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The first motocross boom was fueled by the children of the men who fought in World War II. Jody’s father flew 25 mission over Germany in a B-17.
By Jody Weisel
I don’t suppose that there is anything especially unique about me that would lead to my Darwinian selection as a motorcycle test rider, except for one thing! By an accident of birth and serendipitous timing, I was born into a glorious age of excess, rebellion and, most of all, the formative birth of risk sports. Thanks to genes and modern medical advances, I have managed to live in the limelight longer than my test rider brethren from the same era.
You’ve probably heard the term “baby boom” before, but never knew where the phrase came from. Almost 70 years ago, American sweethearts put their lives on hold for four long years (from 1941 to 1945) to rid the world of evil. The gals, barely out of bobby sox, kept the home fires burning, while their guys slogged their way across Iwo Jima, Anzio and thousands of filthy little battlefields without names. As for my father, he flew a Beoing B-17 out of Ridgewell, England, to bomb ball bearing factories, ship yards and munitions dumps in Germany. Once the WWII signing ceremonies on the deck of the Mighty Mo concluded, eight million fighting men came flooding back to the heartland…home to their personal Rosie the Riveters.
Nine months later, the “Baby Boom” started. During the first 12 months after the war, kids were popping out at the rate of 338,000 a month, and doctors delivered 3.4 million children in 1946. By 1947 that number had increased by one million babies more. And, from 1954 on, four million little boomers appeared in swaddling cloth each year—peaking at 4.3 million in 1957.
At my house, my brother came first, born exactly nine months to the day from when my B-17 pilot dad came home after VJ day.
There was nothing cooler in 1974 than riding a Maico. It was the ultimate in German worksmanship, and status came with Maico ownership. Jody hammers a Lake Whitney berm.
You might think that I would be a little jealous of my brother, having to wait to make my debut at Letterman General Hospital, just below the Golden Gate Bridge, 19 months later. Not so. That year-and-a-half of waiting made all the difference in the world. In all candor, had I been born first, there would have been little chance of me becoming a motocross racer. My older, and only, brother, missed the cusp of what was to be the brave new world of the 1960s. Although less than two years older than me, he grew up as a hot rodder. He was a juvenile delinquent with a ducktail hairdo (what we younger kids called a JD with a DA). He loved all things Elvis, wore black leather jackets, and thought that the twang of Duane Eddy was the sound of the future.
But his Blackboard Jungle generation was not mine. I came to adolescence with the Beatles, hippies, microbuses, long hair, Weathermen, Kent State, Selma, Da Nang, Yasgur’s farm, 13th Floor Elevators, surfing and motocross.
MOTOCROSS IN THE LATE ’60s WAS NOTHING LIKE IT IS TODAY. THERE WEREN’T ANY JAPANESE MOTOCROSS BIKES. TWO-STROKES WERE IN THEIR INFANCY. ONLY GROWN MEN RACED MOTORCYCLES. KIDS DIDN’T (AND IF A KID TRIED, HE GREW UP FAST).
To honor his father’s service, Jody’s Varga VG-21 carries the “Triangle L” insignia that was on his father’s B-17 back in 1944.
Motocross in the late ’60s was nothing like it is today. It wasn’t mainstream. There wasn’t a race track in every town. There weren’t any Japanese motocross bikes. The minicycle hadn’t been invented (thus, minicycle fathers had yet to plague the planet). Two-strokes were in their infancy. We wore leather pants and open face helmets. Only grown men raced motorcycles, kids didn’t (and if a kid tried, he grew up fast).
I didn’t know, back in the Sixties, that that there was any such job description as a motorcycle test rider. But what I do know now is that thanks to the baby boom, American motocross was made possible. From the moment the first post-World War II baby was born, a clock started ticking on American society. Social theorists of the time knew that something big was going to happen in the streets of America as soon as the 30,000,000 children of the Greatest Generation became teenagers. Pampered and protected by parents who had lived hard lives through the Great Depression, WWII and the Korea Conflict, the Dr. Spock babies burst into the Sixties ready to change the world, flood the high schools and change the status quo.
Teenagers in the Sixties went looking for thrills. Bred on stick-and-ball sports, they rebelled by seeking out a new genre of sport — one that had never been popular with kids before — the risk sport.
