I WAS WONDERING; DON’T WE ALL HAVE A little streak of hooliganery lurking within us? A little demon tweaking us into a minor dose of irresponsibility from time to time? Being sensible is obviously perfectly sensible, but how many of us need to be sensible all the time? Don’t know about you, but one reason I ride bikes as often and as far as possible is because it always adds some excitement in an increasingly regulated world. Note that I did not suggest it was a sensible world…
Back in 1971, a 650 BSA was a perfectly sensible buy – let’s move rapidly past the not-very-sensible riding fast motorcycles thing, can we? The most sensible was, of course, the Thunderbolt, a single-carb twin, while Brits feeling a little more adventurous and confident in their ability to keep a pair of grumpy Amal Concentrics in some sort of harmonious tune could opt for the Lightning. At this point you are allowed to hum ‘Thunderbolt and Lightning, very, very frightening’ to yourself. It was that kind of era.
Our American cousins, as was so often the way, were offered another option: the bright bike you can stare at here: the considerably awesome Firebird Scrambler. Simply looking at this statemental – or merely mental – machine is enough to make me smile, chuckle, and start scanning
