Some of my most enduring childhood memories concern a small retail shop on the main commercial street in the Pittsburgh suburb I grew up in. My mom would often drop us off at a dusty, overstocked place known as Discount Bookstore which was filled with aisles and shelves full of all sorts of publications. My sister and I were avid comic book and magazine readers and Mom could drop us off in the store where she knew our fertile imaginations and attention spans would be well-occupied for hours on end. This not only permitted her to complete he weekly shopping in nearby businesses without us bugging her for whatever reason, it also indulged our obsessive reading habits. Thumbing through page after page of magazines and comics that had just recently been returned as un-sold from retail stores was a slice of heaven for two nerdy bookworm kids and we’d emerge from the place after a couple of hours with our arms full of printed material.
Fast forward some 50 years and sis and I are both still dedicated magazine junkies. My love of printed periodicals is one of the main reasons that Cafe Racer magazine exists and both of our homes are filled to a disturbing degree with oddball publications of varied sources.
In recent years, I’ve shifted my magazine buying habits into the vintage realm where I frequently search for out-of-print titles on eBay and other internet sales sites. One of my favorites has long bene “Motorcycle Mechanics,” a British monthly that was fairly popular back in the 1960s. The now-aged pages appear very antiquated when read today with their simple, one-color graphics and small black and white photos. Still, reading about the ongoing high performance motorcycle world some 60 years back is endlessly fascinating. Most of the back issues I locate on eBay’s Uk site were published before the Japanese manufacturers were known for creating fast, big bore streetbikes like Honda’s earth-shattering CB750- and Kawasaki’s Z-1. Therefore, MM is filled with in-depth articles on repairing and upgrading maintenance-heavy British twins and single, motorcycles that are slowly fading from popularity today, but were once considered cutting-edge road-burners. The classic ads for aftermarket products and riding gear are also worth checking out as they reveal a serious commitment to safety and speed, and quite a lot of roadgoing fashion sense.
The cheesy, illustrated ads for Deeprose accessories, Lewis Leathers and others are fun to read as they reveal how British riders frequently purchased leather riding gear on the installment plan, payable at local biker haunts and racetracks. In these early days before the classic collector bike movement really took hold, old motorcycles were simply relegated to also-ran status with newer machines grabbing all the editorial glory. Peruse the classified ads in a copy of an old bike magazine and your eyes will pop reading ads for running Vincent Black Shadows for less than $400 and Velocette single for the equivalent of $250.
I can still lose and afternoon in an old motorcycle magazine as readily as I lost whole days at Discount Bookstore as a kid, which is proof that what was once fun can still remain so years and even decades later.