THANKS TO ADOLF HITLER’S EVIL PLANS, I WAS IN THE MOMENT; IN THE RIGHT SPOT AT THE RIGHT TIME; LUCKY TO BE PART OF THE BABY BOOM. RISK SPORTS NEED YOUNG PEOPLE TO THRIVE. THE BABY BOOM WAS A BONANZA FOR MOTORCYCLE SALES.
By late 1975 the motocross world was in transition. It was the end of the line for Old World bikes like CZ, even one with a center-port kit. Jody’s leather pants, Heckel boots and socks over the boots were out of place with his new generation Bell Moto-Star helmet.
Although risk sports weren’t invented by the Flower Power Generation, what was new was the fervor with which young people sought out adventure. Prior to the Sixties, risk sports were reserved for adults: Maury Rose was 41 when he won the Indy 500 in 1947, Sir Edmund Hillary was 33 when he scaled Mt. Everest in 1953, and Ernest Hemmingway was 34 when he wrote his 1932 bullfighting manifesto “Death in the Afternoon.” And that about covered the gamut of risk sports before the Sixties…race car driving, mountain climbing and bullfighting.
For comparison, I was 16 when I first paddled out to ride the giants at Lunada Bay (at the time the only ridable big wave on the West Coast). I was only a little older when my dad bought me a Puch dirt bike, and not much more than 18 years old when I took the controls of an airplane for the first time. I wasn’t unusual — just a small part of a big movement that has led to a wholesale change in the way sports are looked at and played.
Thanks to Adolf Hitler’s evil plans and my dad’s years away fighting the Big One, I was in the moment; in the right spot at the right time; lucky to be part of the baby boom. Risk sports need young people to thrive. The baby boom was a bonanza for motorcycle sales.
The baby boomers were at the pointy end of the motocross spear. I was never the fastest guy (and what speed I had has dissipated as I get older), but I managed to win races and make a name for myself in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Never deluded about my racing prowess (except for its 50-year duration), my window of opportunity was largely a result of being in on the ground floor. In short, I got here because I got there first.
Unlike a lot of my competitors, I was realistic about my chances of making a living as a pro racer (in truth, making a living racing motocross wasn’t a career choice in 1968). To my way of thinking, by 1973 I had reached the “Peter Principle” (in that I had risen as high as I could with what speed I had, and to spend more time chasing it would only reveal my incompetence). That is a major epiphany for any pro athlete. It is your inner voice telling you, “You ain’t got it kid!” But what to do about it? No words of wisdom from my inner voice were forthcoming. Every athlete, in every sport, must answer this question at some point.
This is how you turned a Montesa back in the day —pitch it into the turn, let the rear end step out and drag your inside footpeg to control the slide.
Luckily, I wasn’t hurting for options. I had gone to college throughout my racing career and would eventually work my way through the Bachelors, Masters and Doctor of Philosophy regime. I was destined to become a college professor, but fate intervened. Just like today, magazines and cycle papers needed someone to ride the bikes for their test photos. Marvin Foster, an exec at Hodaka Motorcycles in Athena, Oregon, suggested me to Cycle News as an experienced motocross racer who was a good test rider. Cycle News‘ Richard Creed, one of the world’s greatest motocross photographers, called me and asked if I would test bikes for them.
It was a lark. It gave me a chance to thrash someone else’s bikes for a change. Best of all, I got to be on the cover of Cycle News. Worst of all, I didn’t like what the Cycle News editors wrote about the bikes that I rode for them. They never rode them themselves, they just asked me questions. I gave them what I thought were insightful answers, and they wrote fairy tales that had nothing to do with what I said. It was frustrating.
I HAD FOUND THE GOLDEN FLEECE; I WAS RACING, BUT GETTING PAID WHETHER I WON OR LOST (AND I COULD JUSTIFY LOSING BY THE FACT THAT I WAS RIDING A BIKE THAT I WASN’T FAMILIAR WITH). IT WAS THE PERFECT COP-OUT.
You have to go way back to have raced in rubber tank commander goggles—never mind the sideburns and Hallman GP chest protector.
The solution came to me during a tedious college lecture on gerontology. Why not just write the test reports myself and cut out the middleman? After all, they were watering everything I told them down anyway. Surprisingly, Richard Creed thought it was a great idea. I suppose in retrospect it was a sweet deal for them, since I was doing their job for free.
