What are you going to do when there is 10" of snow on the ground and it's 22 degrees? Ain't going riding, even with an electric vest, that's for sure. Guess it is time to reminisce about bikes gone by.
This is the only British made bike I've ever owned. It is a 405cc Sprite, sold in the USA under the American Eagle brand. Two-stroke with a "proper" right shift and left brake. It came with two fiberglass tanks, the smaller red one in the photo and a larger blue one. I always thought it was a good looking bike, it handled nicely, had poor brakes, good power and shifted like a truck. I've been told that it was a Husqvarna clone but they didn't get something right in the gear box.
A friend and I bought two of these things, brand new, in the crate from a dealer in Hawaii that wanted to get rid of them. That was around 1970. Our idea was to use them for trail riding which we did but I raced mine several times at the motocross track on the Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station and once at night on a motocross track set up at a local flat track. The bike was much better than my abilities and I crashed a few times toward the front of the pack.
Not much to be found on the WWW about this bike and the photo below was the only one I could find.
nice piece My favorite motorcycle was a honda Shadow 700.
ReplyDeleteeasy to work on and needed little maintenance. I rebuilt my first motorcycle in college. It was190 honda scrambler. 2 lungs. nice bike.Faster than a bullet for such a small bike.