The Chinese Motorcycle

[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.