The elderly owner and his best friend met me at their shop and we sat on bar stools for a while and talked about the virtues of small towns and the problems with big cities. The friend sparked up a cigarette and removed a tiny mint or pill from the package and placed it on his tongue. I have been wondering about that; I'm sure I've seen people do that somewhere before, but I have no idea what that pill is for. Anyone know?
Anyways, after the small talk, it came time to see the bike: a 1959 Honda C92 Benly (125cc). This model is one of the earlier ones to be sold in America and was an important stepping stone in Honda's journey from manufacturing powered-bicycles to becoming a world-wide juggernaut. These bikes are quite rare and this particular example had been stored indoors for the past 30 years! A barn-find Benly that has been so completely (and so accidentally) preserved is not something that comes up very often. The owner claimed that a year ago, they had hooked up a battery, fed fuel to the carburetor, and managed to fire the engine with the starter button. Now, the fact that the bike could be started electrically was a big deal back when it was on showroom floors. The fact that it could still be started electrically 50 years later!? After 30 years of sitting!??? If true, that could only have been possible through a combination of extraordinary engineering and ordinary luck.
The bike needed some paint, had a dent on one side of its art-deco headlight nacelle, some dents in the exhaust, and was missing a signal light and sidecover. Now if someone took the time to fix it up, it would be worth many times what it cost them. In short, it actually would have been an "investment" (a word that I use frequently with Heather but which neither of us really believes). Now I could have parted the bike out and probably doubled our money, but I don't think that would have been in humanity's best interest. I don't even agree morally with the practice of converting classic bikes into cafe racers; because there are fewer of these machines each year and I feel that the remaining ones should be preserved in stock condition. In the end, I was honest enough to admit that if I bought the bike I would just end up spending more money on it, at a time when we should be putting money to other uses. I left the shop empty handed but felt like I had matured a little.
The day wasn't a complete loss either, I got to lay eyes on the valley village, met a couple of interesting characters who used phrases like, "rare as hen's teeth", and saw an old Benly that hasn't been seen by anyone else for decades. I may not be able to say that I own a 50 year old motorcycle, but sometimes a story about one that got away is just as good... sometimes even better. The only real downside is that during the return trip, that excited optimistic feeling was gone, and all I kept wishing was that it wasn't so far of a drive, or at least that I had brought a lunch.
- C
8 comments:
Good for you! That sounds like a cool little place. I love those little towns.
Well Chad, like you did on your last visit to my blog, I learned something new by reading this post.
First, I had never heard of the Benly and second, that there was a place called Carbon in Alberta.
I have always secretly hoped to someday own a Honda Cub, just to putt around the neigborhood on. The Benly looks like it may have been the next step in the evolution into a real motorcycle. That's cool that you got to see it and that it was a ways away out in the middle nowhere in Carbon so the whole experience of going to see it became an event and mini adventure in itself.
Thanks for another fun story. Very well told as always!
Thanks Lorin. Actually the name Benly is supposed to come from a Japanese word that sounds more like 'Benri' and means "Convenient". Is that true?
I agree with you, a Cub would be sweet! A cute little stepthrough that gets a million miles to the gallon. I think they are still being produced and sold in some markets. Maybe we could work out an import deal together...
Ah, but of course! Yes, benri does mean convenient in Japanese. However, nowadays "convenient" or at least a shortened form of it is deeply entrenched in the Japanese vocabulary.
Years ago when 7-11 and others started up in Japan, instead of calling them "benri" stores they went the longer and much more cumbersome original English "convenience" store. In Japanese pronunciation it works out to "combiniensu". That of course didn't last long and has since been shortened to "combini". So now every Japanese kid knows that 7-11 is a "combini" but very few of them know that it is actually very "benri" as well.
HAHA That's awesome. I sould have fact checked wih you sooner.
7-11's in Japan too huh? Is there a lot of them? In Thailand, any map drawn to an investigator's house had at least one 7-11 as a point of reference.
- C
Japan is full of 7-11s and many other brands of combini. They are everywhere, much like in Thailand I imagine. In fact, in the early nineties a major Japanese department store called Ito Yokado bought contolling interest in 7-11. Many Japanese are surprised to learn that is originally an American company.
Are you two done yet? Man, your "comments" section is as lengthy as your post was!! Glad you were "mature" about things and didn't buy it! (I think it looks pretty small and even though I would have LOVED to see you driving around on it with your knees up by your ears... it's best kept in that barn if you ask me!). What's that you say? You didn't ask me?.
Haha are you jealous Jewel?
True, I didn't ask you - but I didn't ask for my ice cream cone to be filled with ketchup either. I still need to get you back for that one...
- C
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