If I could go back and get only one bike that I owned over the years, it would be the Ossa. Simply because it was so much fun to ride. It had a great feel, you would sit on top of it, much like the new motocross bikes today. I don't like a bike that saddles you in, I like to sit up on top of it. This was the most comfortable bike I ever rode, the suspension was awesome for the time. The frame was strong and the tank, fenders, and side panels were all fiberglass. Add to that aluminum rims, shifter, brake peddles, and levers, with a low center of gravity it felt very light. The white fiberglass and orange trim made it the sharpest bike I ever owned.
The Ossa engine was a tractor, power delivery was like truckloads of torque from bottom to mid-range. The top part of the RPM range was a flat as a 50's hair cut, however, because of the torque you could shift early and quick and go surprisingly fast on this bike. This power delivery made it easy to ride and very controllable. My memories on this bike are all good ones. It was the first bike I ever raced in competition. I rode it in my first and only enduro, which is a timekeeping type of racing where you try and complete sections of what usually is a 100-mile course in a specific amount of time. If you are early you get points deducted, if you are late you get points deducted, the target is to Zero the checkpoint.
A few years later Bath Springs Motocross would begin, as they had their opening race, this would be the bike I would take. I didn't have a motocross bike at the time so I took the Ossa. It was truly a wonderful bike. It did have one huge flaw, the clutch design used a worm gear to push the clutch plates apart. The gear device was located in front of the engine sprocket. Dirt and mud would get compressed into the worm gear and the already hard to pull clutch action would become almost impossible to pull in. You would just take both hands and pull it in, shift in first, after that you just shifted without the clutch.
If I were to relate anything about the Christian life to this bike, I suppose it would be the flaw. No matter how well we may attain in our walk in the Christian life, we are all flawed. I have come to realize when the worm gear is getting full of dirt and making life difficult, it takes work to keep it clean and working smoothly. The Christian life is not easy, it takes work to walk it. Sin clings to us like mud and can cause us to lose our race if we neglect so great a Salvation.
(Wherefore, let us also, seeing we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, cast away everything that presseth down, and the sin that hangeth so fast on: let us run with patience the race that is set before us.) Hebrews 12:1 (1599 GV) The worm gear will not clean itself, it takes Grace, Prayer, and a longing to walk with Him to keep it clean.
Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
May God bless each of you,
David
Back in 1958, I was 15 years old, I had a 1940 Harley flat head model 80. They were larger than the
ReplyDelete74 models. Gear shift was mounted on the left side of the tank. Clutch pedal on the left and
brake pedal on the right. Gas feed was on the right handle bar as they are today, but the most
important thing was the engine timing located on the left handle bar. If this wasn't set
correctly, when you kick started it, the engine could start in reverse. Lost two toes, when a
truck hit me while I was crossing a street, delivering milk on my milk route.
There's a little more to the story involving the timing adjustment.
I had to carry the motorcycle to Smitty's Body Shop in Parsons because my kick start lever had broken into.
After they repaired it, one of the workers decided he wanted to start it and make a trial run on it.
He wasn't aware of the engine timing setting on the left handlebar.
He started it up and gave it quite a bit of gas, when he released the clutch, it went backwards and
threw him through the plastic windshield. He wasn't hurt bad and I drove it without a windshield
from then on.
This reminds me of a story my Dad use to tell me about his Harley. Around 1950 he had an old Harley that sometimes the rear brake peddle would bounce up and over behind his foot. One day upon riding home he was going to slide across the lawn in front of the house. He reached for the brake and behold it had bounce over and he had no peddle. He through the bike down in the gravel road which had a T at the end of it that cornered his house. He remember sliding off the Road at the T and hitting his tail bone on the culvert in ditch.
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