Reflections, Honda CL 350

I was reading a recent issue of Rider magazine and Clement Salvadori's back page nostalgic column on the Honda 350 caused me to rev through my ancient two-wheeled memory neurotransmitters.  

I rode my first motorcycle, a Honda CB 160, hard.  I thought the red line on the tachometer was the shift point for all gears, all the time.  I learned very early in my quest to shorten my skills' learning curve to “fan” the clutch lever for the instant shift that required no easing off of the throttle.  The little engine survived the teenage abuse of about nine months before being completely dismantled, stuffed into a cavernous 60s something Oldsmobile's trunk, transported to northern New York state from Portales, reassembled, and red-lined south to the Big Apple for the summer.  The little bike that did, never made it back to its homeland as a friend from high school purchased it during a mid summer's night environmental lapse of forethought.  Winter in the northeast was not well suited for single track vehicles.

My union wage, night shift employment at JFK International Airport met my tuition needs and my day job as a bicycle mechanic would meet my transportation lust as I sought a replacement motorcycle.  I had my eyes and brain focused on a Triumph Daytona.  The Brits had wonderfully evocative model names:  Bullet, Commando, Bonneville, Black Shadow, Spitfire, Rocket Three, Thruxton. Their names originated in the heavens (Shooting Star) and plunged to the depths of the oceans (Barracuda) but the most famous were named after race tracks and Daytona was one of THE tracks to win on Sunday and sell on Monday.  My illusions were grand.

A friend who knew my lack of motorcycle mechanical skill and propensity for wringing an engine to the “uncle” point, suggested that I await Honda's new, bigger, better, more powerful, top of the line, macadam melting CB/CL 350cc road burner. And it was the Fall of 1968 B.C. (before Chris) I journeyed to Lubbock, Texas to lasso the first Honda 350 offered for sale west of the Mississippi River. The ride back to Portales was like most two-wheeled adventures in West Texas and eastern New Mexico – bug splattering and wind blowing. I was ecstatic.

Adventures ranging from my first football game in Artesia (football was banned in many New York high schools during the turbulent 60s) to draining gas hoses after hours in vacant eastern New Mexico towns to keep the two-wheeling dream alive.

The 350 was too big to fit into the trunk of any car, so I rode it to New York eight months later at my usual hyper speed and secured my standby night job at Pan American World Airways and acquired the on-the-job training needed to become a day job Honda mechanic so I could at least identify strange noises emanating from the engine's innards. I also bought a VW Bug which had been abused by a gentleman who drank more alcohol than the VW consumed gasoline. The end result was a very sick tiny engine. This was NOT his father's V-8 Oldsmobile. How both vehicles arrived in Portales for the Fall semester is fodder for another story.

I rode the 350 back to Portales on a new projected timeline that seemed a bit optimistic as I had allowed 48 hours for the approximately two thousand miles. On a 350. With only a “bubble” shield on my helmet as my concession to aerodynamics. Two thousand miles of riding through hurricane-force air fatigued my arms and engine heat had slowly exhausted the oil's ability to lubricate.

By the time I was whizzing by “The Big Texan” in Amarillo (how does any human being consume so much food?), an auditorily offensive raucous was emanating from deep within the bowls of the engine. This was not to be a roadside fix so I kept riding on into Portales, up the sidewalk to the front door of the dorm,and then parked the ailing machine in front of my first floor room. My flagrant disrespect for the engine's performance parameters finally resulted in mechanical mutiny after only 13,000 miles of repeated explorations into its red (twilight) zone. After the necessary surgery, I sold the motorcycle to pay for my bicycle addiction.

I never did acquire the riding experience offered by a Triumph Daytona or any other British bike for that matter, and my two-wheeled adventures have mostly become our two-wheeled adventures as Chris and I have spent many of our 45 years together exploring the US, Canada, and Mexico. Rider magazine is also celebrating its 45th anniversary as the cover of the May issue declares and I remember purchasing issue number one from a Los Alamos news stand and learning how to ride more sensibly; my red-lining days were over. 

As the pilot's mantra states, “There are ... no old, bold pilots.”