AGV Backmarker: The Art of the Motorcycle (Mechanic)

Last week, I wrote about the sculptor Chris Burden and his sculpture, The Big Wheel, which will soon be on public display at the Geffen Contemporary, a branch of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The motorcycle in that sculpture is, itself, over 40 years old. Thirty of those years, it’s been part of this work of art.

Like most valuable works of art in museum collections, The Big Wheel’s been stored under temperature- and humidity-controlled conditions. But while that’s good for art, it’s not ideal for motorcycles, which tend to last better when they get occasional exercise.

I should have written, “occasional normal use.” Although the little Wards Riverside 250 did get occasional exercise, it was nothing like the use the bike’s engineers intended. First, it was only run for a minute or two at a time; luckily, not long enough to overheat, since there was no airflow to cool the motor. Second, the motor wasn’t being used to accelerate 400 pounds of bike and rider; it was being used to accelerate three tons of cast iron.

MOCA’s exhibition production coordinator, Stacie London, owns a vintage bike herself, a BMW R60. She realized that the little Benelli was shot. When she learned that the curators planned to put The Big Wheel on display again, she knew she needed a mechanic—and not just any mechanic, either. After all, Wards Riverside 250s aren’t worth much, but this one was a central element in a million-dollar work of art.

London called my friend Leif Lewis. Leif’s accent still betrays a childhood spent on a farm in Scotland, where he taught himself to ride and work on his own dirt bikes. As a teenager, he literally ran away and joined the circus—an outfit called Archaos that inspired many imitators, including Cirque du Soleil. Leif apprenticed with one of the other performers, an ex-French trials champion.

He eventually ended up in L.A., hoping to parlay his stunting skills into some kind of fame. Instead, he ended up becoming a sort of mechanic to the stars. He was a particularly good choice as mechanic on The Big Wheel because it was the little bike’s clutch that needed the most attention.

Trials riders are demons for clutch feel, because they use the clutch quite a bit differently than the rest of us. In trials, it’s not just a way to change gears or engage or disengage power. Trials riders like to keep the engine in the powerband all the time, nearly at maximum power, and use the clutch the way other riders use the throttle—as a means of regulating how much power is transmitted to the rear wheels.

After moving to L.A., Leif bought a Ducati and spent a good many hours up on the Angeles Crest. He loved the bike but was dismayed at how quickly the clutch wore out, resulting in crappy feel and dodgy hookup.

Leif spent the next seven years researching and developing a new dry clutch for Ducatis. To function properly, a dry clutch shakes the plates apart when you pull the lever. That’s why they make noise and why—when you’re stopped at a traffic light on your new Ducati—you smile and think, That’s my dry clutch, that is.

The problem is that as your clutch pack rocks back and forth, it damages the basket, and before long, it sounds as if your clutch is shaking to pieces. So a year or two later, when people on the crosswalk stare in horror at a motorcycle that sounds as if it’s in its death throes, you’ll want to yell, “Don’t worry, it’s just my dry clutch!”

Leif addressed that problem with a mix of clever invention—the stabilization plate in his Wagner-Lewis Lightweight Pro Clutch has a patent pending—and old-fashioned attention to detail. The result is a dry clutch that not only has better feel, but will last far longer than the stock unit.

Although the clutch on The Big Wheel bike is wet, he was able to apply a lot of the same refinement. For example, instead of being stamped out, the clutch’s steel plates were water-cut and then double-disc ground so they’re perfectly flat. Leif has his friction plates custom-made, with a bonded Kevlar friction surface.

As you see in the video, the clutch has to be slipped like crazy to get The Big Wheel turning. The piece will be on display for nine months, and the bike will run twice a day. Now, it should last. Of course, it would also be embarrassing if the curators couldn’t start it, so Leif went through the rest of the motor too. Luckily, Wards inventoried a whole selection of spare parts, which are still around. “You can still get all the new-old-stock parts, like a complete cylinder head for $125,” Leif told me. “I almost want to get one for myself and make it into a road racer.”

It would make a great little vintage racer, or a bitchin’ cafe racer, that’s for sure. I think that the last year Ward sold it was ’69, the year Kel Carruthers won the 250cc World Championship on a privately entered, ex-factory Benelli.

Carruthers won three races that year. By the following year, Yamaha (under Rod Gould, then Read, then Saarinen, etc.) had reconsolidated its domination of the class with TD2 production racers.

Speaking of great little vintage racers, bitchin’ cafe bikes, and Yamaha two-stroke twins… In the early ’90s, I stripped a Yamaha RZ350 street bike and club-raced it up in Canada. Although it needs a rebuild, it is currently in complete, running race trim. It’s basically stock, with all street parts removed. Okay, the original bodywork was “removed” at pretty high speed, if you know what I mean, but it’s straight. In fact, after several years of racing, I had it Computracked, and they guy told me it was straighter than most new bikes! I guess I crashed it evenly on both sides.

The street parts have long since been lost/sold/traded. It’s got Spec II expansion chambers and a Fox shock, steel brake lines and a fork brace, Rask rear-sets, Air-tech bodywork… pretty much what you’d expect in a club-racer from fifteen years back. This was a new bike, originally sold in Canada in 1989. That makes it 20 years old, which I think makes it easy to import into the U.S.

You’d never believe it if you saw me ride today, but I won lots of races on this bike back in the day. The RZ350 was recently made eligible for the Manx Grand Prix, and I’d love to rebuild it with that in mind, but I can’t afford to. In fact, I can’t afford to keep it at all. It’s currently stored in a friend’s garage in Calgary, Alberta. I should get it out of there.

If you need a winter project, contact me. I’d love to sell it to a Backmarker reader who will really appreciate it, instead of just eBaying it to a stranger.