But free was not the case for long. This was the formative age of Japanese motorcycles, and the Japanese are nothing if not thorough. They wanted to know everything there was to know about American motocrossers, and there were plenty of test riding opportunities. I had found the Golden Fleece; I was racing, but getting paid whether I won or lost (and I could justify losing by the fact that I was riding a bike that I wasn’t familiar with). It was the perfect cop-out. Subsequent to the day I quit racing Hodakas, I never rode the same bike for longer than one month. More often than not, I raced a different bike in every moto. I tested parts for lots of companies — shocks, tires, reed valves, carbs and anything that could be bolted on a bike.
In 1975, Cycle News editor Richard Creed called and said that they needed people who actually raced motocross on their staff. I agreed to join them, but only if they let me do the complete Trans-AMA Series before reporting to work. They said okay and picked up the tab for the greatest ten weeks in my young life. I didn’t stay at Cycle News for very long, but I had fun. Within my first year, I had offers to work as a test editor at Cycle, Cycle World, Cycle Guide, Popular Cycling, Dirt Bike and a very small magazine called Motocross Action.
No suspense. I chose Motocross Action because it was about what I did. No fluff. No headlights. No speedometers. No posers (at least back in the day). It was all about motocross and only about motocross. I was no spring chicken at this point. I had started racing in 1968 on a Sachs, spent several years campaigning Hodakas and CZs, did two years of test rider gigs, worked at Cycle News from 1975 to 1976, and went to work at MXA on January 3, 1977. I’ll do the math for you — I’ve been at MXA for 39 years. It’s a record of some kind for something that nobody keeps records of.
I USED TO TEST A CZ, BULTACO OR CARABELA BY RIDING IT AS FAST AS I COULD. EVENTUALLY, I CRASHED OR IT BROKE. NO BIG DEAL; BREAKING AND CRASHING WERE AN EVERYDAY PART OF LIFE WITH THE AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY OF THE 1970s.
In his young days Jody had a single-minded approach to test riding—like on this Ossa Phantom II. This not how you test motocross bikes, this is how you test knee ligaments.
To this day, I still race every weekend. And just like 42 some odd years ago, I never race the same bike for longer than one month. And more often than not, I race a different bike in every moto. In the last four decades I have ridden virtually every motocross bike made, including most of the worthwhile works bikes and more roaches than a case of Raid could kill. The list is impressive (not in small part because it dates back to the early 1970s).
In the 1970s, production bikes didn’t have very many tuning possibilities. There were no clickers on the shocks or forks, and you just rode them as they came out of the crate. I used to test a CZ, Bultaco, Maico, BSA, Ossa, Montesa or Carabela by riding it as fast as I could. If that didn’t tell me anything, I rode it faster. Eventually, I rode it so hard that I crashed or it broke. No big deal; breaking and crashing were an everyday part of life with the agricultural machinery of the 1970s.
I might have kept on with my flat-out approach to testing except for a run-in with Jeff Smith. I raced the two-time 500 World Champion at Saddleback in the Vet Master class, and when I passed him on the first lap I felt like I had reached the pinnacle of my racing life. It didn’t last long. A lap later, the BSA factory rider, 13 years my elder, wound it up and went by me at twice my speed. He disappeared from my view in short order. After the race, Jeff sat me down and said, “Jody, don’t try to go so fast. Take your time and build your speed. You have to slow down to go really fast.”
I absorbed Jeff’s comments and realized that what counts in a test rider is the ability to have a deft touch, to feel the bike and to eliminate himself from the equation. As a strict science, the only way to test motorcycles is as blindly as possible and with as much paperwork as humanly feasible. Shrugs, grunts and “it’s okay” comments are not acceptable. Engineers (and those writing consumer tests) need hard facts, spiced with words that have meaning. It’s not just the quality of the test rider that builds better motorcycles, or gives buyers a fighting chance at selecting the best one, but the rigorous examination that the test rider undergoes after spending time on a new bike. Flat-out speed in a test rider only makes him valuable as a race team test rider, where he is working on settings for the select and chosen few. The average rider isn’t fast and if forced to race Stewart’s, Dungey’s or Barcia’s bike would realize that what these men do and the machines they do it on have nothing in common with the rest of us. The worse test rider for a production motorcycle is a fast AMA Pro who still thinks he’s fast. A test rider has to think about not just the performance of the machine, but the end user as well.
THE THEORY THAT DRIVES THE MEEK, WHO INHERIT MANY TEST POSITIONS AT MAGAZINES, IS THAT IF THEY DON’T SAY ANYTHING BAD, THEN NOBODY WILL BE OFFENDED.
