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Been there, done that, same time period. Rode the bike all winter for several winters. Didn't own a car. My only wheels. It had to get REALLY cold not to ride. Went through 3 Ariel Square Fours from McBrides M/C shop on Queen St just east of Yonge St.
We did not have crash helmets and visors in those days. I remember once getting to work at International Harvester on St Clair St from Browns Line (about 20 miles) and my hair was frozen because I had taken a shower that morning. I guess we were tough, lucky, crazy and good all at the same time.
Ratbyk
Feb. 5, 2005. 01:00 AM
Snow didn't stop old bikes
Toronto police led the way on their Harleys
Cars too expensive, so motorcycles had to do
ALLAN JOHNSON
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
One of the traditional symbols of traffic enforcement is the motorcycle police officer.
Popularized in everything from Hollywood films to children's toys, the motorcycle cop rides in all seasons and in all weather, usually on a big vee-twin motorcycle with a windshield.
This was generally true in Toronto when I first started to ride. Virtually all police motorcycles in Hogtown in the 1950s were Harley-Davidsons with 74-cubic-inch (1,212 cc) engines, still fitted with foot clutches on the left footboard and hand gearshift levers on the tank.
This was probably due to the fact that the bikes had sidecars in winter, and some of them probably had a three-speed forward and one reverse gearbox instead of the usual four-speeds-forward one.
I've been told that the Toronto police force were the last in North America to abandon the old foot clutch/hand shift system and only did so because Harley-Davidson finally refused to make any more special-order conversions for them.
The presence of a sidecar in winter kept the police bikes from falling over, but seemed to do little else.
One of my vivid early-winter riding memories in Toronto in the late '50s was of commuting on my little Ariel motorcycle.
Stopped at a snowy rush-hour traffic signal, I watched one of Toronto's Finest attempt to brake for the light with his Harley, complete with "Dutch shoe" sidecar. He shot into the intersection while doing a double spin that Barbara Ann Scott would have been proud of.
How the officer missed the crossing traffic I will never know, but he did and chugged away after a few moments spent regaining his composure.
I didn't have a sidecar on the Ariel — it was far too small to even think of that — and so I relied on lower tire pressure and careful use of the clutch and the higher gears to get traction in the winter. The gutters often had more grit and dirt than the centre of the roadway, and I can remember chugging up hills clogged with wheel-spinning cars by sticking near the curb and using the third of the four gears the Ariel possessed.
Falling down on icy streets was not too frequent. In those days, it was called "riding to earth," a move taught to Canadian Army motorcyclists enabling them to quickly drop their bikes and head into combat, Thompson submachine guns blazing. Army veterans willingly demonstrated the method, and if your bike was fitted with crash bars and fixed footpegs or footboards, it was easy enough to do at slower speeds.
The motorcycles of those days were fairly rugged and cheap to repair, so a ride to earth might simply result in a bent footrest and a torn handlebar grip.
The footrest, made of a single piece of steel, could simply be heated with a torch and bent back into shape with the aid of a steel pipe. The handlebar grip was replaced for a dollar or so — or maybe patched with hockey stick tape.
After all, motorcycling in winter, indeed at any time of the year, was done because you couldn't afford a car.
The biggest problem was in soft, sticky snow conditions. I took to carrying a short length of hockey stick handle to poke loose the snow that would pack up under the bike's fenders and stop the wheels from turning.
As for weather protection, police riders fitted metal legshields and big canvas windshields to their bikes and wore heavy leather coats, fur-lined hats and big leather mitts.
When the roads were wet, they also donned black rubber raincoats called "slickers" and wore hip-length rubber overboots to keep the shine on their polished leather footwear and leggings.
I aped them in some respects, using an old pair of my grandfather's hip waders, a rubber raincoat and homemade oilskin overtrousers.
I equipped my bike with a canvas windshield and leatherette handlebar muffs from the discount section at McBride's bike shop, The windshield cost $3, the muffs not much more.
