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Katzenjammer!
By Kent Taylor
A gentle push. Furious, arrhythmic pedaling as shaking hands send an unsteady message to a skinny front wheel. Down in a heap goes child and contraption. Tears, skinned knees, and elbows result, but the determined youngster is ready to try again. Like a wild horse, the two-wheeled beast is eventually tamed: We have learned how to ride a bicycle!
Most motorcyclists can point back to a day like this because it was the beginning of their love affair with all things two-wheeled. The end game was, of course, a real motorcycle, but the bicycle (especially the Sting-Ray, ya know) was the gateway drug. In the 1970s, Yamaha decided that maybe there was a need (and a market) for a bridge between pedal power and gasoline-powered internal combustion. The Yamaha Moto-Bike!
In July of 1974, Cycle News founder Charles Clayton himself gave the Moto-Bike a couple of pages in his newspaper. Titled “Yamaha’s Back-Yard Racer,” the story gave us a look at what was at the time truly a one-of-a-kind machine. The Moto-Bike was equipped with nearly everything that a real motorcycle had. Telescopic front forks, that appear to have been borrowed from Yamaha’s Mini-Enduro, grabbed your attention immediately. High, Sting-Ray-style handlebars even sported a real crossbar and the rider held on to the aforementioned by grabbing real waffle grips!
In the back, dual shocks were connected to a real swinging arm. Travel length isn’t listed, but it appears as if the rider had a least of couple of inches of springy-ness. The bright bumblebee yellow finish gave the bike a real Team Yamaha look; surely the only difference between AMA National Champion Pierre Karsmakers and the gap-toothed teen tough on his Moto-Bike was a Dutch accent!
Clayton’s explanation takes the reader back in time. “The bicycle,” he writes, “was built for the new children’s sport of bicycle-cross (motocross racing with bicycles).” Apparently, the acronym of “BMX” was still down the road a ways. But he liked the Yamaha and even scored it a “Katzenjammer,” a nifty term that comes from a mid-20th century comic strip called, “The Katzenjammer Kids.” Puzzlingly, the actual word comes from Germany and describes a sick, wailing feline, but who cares, the Moto-Bike certainly made any kid feel like a wildcat on two wheels!
There is no give, however, without take, and the Yamaha’s motorcycle-style suspension components and beefed-up frame brought with it a significant amount of extra weight. The Moto-Bike was 44.5 porky pounds, a full 10 pounds heavier than a regular Sting-Ray bicycle of that time. Sprung, unsprung or Wang Chung, that was a lot of extra weight for two skinny teenaged legs to get moving, though the tester said that the bike “pedals fast and easy once you get going.”
The Cycle News’ gang also didn’t like the seat, which, although appearing to be comfy plush, was apparently the wrong style for “B-X.” CN thought the rubber pedals should be metal traps and the bike’s safety reflector was vulnerable and likely to break, especially “when the bike is turned upside down for servicing.”
The components also pushed the price to $130, which must’ve seemed like a lot of money to parents who could put their youngster on a rigid-framed chain store bicycle for half the cost.
Yamaha didn’t just launch the Moto-Bike, stand back and wait for the sales to ring up. The U.S. distributor was sponsoring a series called “The Yamaha Bicycle Gold Cup Races.” Racers aged 7-16 were going to compete in their very own version of pedal-powered Supercross at Shaw Stadium, on the campus of the University of Santa Clara. Entry fee was just a buck, and spectators under age 15 got in for just 50 cents. The August 3 event was advertised in the same issue of Cycle News and featured the incredibly detailed artwork that Yamaha employed in many of their ads throughout the mid-70s.
The Yamaha Moto-Bike didn’t stay in the lineup for long, but it kickstarted (even though it didn’t have a kickstarter) a new age for the sport of “bicycle cross.” Today, nearly every bicycle features suspension of some sort. But in 1974, the Moto-Bike stood alone. It gave parents a chance to delay the purchase of real motorcycle for their pleading youngsters. And it provided kids a couple of years’ worth of practice, as they pretended to be just like real dirt bikers. They provided the human, internal combustion power but the Yamaha Moto-Bike, with its honest-to-goodness motorcycle parts, did the rest! Stand back, Pierre, here comes the Moto-Bike kids! Katzenjammer!CN
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