The Chinese Motorcycle

[Midnitemo]

both my bikes have legal(quiet) exhausts on them and provided you're not revving the nuts of them they are surprisingly quiet , and i reckon roads and tracks will remain passable to two wheelers far longer than four or more wheelers , my hope is that some sort of limited recovery happens and then i will be well placed with some very reliable and frugal transport., these bikes are designed to run on 91 octane fuel or even lower at a push , petrol can be stored for a fair time with decent additives.

[Mortblanc]

Let's think about this BP. There is more to it than your irritation with noise outside your flat. In our first world, service industry existence we view the motorbike as a recreational toy. Most of the world sees things differently than us. You know, those people living in undeveloped nations in perpetual SHTF existence we refer too as "abject poverty and institutional unemployment" (oh! Sorry I forgot about these lockdowns).

In WW1 the motorcycle proved itself a valuable communications tool, able to negotiate bombed out and unpaved roads, even in its earliest engineering phase of life. The devices had only gone into mass production 12-15 years before the War. Even Britain had almost zero paved roads outside the urban areas in 1914, so the motorbike started life as an off road vehicle.

In WW2 every major combatant nation used some form of motorbike in the communications, recon or combat roles. Remember that most of Europe and GB was still unpaved at that time, and when roads were completely destroyed the motorbikes could go across country.

Then we won that war. We bombed the German, Italian and Japanese industrial capability to less than zero! Their economies had fallen and their social structure was destroyed.

Out of the rubble of bombed out buildings, made from scarce raw materials and negotiating roadless rural areas and rubble strewn streets crawled Vespa, Lambereta, NSU, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki.

They based their present empires on the production of transportation for a SHTF world that they had no idea would ever end. At one point the Honda test track was the longest section of paved road outside any urban area in Japan! Outside the cities the nation had no roads!

BTW, that NSU brand was the worlds top producer of motorbikes until, 1959 when Honda took that spot. NSU is now known as Audi.

The Honda Cub is the best selling vehicle ever built by human hands. 100,000,000 made to 2017 and continuous production since 1958.

Most of those bikes were not sold in the UK, or the US, or even Europe for that matter. They were sold in 3rd world, developing nations where the road system, supply network and service support structure does not exist.

Honda is probably the only company in the world that has done testing on civilian vehicles to determine how to build a bike for people in areas with no roads, no service and maintenance products, no trained mechanics and riders that take the entire family with them to the market on their motorbike.

That research is where the CG came from.

Right now, in Asia, the motorbike rules the roads. It is said that there is a motorbike for every single person in Viet Namn. Watching the films of these people on the road horrifies me! Cut off shorts, tee shirts and flip flops are the standard riding gear. It is the same in Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and every other of the nations that make up 2/3 of the world population.

No roads? No problem. Rubble in the way? go around it on the pavement. If you can't go around it or over it get some help and carry the bike up the pile of stones and down the other side.

Mom and the kids want to go? Put mom on the pillion backwards holding the baby and let Jr. ride on the tank and sissy on the handlebars. We've all seen those pictures.

Fuel scarce or expensive? Well look at it this way, My 400cc Royal Enfield gets 22 miles to the liter. My 250cc Chinese dual sport gets around 25 miles to the liter. Both of those bikes are pretty much all terrain vehicles. Build like tanks with knobbly tyres, high ground clearance and robust parts. They are the decedents of the recon bikes of BSA, Royal Enfield and Harley Davidson with a passing nod to the WW2 BMW and Ural bikes of the Germans and Soviets.

My 50cc scooter gets and astounding 30 miles to the liter. I could not believe that I was getting well past 100 MPG on the scooter after a thorough rework and tuning.

I am not sure what my 150cc bike will do. I am not putting enough miles on it to need a tank refill yet.

As for noise??? Well one thing the EU, and our US EPA hates is noise, so they demand quiet pipes. All that loud stuff you hear is us riders that buy after market exhaust systems because we consider pi$$ing people off one of the essence factors of riding. The guys with EU-5 exhausts you don't know are around, you can't hear them until they are 3 feet away from you and shout! I do still have the old quiet pu$$y pipes in the shed in case I have to give up all forms of fun.

[Mortblanc]

There is another phantasy that is spoken about often, the deuteriation of roads and the road network.

It might not be common over there, but over here were have thousands of miles of abandoned roads that were bypassed and taken off the maps or reduced to secondary status when our "interstate highway system" was built and bypassed them. Many of these stretches are fenced off and inaccessible. Other sections are still in limited use as access and right of ways into private property. Some of these roads have been abandoned and unmaintained for 50 years, and they are still there, still drivable except for the encroaching vegetation on the edges.

My own little lane was just resurfaced two years back. The long term neighbors said that was the first resurface since the road was paved 30 years ago. It took a pounding too, but it was still usable though not properly maintained for 30 years.

