By Doug Vehle, The Daily BoscoI'm not really looking for one, but sometimes I just can't help myself. It's just a hobby to find the occasional old motorcycle, moped, scooter and bring it back to life - I don't really even restore them, I just get them running and rideable again.
It's just that I can't quite take my mind off one old bike, so time and again I find myself typing in the letters "RX50" into the Craigslist search, every now and then there's a match. Sometimes they use those magic words, "Pinkslip in hand." Not that huge numbers of bikes are stolen, just that so many people lose the pinkslip and don't want to bother getting a new copy from the DMV, which makes it hard to register if you buy it. Some people bought from someone else without the pink, now they're trying to sell it.
Contrary to what some sellers want you to believe, being old doesn't make something collectable, nor does being "Rare." Priceless, timeless, these have their specific definitions that don't quite fit the real meaning of the words. And with one particular old motorcycle, it's hard to say how much it's really worth, or how much more than what it's really worth it's then really worth. How much could a bike be worth used if when it was new it cost --- NOTHING?
So back in college I was a soft touch for someone to bring over when they needed a favor, or a ride somewhere. Jim was rather abusive of that, wanting someone else to drive him around to all the McDonalds so he could get his "No Purchase Necessary" game pieces to try to win money. Mostly he didn't want to be the one paying for gas, but he didn't always even have a car, or when he did have one he lacked a steady job to pay for gas. He was always incensed when we became impatient with his antics, we were keeping HIM from winning HIS money. Always the fault of everyone else that HE was broke, while those of us with our parttime jobs had whatever small about of pocket money, which greatly mystified Jim.
For that reason there just didn't seem to be any reason to take Jim to the Yamaha dealer that used to be located on Yorba Linda Blvd. near Rose in Placentia. Just a more grown up version of the kid looking in the toy store at what he can't have. But Jim would have given almost anything for a motorcycle of his own, just so there wasn't any money involved. Unbeknownst to me, he thought he'd found his angle to play. And since I was the one who'd taken HIS bike, or what he would remind me that he thought should have been his first bike, he figured I owed him this opportunity to get his FREE bike. And since I always love watching a good train wreck, I really couldn't help myself but to take him to that dealer and watch him flail about like a fish on the deck of a boat.
My first bike, the one Jim had wanted for years, came my way accidentally. Having learned that there was to be another kid in Placentia jumping several cars on sheer pedal power, I made the trek from Fullerton on my own little BMX bike that I'd cobbled together from cast off parts. Jim was present that day, as was an Orange County Register photographer. The stunt made the paper. I don't recall if Jim or I were visible in the background. Years later, on the first day of my first college class session, the guy sitting next to me suddenly asked if he'd been talking to me that day of the bicycle jump. I had him in several classes that semester, we were both Broadcasting majors.
Thus did I find myself on my way to his house one Saturday morning some weeks later, driving my ancient 4 door Rambler that I'd bought for $100 when the owner had been unable to start it at 7am after his night shift ended. Already planning to sell, he'd stuck the "For Sale" sign in the window and walked home, coming back a few hours later when I'd found the car while passing through that parking lot. I had to get it running again to bring it home. Jim had been rebuilding a near identical Rambler engine from the same year, I wound up replacing my unnaturally 'S' curved pushrods with the still straight rods he cast off from his engine, making a big difference in the driveability of my car. Still, I had a new girlfriend who lived in Anaheim Hills, that weak old car never made it up the hill to her house, I would walk over a mile from where I was forced to park the car when the running start ran out of momentum and it stopped going uphill.
On the morning of this day when he would give me those pushrods, I was driving down his street when I passed a house with a garage sale. I saw a small motorcycle of a type they just don't make anymore, the moped has pushed them aside. When I reached his house, my first words were "I'd have thought you'd be all over that bike he's selling over there."
He was jolted. "He's selling the bike?" Spinning around, seeing the two wheeler getting pushed to the street to get it noticed, his eyes were popping. Picture Robert Blake trying to run while playing 'Baretta' on TV, Jim wasn't much taller. You get the picture. I felt as though I was just walking fast to keep up. But I can picture this guy as a high schooler gazing into the garage at this old abandoned machine, dreaming of bringing it back to life and loving what it represents in a special way. Not much of a motorcycle, but at least he'd have one.
