Never come across the guy, but only had to read the title of your link to appreciate where he's coming from - something I definitely advocate and I guess something that most of the esteemed guys (and certainly the gal) on here think as well. Looking forward to a bit of reading this evening 

Just read it. I never heard of Kevin, but then, I stopped reading magazines about 30 years ago.

The article was very good. He has a nice conversational writing style. Like most of us, I started out fixing my bicycle and picking old televisions out of the trash, the ones with round 12" picture tubes, and bringing them home to make them work. Almost electrocuted myself a few times, but learned a lot. Kevin sounds like the kind of guy you'd like to spend weekends with, hanging out in the garage.

Thanks for posting the link.

I read the article, a little bit melancholy -I'd be much more upbeat!
I think the 'fear of failure' that KC mentions is the key: we are so risk averse these days that it's probably inevitable that the wider world's 'mistakes lead to bad things' ethos has started to discourage the 'have a go' mindset. All my early tinkering experiences - the ones that I remember anyway - have an ending in some sort of failure. I can remember dismantling a favourite toy, for no other reason than curiosity, and being horrified almost to the point of nausea when I couldn't put it back together. So what did I do? I told myself not to panic and to think harder, because I'd got myself in there and there was no other way out. I succeeded, and taught myself the power of clear thinking in the face of adversity.
And what exactly had I done that was so bad? what was the massive collateral, the potential harm, and what were the scary lawsuits had I not succeeded in my risk-laden enterprise? Well I'd dismantled a torch (flashlight in 'merrican) to see how it worked, that's all.
What I'm trying to say is that it's the freedom to make mistakes that's important. Without that, you kill progress. It doesn't matter if a hundred people mess up, so long as one person finds a new, better way. That doesn't mean there's a rate of return for everyone: some people lark about their whole lives long and never really come up with anything useful themselves. What they do, is they keep the freedom going for the ones who are going to find a new way.
Sorry, banging on. It's a freedom thing.

My memories of a different type.....LJK Setright......prolific test pilot of all bikes in the 70s and later, fabulous reports back then.....then stopped buying magazines.....

2000 took interest in a certain magazine Mercedes Enthusiast......only to find a similar style and identical name. 

Sadly he has since passed........

Good ones are scarce and its nice to see some nice memories surfacing here.

LJK Setright is in the same league as Kevin Cameron.  Both great writers I've had the pleasure to read over the years.  To those names I'd add another Gordon Jennings.  Fortunately, Cameron is still among us.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the author, flyer, driver & rider who is Peter Egan. He got his first gig writing a monthly column for a So-Cal motorbike rag when, after returning from a tour of duty to Vietnam, he and his wife attempted to ride a British bike he dubbed the Manxton Contaminator Twin cross-country, from Wisconsin to Oregon, and lived to write about it. He continued writing for Car & Driver, various aviation mags and Cycle World magazine, until his recent retirement. I just bought his latest book of short stories. As a founding member of the Slimey Crud Motorcycle Gang, he's always worth a read.

Chassis Flex is a Crude Technology ~ KC

&

Signs of Mechanical Mistakes ~ KC

I remember reading Kevin Cameron and Gordon Jennings in Cycle Magazine in the late 70s and early 80's.  I also remember Ed Hertfelder, who wrote hilarious articles about enduro riding, but I learned and applied a lot of his bizarre techniques to my riding and wrenching.

nvboy

Ed Hertfelder! I still remember one of his stories about riding near strip mines in West Virginia and following a really hot rider. He watched said rider miss a turn and go off into space with his brake light blinking as he sailed to the bottom of an open pit.

I met him in the late 70's at an enduro in western PA, might have been Grove City. Funny guy who had a least one crazy story about everything that could happen riding in the woods.

nvboy wrote:I remember reading Kevin Cameron and Gordon Jennings in Cycle Magazine in the late 70s and early 80's.  I also remember Ed Hertfelder, who wrote hilarious articles about enduro riding, but I learned and applied a lot of his bizarre techniques to my riding and wrenching.

nvboy

This thread describes me back in the 1980s, grabbing CYCLEWORLD off the news stand... I still have Kevin Cameron's SUPERBIKE book.

...and I think I did that part of Route 2 in central Massachusetts back in 1977, on my moped, at night, going to visit my then-girlfriend in Bennington College... haha gas was cheap and it was cheaper still on that moped ;-)

Writing By Accident ~ KC

A bit of a trip down memory lane on this one.

"Subjects could range from the process of the breakup and evaporation of fuel droplets in an engine’s intake tract, to how the Phillips screws that held so many Japanese engines together were an invention of the devil."