They don’t all make it through every test. Jody contemplates shooting the 1979 Yamaha YZ125F to put it out of its misery at Saddleback. A blown main bearing was the culprit this time, but it has been everything from broken frames to exploded hubs.
There are three kinds of test reports: (1) rave reviews, (2) glad-hand reports and (3) scorched earth tests. In the real world, the only tests that count are the raves and scorchers. Why? Every young test rider, unsure of his knowledge or devoid of it, writes a glad-hand report to disguise his lack of commitment (by not saying anything or by only saying nice things). The theory that drives the meek, who inherit many test positions at magazines, is that if they don’t say anything bad, then nobody will be offended.
The people who hate glad-hand tests the most are the test engineers who built the bike. If an engineer makes a really good product, he doesn’t want his bike’s superiority to be diluted by a less-than-stellar competitor getting a good review by a timid test rider. And, surprisingly, if the engineer is part of a project that makes a bad product, he doesn’t want the powers-that-be back at the factory to believe what they read in the “speak-no-evil” test as blanket approval of the bike — and a reason to cut funding for a new version.
Take the 2006 Kawasaki KX450F, for example. Every magazine, save for MXA, glad handed it to death — some even put the laurel wreath on its lofty head. MXA scorched it! In MXA’s opinion, the 2006 KX450F was a seriously flawed bike. Its four-speed gearbox only had three speeds, its shock was deplorably under damped, the rising rate was way off, and the powerband, while pleasant, wasn’t stellar when compared to its worthy competition. Kawasaki was happy with the rave reviews of the other magazines, but, back in the workshop, Kawasaki’s engineers knew the truth that MXA spoke. And, for 2007, they ignored the rave reviews and tried to respond to every one of MXA’s complaints (with a five-speed tranny, new damping, punched up powerband and different shock linkage). Were we right and everybody else wrong? You bet we were, but the real point is that Kawasaki knew that everyone else was wrong. The same holds true for the 2009 Honda CRF450. It was a flawed bike, yet every other magazine reported on how good it was. Those tests are wrong, but they satisfied people who spent $9000 on the bike–but they didn’t serve the public well.
The scorched earth bike test, whether at the factory level or magazine level, is rare. Not because bad bikes aren’t made, but because test riders aren’t very brave. Not surprisingly, most test riders have decided that it isn’t worth the risk to write bad things, so they shy away from saying factual things about bad bikes. Need examples? Sure you do. Every magazine test rider raved about the handling of the 2002 Honda CRF450 chassis. Not MXA. We called it a “garbage scow,” although it should be pointed out that no MXA test rider has ever piloted a garbage scow. In the end, the public came to realize that the 2002 CRF450 needed help — and it came in the form of 20mm offset triple clamps (which the Honda test engineers asked if they could borrow from us to run their own test).
The rave review is less rare than the scorched earth test, but it is more heartfelt. The test rider believes that the factory is on the right track and wants the engineers (or the consumer) to know how much they like the way the bike performs. Sometimes, bikes that aren’t all that special get praised, but at least you have to admire the test rider’s misplaced passion.
“I DON’T CARE IF YOU’RE RIGHT OR WRONG, AS LONG AS YOU ARE ALWAYS RIGHT OR ALWAYS WRONG. BUT YOU CAN’T BE A GOOD TEST RIDER IF YOU ARE ONLY RIGHT HALF THE TIME.” ED SCHEIDLER.
Even with its soft rear suspension, vicious understeer and Spanish reliability, Jody loved his 1977 wrinkle-fin Montesa 250VB. He called it “a guilty pleasure.”
I’m not the world’s greatest test rider. I’m not the worst either, but I can tell you the names of all the bad test riders on three sheets of paper (single-spaced and double-sided), while the names of the good ones would fit on a postage stamp. I pride myself on being consistent. I know what makes a good motorcycle, and I can identify those traits every time I ride a bike (I’ve had over 40 years of practice to get it right). Consistency is very important — but that consistency can only be proven via experience.
One day, when I was testing YZs with Yamaha’s most famous test engineer, Ed Scheidler, he told me something profound about being a test rider. “I don’t care if you’re right or wrong, as long as you are always right or always wrong. But you can’t be a good test rider if you are only right half the time.”
Ed and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye on testing. He would often send me out to test a part, only to find me back in the pits 15 seconds later, claiming that the mod was no good.