Which is why I was surprised when Jim didn't buy it. The seller wanted what amounted to pocketchange. In fact, that's what I wound up giving the man for it. I guess Jim was daunted by the fact that his Rambler rebuild had become such a long term, expensive job, he didn't want to spend more time and money on this little thing. It's almost embarrassing for me that I can't remember just what it was besides a Honda, but unlike Jim, I wasn't dreaming of my own motorcycle.
But I'd take one. My Dad called me 'Dauntless' not just because it was a play on Douglas. After giving the man everything I had in my pocket -- NOT MUCH -- the bike went into my back seat, good thing it was so small. I was just going to run it home and come back, but once it was in the family driveway and my tools were close by, I just couldn't help myself, I had to work on it. And as any addicted motorcycle tinkerer can tell you, it's amazing how little it takes to get a bike started after it's been sitting almost a decade in someone's garage, seemingly dead. Bikes don't start one day for reasons that are a mystery even to people who fix them, then they find themselves abandoned. Years later, someone like me comes along. . . .
So as I'm riding slowly up Jim's street, I stand up on the bike as I ride past the garage sale. The look on the face of the man that sold it to me. Then the look on Jim's face. Priceless. "I'll give you twice what you paid him for it. 3 times." That still wouldn't have been much. Nah, I was hooked now. My little brother had been stunned at me turning up with this old bike and getting it running, this buying stuff for loose change and fixing it was an idea that was growing on him. Even better was the sheer disgust of my mother at my having the devil's own transportation. And of course the looks on those two faces as I rode up Jim's street. In the less than an hour I had it, this bike had already greatly enhanced my life. Maybe I needed a black leather vest and a big ole' chain for my wallet.
So if he wasn't ready to give up so much as one day's pay for that one bike, what was he doing at the dealer, inquiring on the new Midnight Maxim? Jim, you see, considered himself quite the conman. His best friend Wayne kept trying to point out to him that nobody was fooled. I would get the finger waggling and the tongue lashing over 'Humoring' Jim, as Wayne would be warning Jim I was just playing along so I could watch him get himself into another fine mess. As Lou Costello used to say, "I'm a BAAAAAAD BOOOOOOOY."
And so, without further explanation, I had driven Jim to the dealer on the insistence that he had finally found a way to get himself the bike he always wanted. I watched Jim bargaining with the salesman for what was supposed to be the purchase of one of the more expensive bikes on the market at the time. Knowing Jim, I could tell he was wheedling about something, though what it was didn't get mentioned. In the end, both came away disappointed. The salesman didn't get the commission, Jim didn't get the entry for the drawing for the free bike.
And that is what makes the old RX50 such an interesting bike: Not a single sale was ever made of this bike, though something like 1,000 existed. Yamaha had cobbled together, from parts already manufactured for other bikes, a cheap little machine to offer as a prize in a drawing where every dealer would give one away to their customers. Had Jim found a way to be a "Customer," who knows, maybe he would have won his free bike. But if he'd wanted to buy one, he'd have had to pick one up used from a winner.
My cheap bike was at least a little better than what he was trying to win. It was either a Supercub, or a variant such as the Passport or the Trail series. I wasn't familiar with it at the time I bought it, winding up to only have it 3 days. After that Jim wouldn't let up about how I should have given it to him. If you know the old 'Malcolm in the Middle' TV series, you get the idea of my relationship to my 3 brothers. The 2nd oldest is, well, NUTS. I only had one other chance to ride my bike before he came to the house, searched my room for the key, then wrecked the thing about a half mile from the house. It was his opinion that he'd done me a favor by dragging what was left back home. Of course if he hadn't brought it back I'd have been assuming he had sold it. People buy bikes without pinkslips, some really are stolen. These days I see a red Honda of that type from the era, about the right size, I wonder if that's the model I had. I'm not sure I knew exactly at the time. The Supercub wound up being the most successful motor vehicle in history, some 66 million were sold worldwide in the 50 years it was on the market by 2006 when it was discontinued. That doesn't count the variants on the theme, which probably boost the number over 100 million.
