Cafe Racer magazine’s 99th issue for June and July has just hit the streets and this time, we’ve focused on a vanishing aspect of motorcycling: the art of kickstarting. The last production streetbike featuring a kickstart-only ignition system may have bitten the dust with the recent demise of Yamaha’s seriously retro SR 400 single, but memories of heaving one’s body weight down on the fickle steel pedal remain as vivid as ever. In the new issue, we polled our staff writers and contributors on their best, worst, and most memorable kickstarting memories and they served up a hilarious, insightful article.
Though a few of the folks who help create Cafe Racer magazine are clearly too young to recall the term “kickstarter” when it didn’t mean online fundraising. They weren’t alive when riding old motorbikes that were capable of kicking a rider back and indelibly stamping their right legs with physical scars, but it turns out that each and every one had some pertinent story to tell about the now-venerated skills needed to fire up a bike in this manner. Venerated, you ask? Just do an online search of the annual Kentucky Kick-Dwon a custom bike rally held each summer in Louisville where the art and science of kicking over cranky, high-compression twins and singles is not only celebrated, but contests are staged to see how many times riders can crank their beasts to life using only their right feet and plenty of oomph.
Below is contributor Steve Pospolita’s best kickstarter story from a new motorcycle launch held by Royal Enfield in London a few years back. read more in CRM#99, on sale now.
Legging It In London
Yes, I have sentimental memories of kickstarters. From my youth in the 1960s and ‘70s, I remember the neighborhood cool dudes kicking their rides once, maybe twice to bring them to life. Of course, it was followed by an obligatory blip of the throttle and manly toe-flick of the kicker pedal to stow it away. Wow! As a wide-eyed little boy, I thought that was the way a motorcycle was meant to be ridden, or at least started.
Once I began riding, some of my memories might have qualified for less-than-pleasant. The most aggravating was while working on a Yamaha SR500 single, after a fresh tune-up, I kicked, and kicked, and kicked, but to no avail. It just would not start. Soon, someone came along and kicked it once and the bike fired right up for him. It was the classic case of one unsuccessfully struggling with the tight lid of the pickle jar, and the next person who comes along twists it right off. I must have loosened it up for him…
However, my fondest memory came at a Royal Enfield Continental GT press launch in London. Of all the journalists in attendance, from both the United States and Europe, I was the only one to insist on using the kickstarter to fire up the bike every single time we mounted. I recall Siddhartha Lal, the CEO of Royal Enfield, sitting on his bike directly across from me, watching me, shaking his head and grinning when he saw me use the kicker.
We shared a silent laugh, as he must have thought, “Why is this silly American doing it the hard way?” Well, he must have spoken to his PR team about the amusing sight because they corralled me into recording a short video interview where they questioned why I insisted on starting the bike in that manner.
During the recording of the video, I waxed poetic about the charm and nostalgia of the Continental GT’s kickstarter and insisted that was the way it should be. The kickstarter provides a visceral connection to the motorcycle that a starter button just cannot come close to. It is almost as if the motorcycle rewards the rider for his efforts when the kicker is manipulated properly.
To my mind, it was the way a real enthusiast should operate this vehicle. And besides … it’s just plain cool! I can’t find that video online, so I can only imagine RE management used it internally during the debate on whether to keep kickstarters on new models or not. Sadly, my video was not persuasive enough.
By the way, I’m still a kickstart fan and won’t let go of my 1978 Yamaha XS650, or ’70 Honda CB750. But I did sell off my Kawasaki KZ1000 ST shaft drive, which came equipped with a removable auxiliary kickstart pedal which was stowed in a dedicated compartment under the seat. I guess it was Kawasaki’s way of weaning people off kickstarters, but it included one, just in case.
-Steve Pospolita