I have lived for decades in areas where the roads had been built while I was a teen and have not needed resurfacing for 40-50 years.

Reduced traffic would actually preserve the road net, not speed its evaporation. The shattered roads you see in today's world are due to pounding hard use, not from decay of disuse.

The point is that the roads will be here for generations after we are gone. They will not dissolve into powder just because someone would like a return to the middle ages or Middle Earth. They will be usable for any that can find fuel and an operating vehicle. Or, perish the thought, a bicycle!

[bigpaul]

first of all MB I dont live in a flat.
secondly you dont have to tell me about Motorcycles I am a life long Biker.
thirdly I dont know about American roads but roads over here will deteriorate very quickly, cracks and potholes will be the first things we will see, road side ditches without maintenance will fill up with mud, water and other debris, trees will come down in storms and will not be removed, and lastly it wont take long for mother nature to take possession of the roads, we have seen it here with our own eyes.

[Midnitemo]

As a kid we road Honda Cubs as field bikes , and there were very few places we couldn't get to and very few things it couldn't do , the only difference between the cubs and the purpose built off readers was the fuel you used (very little on the cub... ride all day for a quid) the reliability (ride everyday on a cub)and the speed over the ground (the purpose built off roaders were quicker) we were just learning our craft with tools but we still managed to keep these old cubs ticking along.

[bigpaul]

we used to do the same with BSA Bantams.

[Straight Shooter]

Oh yes my first bike The BSA Bantam .....used to go off road all around these local mountains , never ever let me down ! ....it became my bitch for two years ........i lost plod on that bike ....he had a Yamaha 500 cc four stroke trials .......in the heat of the chase he forgot about the quarry and had to drop the bike ......as my little light 175 cc Bantam made the get away.......sucker ! ....but I had to lay low for weeks after as he made local enquiries .....the good old days !

[Mortblanc]

Many times during the summers forum activity drops due to people getting outside and doing things.

One of the forums I follow never takes a summer break. It is the one labeled "How to Fix a Chinese Motorbike".

There is always activity there with at least ten or twelve discussions, often about repetitive topics, such as:

The Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha dealer (take your pick) will not work on my bike and it is supposed to be an exact clone!!!!

I can't find neutral! (closely followed by)

I'm stuck in 1st! (stuck in 5th is a close second)

Where is the cumquat separator, I heard if it breaks the bike won't start.

The wheel fell off my mail order motorbike, where is the nearest warranty station? (it's somewhere north of Hong Kong)

My bike won't start, what's the matter with it?

How do I lower my bike? (for all the short people)

How do I raise my bike? (for all the tall people)

And the most common of them all....

I was out riding my bike and it quit running, why did it do that?

The really strange thing to me is that the American consumer is so spoiled by "no questions asked refunds and replacements" that they expect a motorbike made in China, shipped in a pressed paper box packed in a container across the Pacific Ocean, to arrive with a service technician to assemble and trouble shoot each and every problem.

When they stumble against the brick wall of DIY that passes an IKEA allen key and a pressed sheet metal spanner they go insane. They consider the ownership of socket wrenches, box end spanners, spark plug spanners and torque wrenches as "having to go out and buy extra stuff" and they expect a refund for needing these things.

Of course there is a tool kit under the seat, but most never read the owners manual and discovered them.

I actually read a rant from one rider that demanded that his chosen manufacturer send a technician out with the proper parts, tools and diagnostic equipment to find and fix the rattle in his motor housing. Of course he expected this to be free of charge, and immediate. In fact, he gave the company three days to meet his demands or he was going to call the Better Business Bureau. (an American complaint service with absolutely no power other than pointing a "shamey finger")

Now remember that these people convinced themselves that paying 1/4 the price for a Chinese motorbike cloned from some Jap design (no one ever knows which Jap design) was a good and cost effective decision. No dealer, no parts supply, no service department and no help other than trolling the internet, but worth the risk.

So when I am bored I go there and read the desperate cries for help, and laugh. I especially laugh at the ones asking where they can take their motorbike for repair and service, since none of the reputable dealers will touch them. If you adjust a spoke an American will hold you responsible for every failure of the machine from that point forward!

[Midnitemo]

The quality of some Chinese brands does appear to be improving marginally(i'm seeing bikes still running beyond 3 years old) but it's the age old quandaries of "you get what you pay for and" buy cheap buy twice" i will never buy Chinese again and everyone who ever asks me will be told to buy pretty much anything else , IMHO if you want an end of days bike then the best course of action is to buy something suitable from 70's 80's or 90's and do a full renovation , you will end up with a bike in perfect condition , a very thorough knowledge of the bike in question and a network of sources for part and info , buy in a stock of common spares and consumables and voila your SHTF wheels will be sorted.

[bigpaul]

given what is happening these days in respect to China I dont think many people will be buying anything from China either now or in the future.