Shortly after that I picked up a crunched Enduro, half dirt/half street, to piece back together with junk parts. Before it was properly aligned and tightened to spec, my younger brother got the key and rode it, doing considerable damage to studs and other loose parts which put me back to work when I had been about finished. Then when it really was done the older brother came over and rode it, again destroying it completely, this time leaving it where it lay for me to recover because it was just too much trouble for him to bring home. About that time I had a minor incident with my oldest brother's dirtbike, which I promptly fixed. He'd just laughed at the time it happened, reminding me of what HE had been through with this particular brother destroying his bikes. (This one brother never actually PAYS for anything when he does this.) He knew who he was dealing with when it was me and that this time the bike would be fixed. In fact fixed twice: of course it was ridden by the younger brother before it was finished, thus damaged again. The oldest brother was rather short with the efforts of the 2nd brother to act as though I really hadn't done a good job of fixing it, offering "He did a better job than YOU'VE ever done." (Truer words were never spoken.) Again, the 2nd oldest brother would destroy this bike. Hopefully you're seeing the pattern that is emerging here.
Actually, a few patterns. You see, I'd always fixed things. An 8th child, with 6 nieces and nephews before I finished grade school, let's just say money would have been tight in the family even if Dad hadn't lost half his pay in the aerospace cutbacks under President Nixon. So many things I only had because I was able to fix one someone else had broken and discarded. That had included bicycles. Later it was cars and motorcycles. My next effort at a motorbike was a Cimatti Citybike moped. Dead or not, it cost me more than that original motorcycle had cost. (The couple selling it angrily ranted over and over, for no apparent reason, that was what they wanted for it, until I told them if they didn't shut up I was leaving.) Once I had it going Jim offered his distain at the thought of someone getting a moped, but he wasn't too proud to go dirtbiking with me on the bridle trails and open fields around town. We had to take turns. Nor was my older brother too proud to go out and wreck it for me, this time literally snapping the frame in half as part of the deal. He would later put gas without 2 cycle oil in another of my mopeds and burn up the engine, further tearing it up in anger while bringing it back to the house. 4 bikes he took out of this world for me in so many years, 2 more in that time alone he smashed for our older brother.
You'd think I'd give up, but shortly after college I was making a video for someone in return for receiving an old Yamaha SR250, smaller than the Midnight Maxim but bigger than that RX50. Finally I had a bike long enough to ride to Cook's Corner, etc. Chaining it up didn't do any good, the 2 brothers cut locks off and damaged the street bike trying to trail ride, etc. The older brother was equally adept in wrecking cars, this time combining the two to drive over the bike in my driveway, finally destroying it. I puttered around on it a bit after that even if it wasn't worth the cost of replacing almost everything, it came in handy when I had car trouble and needed a way to commute 40 miles to work. Kind of scary riding the freeway on a motorcycle with handlebars twisted to an odd shape like that.
Once that bike was gone, I did without for awhile. Then those little pocketbikes came along. I found myself racing at Rialto Airport Speedway, the Grange in Apple Valley, etc. There was also the midibike, bigger than a pocketbike but still smaller than a moped, at least in height. I was just too big to race those danged things if I wanted to win, but the midi's had the full shift, it was the real thing. I found myself taking the MSI (Motorcycle Safety Institute) class at Mt. San Antonio College, getting a perfect score on the riding test at the end of the class which doubled for the DMV riding test. I figure I'd rode some 50,000 miles by then, so I should have a perfect score. When the rest of the class was panicking at being told they'd have to ride a near figure 8 in a box for the next trick, I asked if I could move up in line and go first. "Maybe if they see someone in the class do it they'll relax." People told me afterward that had indeed put their minds at ease. Pity those instructors facing such panic every class they teach, not always having someone like me there to go first.