That same pair of muffs, a primitive version of the ones now sold for snowmobiles and ATVs, has lasted me 46 years and are now on my current motorcycle for this winter's riding season.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
afjohnson@sympatico.ca
We did not have crash helmets and visors in those days. I remember once getting to work at International Harvester on St Clair St from Browns Line (about 20 miles) and my hair was frozen because I had taken a shower that morning. I guess we were tough, lucky, crazy and good all at the same time.
Ratbyk
Feb. 5, 2005. 01:00 AM
Snow didn't stop old bikes
Toronto police led the way on their Harleys
Cars too expensive, so motorcycles had to do
ALLAN JOHNSON
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
One of the traditional symbols of traffic enforcement is the motorcycle police officer.
Popularized in everything from Hollywood films to children's toys, the motorcycle cop rides in all seasons and in all weather, usually on a big vee-twin motorcycle with a windshield.
This was generally true in Toronto when I first started to ride. Virtually all police motorcycles in Hogtown in the 1950s were Harley-Davidsons with 74-cubic-inch (1,212 cc) engines, still fitted with foot clutches on the left footboard and hand gearshift levers on the tank.
This was probably due to the fact that the bikes had sidecars in winter, and some of them probably had a three-speed forward and one reverse gearbox instead of the usual four-speeds-forward one.
I've been told that the Toronto police force were the last in North America to abandon the old foot clutch/hand shift system and only did so because Harley-Davidson finally refused to make any more special-order conversions for them.
The presence of a sidecar in winter kept the police bikes from falling over, but seemed to do little else.
One of my vivid early-winter riding memories in Toronto in the late '50s was of commuting on my little Ariel motorcycle.
Stopped at a snowy rush-hour traffic signal, I watched one of Toronto's Finest attempt to brake for the light with his Harley, complete with "Dutch shoe" sidecar. He shot into the intersection while doing a double spin that Barbara Ann Scott would have been proud of.
How the officer missed the crossing traffic I will never know, but he did and chugged away after a few moments spent regaining his composure.
I didn't have a sidecar on the Ariel — it was far too small to even think of that — and so I relied on lower tire pressure and careful use of the clutch and the higher gears to get traction in the winter. The gutters often had more grit and dirt than the centre of the roadway, and I can remember chugging up hills clogged with wheel-spinning cars by sticking near the curb and using the third of the four gears the Ariel possessed.
Falling down on icy streets was not too frequent. In those days, it was called "riding to earth," a move taught to Canadian Army motorcyclists enabling them to quickly drop their bikes and head into combat, Thompson submachine guns blazing. Army veterans willingly demonstrated the method, and if your bike was fitted with crash bars and fixed footpegs or footboards, it was easy enough to do at slower speeds.
The motorcycles of those days were fairly rugged and cheap to repair, so a ride to earth might simply result in a bent footrest and a torn handlebar grip.
The footrest, made of a single piece of steel, could simply be heated with a torch and bent back into shape with the aid of a steel pipe. The handlebar grip was replaced for a dollar or so — or maybe patched with hockey stick tape.
After all, motorcycling in winter, indeed at any time of the year, was done because you couldn't afford a car.
The biggest problem was in soft, sticky snow conditions. I took to carrying a short length of hockey stick handle to poke loose the snow that would pack up under the bike's fenders and stop the wheels from turning.
As for weather protection, police riders fitted metal legshields and big canvas windshields to their bikes and wore heavy leather coats, fur-lined hats and big leather mitts.
When the roads were wet, they also donned black rubber raincoats called "slickers" and wore hip-length rubber overboots to keep the shine on their polished leather footwear and leggings.
I aped them in some respects, using an old pair of my grandfather's hip waders, a rubber raincoat and homemade oilskin overtrousers.
I equipped my bike with a canvas windshield and leatherette handlebar muffs from the discount section at McBride's bike shop, The windshield cost $3, the muffs not much more.
That same pair of muffs, a primitive version of the ones now sold for snowmobiles and ATVs, has lasted me 46 years and are now on my current motorcycle for this winter's riding season.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
afjohnson@sympatico.ca
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