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Bantam Adventure. Page 1.
My Biggest Bantam Adventure.
Page 1.
The Summer between eleventh and twelfth grade had been our golden time. Mike and Dudley had Vespas, Hugo had a Harley Sprint, and Robert was the king of the group by virtue of his Norton Electra. I had my trusty1962 BSA Bantam 125. It was the Summer of 1963 in Miami, Florida.
Every day we would get up as late as we wanted, scavenge a few bucks by mowing a lawn or cashing in soda bottles or begging from a parent or doing whatever we could that did not involve too much time and effort. Gas was 25 cents per gallon. And at the gas station I usually drained the drops of oil that remained in the cast-off oil cans into the measuring cup on the bottom of my gas cap. The Bantam was not very picky about what went into the tank, and every gallon of gas would get me about three hours of cruising time.
We would pool our money and buy smokes and, if we could find a buyer, quart bottles of cheap beer. We would sneak off to the woods, drink the beer, smoke the cigarettes, and then ride. Sometimes we could find wild girls who would sneak out with us. What a life! Ah, to be sixteen again in a more innocent world.
At the end of that summer, the gang had to break up. Dudley’s family was moving to Chicago. If he wanted to keep his Vespa, he would have to ride it the 1,000 miles or so to Chicago. Since I had friends in northern Georgia, about 500 miles away, I decided to go with him. My dad, who was always open to my adventures, gave me a few dollars and wished me well.
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Bantam Adventure. Page 2.
My Biggest Bantam Adventure.
Page 2.
We did not ride fast, between 40 and 45 mph (about maximum cruising speed on both the Bantam and the Vespa), but we rode long. By the first night we had made 300 or so miles and slept, or at least tried to sleep, under the trees beside the road. Early the next morning we continued northward. In those days before the Interstate System, the highways had personalities. No one in a car can understand a road the way a motorcyclist can. Each groove, each bump, and each hole is waiting to turn aside or swallow a wheel, so the rider has to know what is in front of him. The roads ran through swamps, up and down hills (some of which required second gear), and through farmland, tiny villages without even a stop light, and some fair sized small towns.
South Georgia is hot in late August, well over 100 degrees F, which I believe is around 40 C. It was like riding through a warm bath. Late in the afternoon we entered the North Georgia mountains, which meant a laborious 30 or so in second gear up-hill and a blood-chilling 60+ down-slope with the clutch held in. Yes, dear reader, Bantam brakes do fade.
I knew two pretty girls, one in Dooley, north of Blairsville, Georgia, the other in Suches, to the south. Jennifer, who lived in Dooley, close to where we were staying, ended up liking Dudley. Mary Jo, my best hope, was thirty miles away through the mountains. Mary Jo invited us to an outdoor cookout at a park one evening. We went back to bathe, change, and prepare ourselves for seeing those pretty Georgia girls. Mary Jo, by the way, had flawless white skin, dark brown hair, and deep blue eyes. Why she ever wanted anything to do a pimpled, ugly adolescent boy is beyond me. The Bantam ran out of gas on the way up the mountain, and by the time we finally got to the cook-out, it was over. We had missed our chance at becoming the main men of the social event of the season.
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Bantam Adventure. Page 3.
My Biggest Bantam Adventure.
Page 3.
The only time the Bantam itself did me wrong was one dark night when I was going up a steep hill. The engine was bogging down in third, so I quickly let off the gas, pulled in the clutch, mashed down with my right foot, let out the clutch and grabbed a handful of throttle at the same time. The entire world lighted up for an instant. I had missed the gear and the mighty Wipac ac generator pumped out enough juice to turn the headlamp into a flashbulb. Luckily, in the great wisdom of Birmingham Small Arms, another beam had been provided. I reasoned that tail lights are not that important because there is a reflector in the lens.
Dudley’s Vespa, by then, had eroded the sparkplug to the point that he had to start the scooter by getting a good downhill roll and letting the clutch out in first gear. We did not have enough sense at the time to know what was wrong. We parted ways—he did make it to Chicago. And I set out for Miami.
One part of my toolkit was a roll of straightened coat hangers and a pair of pliers—one never knows when some exotic bolt and/or nut will fall off and require a quick repair. On the way back home, I pulled into a North Florida gas station and heard a man complaining about the strap that held his gas tank on his Ford station wagon. I crawled under his car and put the strap back into place with one of my coat hangers. He gave me a buck—enough to buy several hundred miles’ worth of gas. I finished my journey by driving all night, adjusting from high to low beam by twisting the headlight unit up or down. Actually, as I recall, the light was dim to the point of not making much difference anyway.
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Bantam Adventure. Page 4.
My Biggest Bantam Adventure.
Page 4.
All of us have our adventures as we grow up. The Bantam and I had ours. The thousand-mile round trip was just one of those escapades. I still have the Bantam. I had traded it in on a Zundapp Super Saber, perhaps the worst motorcycle I ever owned. Later, I found the remains of my Bantam in a motorcycle junkyard. Some other kid almost totally destroyed what had been my pride and joy. I retrieved what was left and carried the parts around with me for over thirty years. Just this past summer I decided to resurrect the Bantam into the kind of hotrod motorcycle I dreamed of when I was sixteen.
I have pieced together a D5 engine, made an expansion chamber, fitted folding footpegs (remember dragging the pegs hard enough to pick up the wheels and put the bike on the ground?), and am rounding up parts to make the Bantam look sporty and go a bit faster.
Who knows what will make golden memories? I still smile as I remember the pretty girls in Georgia, the half-warm beer we drank while hiding in the woods, and the Bantam.
Arden Jensen
Bonniesden@juno.com
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