TZ 350 flat tracker (the one on the left!)

A couple years ago Ray Abrams granted me and a friend the honor of a tour through A&A Racing's shop. We did nothing to earn it but show up and ask to look around -- and buy a pair of Flanders No. 24 handlebars. In the midst of more glamorous hardware, I noticed a flat-track chassis with engine cases but no cylinders or bodywork. It looked like . . . a two-stroke twin. Ray chimed in with the information that it was a TZ 350 flat tracker and a Harley-killer on the mile. He'd sent to Europe for the motor and it ran away from the XRs first time out. But the AMA changed the rules immediately after (to favor a politically-powerful company's four-stroke dinosaur) and the little gem could not be raced any more. Shame.

Its famous big-brother, the TZ 750 flat tracker, had an excess of horsepower. As Kenny Roberts said, the 750 had twice the horsepower of the competition and was lighter to boot! But the little 350 had more than enough power and was controllable -- and even lighter yet!

Ray didn't mention who raced the 350 but apparently KR had a go on the bike, or one like it. The one in the photo might be the same one I saw. About the only info on the web seems to be this picture, found at "Jacques Strappe's" website.

Ray built the TZ750 that KR paraded at Indy this year. He's a legend, and a nice guy.

Scuderia Linda

This image represents a bit of San Francisco motorcycle lore. Around 1989 my friend Jim Brown and I started a "club" in his garage on Linda Street in the Mission District. The club was called "Scuderia Linda" and membership required having a Ducati that had not run in over a year. In US slang, a Ducati can be a "Duck" as well as a "Duke." Jim had an early-70's 750GT renovation project. I had a 1980 SSD proto-streetfighter, driven hard for several years, then dismantled for refurbishing. We jokingly discussed artwork for our club logo. One day soon after, Jim surprised me with the large patch above. Those are crossed bevel gear shafts -- Jim's contribution to the design. Donny Lemelin joined the club although technically I think Donny did not have a basket-case Ducati (he had a tasty Laverda 3C -- perhaps an actual Jota? -- that ran well). Then Jim knocked his brains out in an accident, being left unable to form new memories and mostly paralyzed on his left side.

Donny went on to fame by founding the shop Scuderia West. I sold my Ducati, still in parts, to Jim's ex-girlfriend, leaving me with a TR6R I'd bought from Jim as my only bike. She re-sold the Ducati to a guy in Minnesota. Last I heard, Jim was in a nursing home in the East Bay.

I was sitting next to Jim when he "founded" the British Death Fleet, a semi-organized clique that still meets at the notorious SF watering hole Zeitgeist. It began around 1986 when a loose group of Euro-bike riders in SF were drinking at Speck/The Adler Museum. Jim spotted an Argentine War poster on the ceiling and loudly recited the slogan, "Who can stop the British Death Fleet?!!" Probably in his cups, he kept reciting it, and the name stuck although there were more BMWs in the group, and probably more Italian bikes, than British amongst us.

[Turns out the "British Death Fleet" poster was a San Francisco Irish-American artifact, directed against British naval vessels visiting SF and pre-dating the Argentine War. See here, scroll down.]

By and by

Probably not in Montreal, and certainly not this winter. But eventually I'll get these back on the road. A 2000 W650 and 1973 F7. The handguards on the W are indispensable. I can wear summer gloves in cold wet weather.