Kenny Roberts. Fast, fierce intelligence - acting now ~ KC



And while we're here, a slice of Peter Egan, too.


Racing to the Virtual Cafe ~ PE


"Ry Cooder may be a fool for a cigarette, but I’m a fool for a good-looking motorcycle. And if that bike comes in black and gold, and has nice engine architecture, I’m really in trouble."

Writing by accident... does that ever sound familiar! In my case I'd been fixing most of the Suzuki GS-series electrical systems in the area where I lived (Dorset). Suzuki were using a particularly shite design in the regulators that meant if you either didn't ride with the headlight on OR your battery was not in 100% condition, the regulator would blow and invariably take the rectifier and the alternator with it. Fckn expensive.... The solution was to fit a Honda combined reg/rec unit. Unfortunately the local breakers/wreckers for miles around got wind of what I was doing and the prices of the s/h Honda part started to climb  

After I'd done somewhere between ten and twenty repairs/preventative maintenance jobs, I figured that given the price of OEM Suzuki parts, one of the monthly motorcycle mags would probably publish a one-off article. The absolute truth was I just didn't want to keep the solution to myself. So I submitted an article to Classic Mechanics as it was then.

Two weeks or so later I got a phonecall from the editor to chat about it. Murphy being Murphy, one of their staffers hit on the same idea for the same month. Oh well. At the end of the phone call he dropped a bombshell; would I like to do a monthly column on motorcycle electrics? I thought about it, hesitated and agreed. That lasted about six years, until I moved from Dorset to Down and didn't have a workshop any more. In between time I ended up writing a short book for Myatt-McFarlane Publishing (bastards printed it and refused to pay me) and numerous columns and reports for just about all of the classic and custom magazines of the time (the 90s). I never crossed paths with Mark though!

I'd never heard of him until very recently when I saw this article where he talks about impact-driving Phillips screws. Are they not JIS? Am I missing something?

Oh I see it's posted above! Only saw it when previewing the post. So have others here seen it? Are you not confused?? I'm pretty sure Phillips screws were never used for this, it'd be a stupid design decision.

Just this time I think he's wrong and should be refering to JIS and not Phillips. Using a Phillips driver on a JIS screwhead was the real reason for so many mangled Japanese engines and the start of the 'made of cheese' legend.

In that case someone should explain it to him

I used to read Kevin Cameron's articles a long time ago when I had subscriptions to several motorcycle magazines. He was very informative and had a good writing style. By the way, AJ Cycle is my local dealer and you won't find nicer people anywhere. When you walk in there you're treated like a friend, not just a customer.

Dai wrote:Just this time I think he's wrong and should be refering to JIS and not Phillips. Using a Phillips driver on a JIS screwhead was the real reason for so many mangled Japanese engines and the start of the 'made of cheese' legend.

I like to think of myself as reasonably knowledgeable about tool standards, but I'd never heard of JIS. Searched, watched the video, now much better informed in that area. Thanks, Dai.
My Honda CB175 twin in the early 70s suffered from mangled "Phillips" head screws until I started using an impact driver. Didn't need much impact, fortunately. It was much harder, and expensive, to find replacement Allen head machine screws in a small country town at the time, and no internet searches or online stores.

Bill

Even with the impact driver(or was it an impact loosener? I never used mine to tighten those "Phillips" screws.) the odds were pretty good that at least one or two case screws wouldn't let go.

My little Honda XL125's were sweet because despite the punishment I gave them I never needed to take any screws out beyond the four that held the points and drive sprocket covers on. Oh, the joy of an engine with the survivability of a cockroach!

Definitely only for loosening. 

Bill

For anyone else... how to tell the difference at a quick glance.

http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/300

Good article Dai, thanks for sharing that.  It is interesting that the Phillips screws are designed to cam out before over tightening.  I think this feature is the source of all the mangled screws that I have come across and I'm not sure that a mangled screw that won't readily come is better than a screw put in too tight.  Over tightening a screw with a screw driver has not been a common experience for me.  I have done a lot more damage when using a wrench or a ratchet.

Two Wheels Better wrote:"...Replacing your entire customer base can’t work. A stamp collector does not set aside his/her magnifying glass and place an order for automatic rifles. 

If one ever does, it should be called going post-postal.

Laitch wrote:

Two Wheels Better wrote:"...Replacing your entire customer base can’t work. A stamp collector does not set aside his/her magnifying glass and place an order for automatic rifles. 