“How do you know if it was better or worse? You didn’t even do a full lap?” he’d bellow.
“I don’t need a full lap when it’s so far off,” I’d say. “In fact, I wanted to turn around on my way through the pits, but I gave you one corner out of courtesy.”
“Just put your seat in the saddle and do what I tell you,” he’d reply.
One day Ed Scheidler wanted Doug Dubach and me to test jetting on the then-new 2002 YZ125. I’d ride, the Doctor would ride; then, and only then, were we allowed to talk about the jetting. We repeated this process over and over. This went on for hours with the two of us in total agreement about each jetting change. On the tenth jetting change, I refused to ride the bike. Ed said, “Just put your butt in the saddle and do what I tell you.”
I replied that since Dubach and I agreed on every jetting change, it was pointless for both of us to ride each time. We were consistently the same and thus having both of us ride was redundant. Scheidler was not amused, but testing is work (and not always fun work).
Sometimes, you aren’t testing a new bike, or even next year’s bike, but last year’s bike. Back in 1991, I complained to Yamaha that the YZ125 pre-pro ran better than the 1991 production bike. Ed Scheidler spent hours in the dyno room with both bikes proving that the production bike made two more horsepower than the pre-pro. I insisted, and it became a point of honor with Yamaha to shut me up. Yamaha arranged a test at the old DeAnza Cycle Park. They dusted off the well worn pre-pro and three brand-new YZ125s and we went at it. Yamaha had its test riders, and I brought the cream of the MXA crop at the time (Larry Brooks, Alan Olson and Gary Jones).
At the end of the day, every Yamaha test rider was in agreement with the MXA test riders. Two horsepower or not, the pre-pro was better (I think we were talking about 28 horsepower). I learned an important lesson that day about dynos. A dyno is a wonderful tool, but until they start taking them to the starting line, they can’t beat a butt in the saddle.
“DYNOS CONFIRM WHEN THE ENGINE BUILDER IS ON THE RIGHT TRACK, EXCEPT FOR WHEN HE IS ON THE WRONG TRACK.” MITCH PAYTON
Crashing is a part of test riding. Every MXA test rider has been hurt at some point in his career. One word of advice; if you are going to crash like this, you might want to wear a chest protector and ditch the French-made Techno helmet.
This lesson was all the more evident in 2006 with the Husqvarna TC450. There was a lot of buzz about the bike, and Mitch Payton, an old-school Husqvarna fan, wanted to know what it was like to ride. I told him that it was like racing a “Lionel Electric Train.” Yet, on the dyno, the TC450 pumped out more horsepower than any other 2006 450. I asked Mitch how the Husqvarna could make so much power on the dyno and so little on the track, and he said, “Dynos confirm when the engine builder is on the right track, except for when he is on the wrong track.”
There are two kinds of dynos that I believe in: the human dyno and the dirt dyno.
The human dyno is Ed Scheidler’s seat in the saddle example. If you ride enough different bikes, and you have ridden the model that came before the one you’re testing (and the one that came before it, ad infinitum), you eventually hone your senses to feel fast from slow (or more accurately faster from slower). But this is pseudo science. As much as I trust senses that have done nothing but accelerate and decelerate for over 40 years, I know that they can be fooled, much like your depth perception in Knott’s Berry Farm’s tilted house. Cross referencing, by going back and forth between bikes, is a must.
Conversely, the dirt dyno has been my mainstay for all these decades. Unlike most test riders, I prefer to test by racing. Why? Because only in a race will I push to the limits of my now meager speed. Only at a race will I hit bumps that could be avoided on a practice day. Only at a race will I ask more of myself and thus more of the machine than I would on a Tuesday. For most of the ’70s and ’80s, I tested at the famous Saddleback Park. I rode there thousands of times and, because of that, I could accurately predict my lap times without a stop watch. I knew to the millisecond if the bike I was testing was laying down tracks or just laying down and dying. When Saddleback closed in 1984, I eventually settled on Glen Helen as my dirt dyno.
But bikes can’t always be tested on MXA’s turf. Bikes don’t always come to meet-and-greet on our home turf. MXA test riders have flown to Holland, France, Japan, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Canada, Mexico, England and Finland to test. With no dirt dyno and no Dynojet, the human senses are all we have to rely on — that and each other. Although I started out as a Lone Ranger in the early ’70s, over the years I was aided, supported and often guided by MXA’s cadre of test riders: Pete Maly, Ketchup Cox, Clark Jones, Bill Keefe, Lance Moorewood, Larry Brooks, David Gerig, Ed Arnet, Zapata Espinoza, Gary Jones, Alan Olson, Willy Musgrave, Tim Olson, John Minert, Dennis Stapleton, Daryl Ecklund and John Basher.
PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK WHAT THE WORST BIKE MXA EVER TESTED WAS. I HATE TO NARROW IT DOWN TO ONE MACHINE, BECAUSE MY LIST IS A LOT MORE ECLECTIC THAN THAT.
MXA’s cartoon of Jody on the Black Widow.
People always ask what the worst bike MXA ever tested was. I hate to narrow it down to one machine, because my list is a lot more eclectic than that. Here is a quick list that is by no means comprehensive.
The 1977 Can-Am Black Widow (that wasn’t the name of the bike, it is just what everyone called it because of its color) easily made my worst list. The Can-Am’s frame would store energy when it was hooked up, and as soon as you chopped the throttle, it would twang like Duane Eddy’s guitar strings (that is a cultural reference for my brother). Sometimes it would twitch a full 90-degrees.
The 1973 Suzuki TM400 had a light switch engine attached to a spaghetti frame. The Cyclone came on so suddenly that it would scare you, and it swapped so bad that it would frighten flag men on the side of the track. Once, at a night race on a ’74 model, I thought someone was trying to pass me on the left – it turns out that the back of my TM400 was swapping so bad that I could see it in my peripheral vision.
When I tested Don Kudalski’s 1975 Rokon 340 Cobra, it was the first time I ever raced with disc brakes. For those unfamiliar, the Rokon used a 340cc Sachs snowmobile engine (Salisbury torque converter and all). You didn’t have to shift, just wick it up and hang on. Ever brave, on the first lap I rocketed down the long straight, and when I slammed on the brakes for the turn, I was catapulted like a Guernsey cow from a French trebuchet. I landed in the center of the pits with about 275 pounds of Rhode Island-built snow blower on top of me. Respect comes faster with some machines.
A rare photo of MXA’s 2001 Cannondale MX400 actually running.
I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you my 2001 Cannondale MX400 experiences. Let me list them: (1) The first test bike we got from Cannondale broke in 15 minutes. (2) For some reason, every time we rode back into the pits, the Cannondale would flame out about 30 feet away from wherever we wanted to go. (3) The fuel injection was so strange that we could start the bike in the pits, put it in gear and ride around the track without ever touching the throttle. (4) When the time came to adjust the valves, we had to get a car jack out of the back of our truck and use it to lower the engine. (5) The oil-in-the-frame chassis got so hot that it would blister our skin if accidentally touched. (6) The electric starter worked in the pits, but when you stalled during a moto (and you always stalled during a moto), the battery would run down before the bike would restart. (7) The suspension was so soft that it clanged like the bell on Big Ben. We borrowed then-Team Cannondale rider Keith Johnson’s Ohlins suspension components because he had the only set with stiff springs. He wanted them back that afternoon. He got them back four weeks later when we got tired of pushing the Cannondale off the track in the middle of every race.
THE 1981 HONDA CR450 WAS A NIGHTMARE. THE POWER WAS ALL BOTTOM AND THEN A BOG. THE CLUTCH SLIPPED (WHEN IT DIDN’T EXPLODE ON THE STARTING LINE). AND, THE FRONT NUMBER PLATE LOOKED LIKE A SNOW SHOVEL.
You would think that a guy who raced some of the most famous vintage bikes of today, back when they were new, would be into vintage racing, but Jody says that he didn’t want to race his 1974 Super Combat on 1975, so why would he want to race it in 2016.
In 1981, Honda finally released a production version of the bike that had been winning the 500 National Championship. Unfortunately, the 1981 four-speed CR450 two-stroke was a nightmare. The 431cc engine was built on CR250 engine cases. The power was all bottom and then a bog. The clutch slipped like the Rokon’s torque converter (when it didn’t explode on the starting line). The front number plate looked like a snow shovel, the base gasket flew out of the bottom end like shrapnel, and the air box was porous. A far cry from a CRF450.
