Yamaha would beat it in a drag race for sure, but out on the open road Jim and I were nothing but trouble.

I hope the statute of limitations has run out for what I'm about to divulge. Jim and I thought it would be fun, and perfectly acceptable, to ride the forty miles to Lake Chelan at the greatest possible speed whilst lying flat out on our bikes, Rollie Free style. If you've seen the photo of Rollie setting the land speed record of 150 miles per hour on a Vincent, you know exactly what I'm talking about. He couldn't get to 150 with his clothes on so he stripped down to slippers, a bathing suit, and a bathing cap and lay down over the bike with his feet straight out behind him, hanging on like a one big handlebar streamer. I wonder if there was a Mrs. Free? "Hi honey, I'm home." "How was your day dear?" "Oh, fine. Got a little windburn though." Trouble is, I can't blame our antics on Rollie because I didn't see this photo until later in life. There were a couple of differences too. We wore clothes, and while he rode on the Bonneville Salt Flats, we rode the entire trip on the highway centerline. That way there was no need to worry about when it was safe to pass. Also, our average speed to the lake was only 105, not 150. My friend Steve claims to have seen me whiz past that day. But we didn't meet for another year, so I was wondering how he figured that was me on the bike even before I told him the story. "Who else would it have been," he said.

The Yamaha motor used to say things to me, such as; "Do you want to speed up or slow down? What's with all this in-between crap? Make up your mind." In an ill-considered attempt to appease the unruly thing, I developed a riding technique for city streets which went something like this. Open the throttle a good bit and run up thru the gears, which resulted in fairly hard acceleration. Said acceleration continued unabated until a corner or stop sign called for a lower speed, where I then hit the brakes. This would have been fine had I been the only living soul in town. After a year of this sort of thing the statistical probabilities caught up to me . in the form of a black and white police cruiser. Actually the cop said he had a hard time catching up to me. I was sedately motoring up Crawford Street (a 25 mph zone) in my usual manner and didn't realize he was behind me doing 80 mph and watching me pull away from him. Lucky for him I needed to make a right turn onto Okanogan Street. Well, the jig was up. In a case like this they don't just write you a big fat ticket and drive away. After bailing out of jail, appearing in court, and pricing high-risk insurance, I tendered my driver's license and was back on a bicycle for the next three years. This gave me plenty of time to think about my next motorcycle.