If one ever does, it should be called going post-postal.

Having met Mr Cameron and noting his dry wit I would not be surprised if he dropped that in there for the astute to feast on. I missed it, but my name's not Astute.

Thinking About Engine Vibration: balancing the starts and stops ~ KC

I dare you to drink three shots of Kentucky bourbon after a long day at work and read that one start to finish...and hope to understand it.

Only if it's Maker's Mark. Didn't find any other Kentucky bourbon worth drinking when I was living there.

Dai wrote:Only if it's Maker's Mark. Didn't find any other Kentucky bourbon worth drinking when I was living there.

I recall drinking shots of Cream of Kentucky "Premium" bourbon with my grandfather when I was younger.  That stuff turned to sand in the back of your throat.  Nasty!

Dai wrote:Only if it's Maker's Mark. Didn't find any other Kentucky bourbon worth drinking when I was living there.

A xmas gift from a colleague, the bottle of Knob Creek 100 proof didn't eat into my digestive tract. It was akin to velvety smooth mud rather than sand. I s'pose I can call that a good thing.

Knob Creek Wiki

No. Just - no.

Try two fingers of CC

Actually, I almost lied. There's the three different variations of Blanton's that I found when I got home. Grabbed one in Atlanta Airport because the 'single cask bourbon' intrigued me and was shocked at how good it was, so I bought the other two variations to try as well. Not cheap mind but...

Picky Little Details ~ KC

"As Mr. Honda liked to say, we learn more from failure than from success."

Two Wheels Better wrote:Is Their a Best Displacement for Motorcycles? ~ KC

"Do I hear a chorus of angry “Yabbuts”? Yes, certainly...

What happens when Mr. Checkbook shows up at the trackday with his 214 hp missile? Do others, impressed by his financial achievement, meekly load up and leave? No, the frequent result is the local ace on a banged-up nothing of a bike (he has grind marks on his fork caps) repeatedly passing the Checkbook Special on the brakes, on the outside, over and over until its rider becomes frustrated enough to run off, crash, and do 10 or 15 grand of damage. Multiple riding modes and anti-spin electronics are great, but even in these modern times there is still no Win Mode. That can come only from the rider, whose skill may very well be a replacement for displacement.


Thus, there is a difference between a bike that’s just frightening and hard to ride and a bike that actually does what you ask it to. Enjoyment of life is the goal, so it’s sensible to seek bikes that make us happy."

Absolutely! The Honda XL125's in my signature snagged well over 50 trophies and a paid for themselves in Honda contingency money by beating a bunch of Can Am's, Bultaco's, Penton's, and Huskies over a 5 year period running enduros.

In the woods on Sunday it was always a lot of fun to pass those guys who were smirking at our bikes in the pits on Saturday.

Two Wheels Better wrote:"Harley is the flag, . . . equivalent in gender certification to serving four years in the Marines. . . .."

. . . until women Marines were assigned combat roles. Now it's equivalent to a verified prostate examination invoice, maybe.

I remember watching this bike in action at the Hume Weir circuit in the 1970's. Stock suspension and brakes and he was known to wear a business suit, white shirt and tie over his leathers.     https://amcn.com.au/editorial/racer-test-suzuki-f50-step-thru/

Methodical Thinking & Troubleshooting ~ KC

Why yes. Why didn't we think of that?

Dai wrote:Actually, I almost lied. There's the three different variations of Blanton's that I found when I got home. Grabbed one in Atlanta Airport because the 'single cask bourbon' intrigued me and was shocked at how good it was, so I bought the other two variations to try as well. Not cheap mind but...

Jefferson Ocean Bourbon. There's a pretty good story behind the Ocean name. Those who know, know ;-) Yummy stuff if you can find it.

Click this link: How gasoline has changed through the years
~KC

"Meanwhile, the MTBE ether that the EPA had chosen for its oxygenate program turned out to be less than benign. MTBE turned out to be more soluble in ground water and less digestible by soil bacteria than previously believed, and consequently MTBE from leaking gas-station tanks started showing up in a series of well-publicized ground-water-pollution incidents. The EPA suffered pink faces as ethanol (the kind of alcohol found in intoxicating beverages) had to be substituted for MTBE. Within a few years, as much as 40 percent of the US corn crop would be used to produce the ethanol we now see proclaimed on gas pumps as a percentage of the fuel. Changes of this kind tend to be self-perpetuating; farmers quickly grew accustomed to receiving premium prices for corn destined to be burned rather than eaten, and their lobbying became familiar to Washington senators and other members of congress."