I raced a twin-forked 1975 Harley-Davidson 250MX. It was supposed to be a production bike, but very few were ever made. In the archaic suspension days of the 1970s, some confused Harley engineer (at the Aeromacchi factory in Varese, Italy) put a set of forks on the rear of the Harley for the fallacious reason that riders always complained about their rear shocks, but they rarely complained about their forks. The fly in the ointment is that forks only have to hit bumps, while the shock has to handle the bumps plus the chain torque of the engine. I didn’t like the Italian-built engine, ergos or fitment, but the rear forks actually worked pretty well.
Once in the ’70s, at the Lockhart track in Texas (a track that we called Rockhart for obvious reasons), I raced a Hodaka in the 100 class, Bultaco Pursang in the 250 class and BSA 441 Victim (Victor) in the 500 class. The BSA shifted on the right, and all three bikes had completely different shift patterns (some up for low and some down). You haven’t lived until you go for the brakes only to hit the shifter. I was never as happy as the day that the NHTSA passed a law that said all bikes had to shift on the left and go down for low.
Back in 1999, MXA got its hands on the rarest of all motocross bikes — the Vertemati four-stroke. Because of their rarity, these GP bikes had a reputation for being the best bikes ever built. Not so! Yikes! It was a handful. The front end understeered like a snowplow, the rear suspension was more boomerang than shock absorber, and the vaunted, hand-built, four-stroke V495 engine was equipped with a three-speed tranny (with neutral on the bottom). You had to pretend that you were Clint Eastwood when you raced the bike to avoid hitting neutral in the middle of a race. “You have to ask yourself, did I downshift once or did I downshift twice. Well, did I, punk?” If you guessed wrong, you got pitched over the bars.
The three-speed idea wasn’t bad, though, because when the MXA test crew rode Tim Ferry’s 2002 Yamaha YZ426F works bike, it had a three-speed (with neutral between first and second). Great tranny, great power, great bike. In fact, when we rode Chad Reed’s last factory-backed YZ450F Supercross bike and it had a special four-speed tranny.
The 1976 Puch MC250 was called the Harry Everts Replica. Puch only sold about 100 of the twin-carb bikes (one carb was piston port, while the other fed a rotary valve). I loved the Puch. It was incredibly fast in a straight line. It should have been the best-selling bike of all time, because it was that far ahead of its time.
IF I COULD ONLY PICK ONE BIKE TO RACE, IT WOULD BE THE 1981 MAICO 490. THIS BIKE WAS LUSCIOUS TO RIDE. IT CORNERED LIKE A 125, RAN LIKE THE SUPER CHIEF, AND OOZED COTTAGE INDUSTRY CHARM.
Jody on his favorite bike of all-time —the 1981 Maico 490 Mega 2.
If I could only pick one bike to race, it would have to be the 1981 Maico 490 Mega 2. It needed shock help, relaced wheels and arc’ed brakes, but this bike was luscious to ride. It cornered like a 125, ran like the Super Chief, and oozed cottage industry charm.
Johnny O’Mara was a local kid who helped the MXA wrecking crew with testing, and when he paired up with another MXA alumni, Al Baker, Johnny got the nod to race the 1980 Mugen 125W1. Mugen was owned by Hiro Honda, son of Soichiro, and no expense was spared on the W1. It was sweet.
As bad as the 1981 Honda CR450 was, the 1983 Honda CR480 was perfection.
I absolutely adored the Husqvarna Automatic (and tested Bo Edberg’s works Auto in Sweden in 1982). Towards the end of the Auto’s production run, Mitch Payton built me a special one-off Auto with a 500cc cylinder, Honda forks and disc brakes. I never went as fast on any bike as on my Husky Auto, but I never finished a single moto on the thing.
In 1978 Hodaka commissioned Jody to build them a motocross-version of their 250 Thunderdog enduro bike. He finished the project and shipped it back to Athena, Oregon, just in time for Hodaka to go out of business.
I loved the late ’60s and early ’70s Hodaka Super Rats. They sold for peanuts, ran like a clock and could be rebuilt in 20 minutes. This bike was the linchpin of the dirt bike craze in the USA. In 1978, in their dying days, Hodaka offered me the chance to prototype a motocross version of the Hodaka 250ED. The budget was miniscule, but the finished project was pretty good (although it used a potpourri of parts from other brands and aftermarket companies). Unfortunately, once I finished the test cycles, Hodaka asked me to send the Thunderdog back to Athena for analysis. It has never been seen since.