All this left me with a list of junk bikes to find and fix when I took the ROP Motorcycle Repair class in Garden Grove. I wanted an SR250 to fix, never found one. No Supercub, no variant. I picked up several mopeds, never a Cimatti. Couldn't find an enduro, but I helped another guy in class with his. Several Yamaha scooters and a YG5 Trailmaster, several offbrand Chinese scooters, an original Pagsta, a pre Ninja GPZ750, I brought quite a collection of bikes back to life during that class. Even electrics, such as several of the eCycle Dash and an Electra Voy.
And a collection is just what they were. The 1984 Yamaha Riva XC180 I fixed was indeed a bike that purists collect. An MSI class bought it from me for their students to ride if they couldn't handle a full fledged motorcycle. The old 'Yamahopper' got a lot of attention too when I sold it. My mopeds were all from the 70's, the pedal crowd loves those. There was this really good kid who would zip around the neighborhood as best he could on a goped, stopping to help anyone in need as though he was on a mission; He was getting to be 18 when I gave him one of the Chinese Vespa style scooters which was too abused to actually sell to anyone. I just wish there were people like Jim around to watch and get the message when I did.
So this might help you to understand the real reason something becomes collectable. Someone forms an emotional attachment to such an item, whether they had one before or not. My Father worked timing and scoring at the race James Dean won in a Porsche Super Speedster; a few years later Dad was picking one up himself, he'd come to regret that he'd eventually traded it in. Those old Speedsters became a favorite of the less wealthy who couldn't be a collector, yet went to college with a rich kid who was driving the car they all longed to have someday. 20-40 years later, they'd finally get their car.
The Yamaha RX50 wasn't much of a bike, kind of like the joke of a camel being a horse designed by a committee. The engine was a 50cc 2 cycle from a kids' size bike. Nowhere near freeway capable, the transmission might enable it to outrun mopeds using near identical engines. If you ride that thing very long at one time, you're likely to burn up the engine. I never could have commuted to work on it way back when. If Yamaha HAD tried to put a price on it in the shop, it's hard to say if they could have sold any. My Pagsta is probably just as shoddy as the Yamaha even with a 4 cycle engine that probably came from Japan. I think it's given me a feel for what it would be like to ride an RX50. Well, I DO like riding my Pagsta; afterall, it's a motorsickle. All this fuels the ongoing interest.
My two destructive brothers have long ago moved to Texas, motorcycles are at last safe at my house. I may get these bikes running, but they're still old, slow, worn out. Still, I wish I'd never given up that Yamahopper. The guy that bought it keeps trying to sell it for 3 times what I sold it to him for. No, he won't get it. I'm always debating picking up another Riva, they're hard to work on but I've fixed legendary Riva problems that other struggle with for years. People were scoffing at YG5's they'd seen for sale when they posted about them on motorcycle boards, but I posted about mine and their tune changed, some went back and bought them. People are still commenting on my now departed mopeds that I mentioned at the Moped Army board. This time around I'm making memories with happy endings. I'm even thinking of getting the Taiwanese Symba, a replica of the Supercub.
If it had been me and not Jim that won one of those RX50's back when, I shutter to think what would have happened to it when it got to my place. I can't imagine I could have hid it in the crawlspace under the house or something, it would have been doomed when my brothers saw it. If I was ready to pay more than it's really worth to have that silly glorified moped without pedals of a marketing "Leave behind," it could have a long life with me taking care of it. Jim wouldn't be around to ride it either, let's just say I got fed up with the drunken self pity when he continually whined about how bad he had it, what with being lazy and unwilling to make it himself in the world and all. Last I heard from Wayne, he was fed up too. Wayne is up the coast of Central California now, selling business software. Jim I understand to be in sales himself. I remember the things they wanted to do, I think of how far from that they ended up, it just reminds me of why so many people envy me of how far I went in Television, even if I don't feel like a real success. At least I did some of what I wanted to do, just as at last I get to ride as I wanted to. But gee, I wonder if Jim ever did get to own his own motorcycle. I remember one day, years after I'd last spoken to him, I'm sure I saw him without a helmet as he rode past. .
. . . .Just want to ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want a tickle
'Cause I'd rather ride on my motorsickle
And I don't want to die
I just want to ride on my motorcy...cle
Arlo Guthrie's Motorcycle Song
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