Cycle News Archives
COLUMN
Good, But Not Great
By Kent Taylor
“There are a lot of mediocre people…they are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they?” Longtime U.S. Senator Roman Hruska spoke those words in the very mediocre year of 1970 (the highest-grossing movie that year was a sapsucker called Love Story, and a top-selling car was the Ford Torino) in defense of a Richard Nixon appointment to the United States Supreme Court. The appointee was a judge named Harold Carswell, whose dismal record as a jurist had resulted in another senator labeling Carswell as “a mediocre judge…at best.” Hruska (from Nebraska, so it was like “Husker” but inside out) came to Carswell’s defense, but the pitch to make America mediocre again failed to excite his colleagues, and he fell short of garnering the necessary votes to put Carswell on the bench.
As it is with people, there are also a lot of mediocre motorcycles in this world—and in the June 12 issue in 1973, Cycle News gave readers a couple of pages about the Honda CL450 Scrambler, a machine that was deemed worthy of a fistful of meh. It started, it ran, it sort of stopped, turned and blinked, even with a turn signal gone flaccid. Make no bones about it; the Honda was an okay motorcycle.
But being okay in 1973 really wasn’t good enough, especially for the thrill-seeking motojournalists of the day. There were plenty of good street bikes, lots of good dirt bikes, and some respectable enduro machines, so why would anybody still want something called a Scrambler? This wasn’t 1965, after all, and the hot sun had set on the day of the desert sled. Who wants a twin-cylinder street bike, especially one that is pretending to be something else?
“A CL450 is just like a CB450,” CN wrote, “only less sophisticated. It has high pipes that make it a 400-pound-plus dirt bike. Dirt bikes can’t have disc brakes, so the CL has a drum up front…add some cross-braced handlebars and you’ve about covered the differences.
“Nobody, but almost nobody, thinks the CL450 is a dirt bike,” CN added.
It cannot be said that the crew didn’t give the Honda every opportunity to impress them. The staff kept the motorcycle for an unbelievably long stretch of two months, and they logged a couple of thousand miles on the machine. During that time, the 450 exhibited some markedly un-Honda-like traits, specifically in the area of reliability. The battery would not hold a charge, and the machine occasionally would start to “make a new noise,” though the staff didn’t elaborate on said offense. It vibrated, but not so greatly as to annoy the rider, other than at highway speeds, “and then, only sometimes.”
What really irked the staff was an apparent cost-saving decision on the part of the manufacturer. The centerstand, which was the same item used on the CL’s street-going CB cousin, was the wrong choice for the Scrambler. Lean the CL, even just a little, and the stand would kiss the ground in a manner that would be dangerous. This is especially absurd, because there is no reason for it to be that way. It has a CB450 centerstand that is built to clear low pipes. If a stand was made that would stay out of the way, the CL450 could be leaned until the handlebars ground.”
Such ignominy would make the Honda Scrambler the wrong vessel with which to impress a member of the opposite sex, which, in the eyes of the 1973 Cycle News staff, certainly meant females. The macho writer of the feature made it clear that pulling into the local burger joint (from the photos, apparently, a McDonald’s) would be announced with a loud grinding noise, as centerstand meets concrete. Even if the sweet lass can overlook the low ground clearance, there awaits “another uncertain absurdity. At the burger palace, you might want to drop a lady friend on the back, right? Well, she’ll like it a lot except for only being able to hook the edge of her heel on the left peg and then having her leg overheated at the same time. The high pipes disqualify anything like two-up touring.”
Those high-heeled lady friends will also be disappointed to learn that, despite a dual-leading shoe up front, the CL450 is outfitted with a subpar set of stoppers. The Honda’s brakes would shudder and fade, and they required at least a three- (maybe four, but certainly more than two) finger effort to slow the bike. An adequate rear brake and the predictable engine braking would help, but the shrewdest of these damsels was likely to start requiring a state-of-the-art disc brake from any gentleman caller.
What else could be wrong with the Scrambler? Did it use oil? Sure did—about a quart every 500 miles. As mentioned, one blinker took a nosedive, though the bulb continued to light up, informing the pavement that the rider was about to turn left. The bike ran erratically at times; then, for no apparent reason, it would straighten up and fly right, though not too fast, which was probably a good thing considering the documented difficulty of stopping.
Nothing great and nothing so horribly wrong, the Honda Scrambler would’ve made a fine mount for the late Senator Roman Hruska from Nebraska. Though he is remembered for little beyond his plug for mediocrity, in the 1980s, the state’s meat animal research center that bears his name was responsible for advancing the science of pork processing, the fruits of which brought us the McDonald’s McRib. An unremarkable sandwich, available at the banal burger palace, where only average partners can fall in love with each other while sharing the seat of a Honda CL450. What’s wrong with mediocrity? At the end of the day, maybe nothing at all! CN
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