I always clicked with the Czech way of doing things. In an era of fragile machinery, the Ceske-Zavody’s were made of pig iron. You couldn’t break that engine with a hammer (and it had a dry clutch). My favorite CZ was a center-port conversion built by South Bay CZ’s Joe Kubicek. My fondest CZ moment was in 1982 when the Czech mechanics let me ride the one-off CZ single shocker in Finland (but I had to promise to not tell anyone, or they would lose their jobs).
My secret pleasure was the 1977 Montesa 250VB. Deep inside, I knew that this wasn’t a very good bike. But when I raced it, I forgot all about the Spanish understeer, Spanish metallurgy and Spanish reliability. When General Franco died, Montesa motocross bikes soon followed.
Horst Leitner’s KTM 125 no-link prototype.
Another bike that I was lucky enough to ride before it disappeared was Horst Leitner’s KTM single-shock no-link prototype. In 1989, the then-KTM management asked the ATK inventor to build them the bike of the future. In his Laguna Beach factory, Horst designed a super radical KTM prototype. It used a no-link rear shock, single-sided radiator, exhaust pipe that exited downward behind the engine, and a three-tube hanger-frame. Although the project was supposed to be a secret, Horst let the MXA wrecking crew race the bike at Perris Raceway before crating it up for the trip to the Austrian R&D department. Good thing he did, because the bike disappeared, never to see the light of day again — except for the no-link idea.
The best works bike I ever tested was Travis Pastrana’s 2003 Suzuki RM250 (and I’ve ridden an incredible number of factory bieks). It was the perfect combination of power, handling, suspension and performance. No bike has ever come as close to perfection.
THE WORST WORKS BIKE THAT I EVER RODE WAS REALLY THREE BIKES — THREE OF THE FOUR RICKY CARMICHAEL BIKES THAT MXA HAS TESTED (WE ACTUALLY TESTED FIVE, BUT ONE WAS HIS KX80 MINICYCLE).
The MXA wrecking crew circa 1985. (Front row) Lance Moorewood. (Back row) David Gerig, Gary Jones and Jody Weisel.
The worst works bike that I ever rode was really three bikes — three of the four Ricky Carmichael bikes that MXA has tested (we actually tested five, but one was his KX80 minicycle). Ricky’s 1997 KX125, 1998 KX125 and 2003 Honda CR250 were classic RC bikes: pipey, hard-to-ride, blazing fast and unbelievably tiring. They hit hard, had low-rider rear suspension, stiff forks, laid-down handlebars and were twitchy. They proved to be very good race bikes, but only in the hands of one man. The last Ricky bike that we tested was one of the best we ever rode. It was the CRF450 that RC won the 2004 AMA National Championship on. It was super easy to ride and headed for the Honda museum as soon as we were done with it. We caused an international incident when we moved Ricky’s lever position.
I’m older now than I was when Hodaka exec Marv Foster recommended me as a test rider so many decades ago. I like to think that I’m wiser, although I must admit that most of the know-how in my vast reservoir of worthless knowledge was achieved through osmosis. When I first started racing, I reveled in my ignorance. Not knowing what was going on was bliss, because there was nothing I could do about it anyway. My MX IQ increased as a direct result of the sheer number of bikes I rode, tech briefings I attended and smart people I associated with.
Jody, last weekend at Glen Helen, almost 50 years after his first race.
As a matter of political correctness, I’d love to claim that the years spent working on my Bachelors, Masters and PhD. were the keys to my success, and that every aspiring motorcycle test rider would do well to hit the books, stay in school and get a degree (or three). Perhaps in the world of Air Force test pilots, an engineering degree is a must, but for a motorcycle test rider, nothing beats an educated derriere — Ed Scheidler’s “seat in the saddle.”
The measure of a test rider isn’t defined by the coolness factor of being the first to ride a new bike, nor the fact that so few people are chosen to do the job. In function, test riders are worker ants who do their jobs virtually alone, on empty tracks with no one around to admire their handiwork. It is a job, not an adventure. When a test rider does his job right, either in the employ of a manufacturer or as the ombudsman of the consumer, he is an anonymous public servant. If he is honest, he serves the public by telling people something that they can’t find out for themselves — except at great cost. Circumstances beyond my control nominated me for the job. I like to think that integrity made me good at it.
Every man who races a motorcycle is a test rider. You have it in your power to make your motorcycle better or worse — all you have to do is put your seat in the saddle and make some adjustments (and if you start today, you’ll have been testing motocross bikes for as long as I have in 2058). Mark that date on your calendar.