25 Jul On yer bike: Suzuki AS 50
FMM curator Wayne Harley is a self-confessed motorcycle enthusiast and this month he steps back to the carefree days in his birth town of Witbank and recalls his first bike…
I don’t think I was much older than 12 or 13 when a buddy of mine offered to swop his motorbike for my skateboard. By this time in my life I was totally motorbike besotted and was sneaking rides on anyone’s bike who let me have a go. So, without thinking, I said deal! And what’s that saying, “there’s one born every minute”? Well, needless to say, I collected my motorbike in a wheelbarrow. There she was, my very own Suzuki AS 50, but believe me it didn’t look anything like this little gem you see here. After a few weeks – er, months – it was running well enough to spin big holes in my father’s lawn. My Dad then took pity on me and stepped in to help me make the bike safer to ride. I’m sure he realised that if left to my own devises I would have destroyed our home at 25 Delft Street…
But back to this little mosquito. In South Africa back in the 60s, 70s and 80s a 50 cc motorbike was important in a boy’s life – in many cases even a girlfriend wasn’t as important. In those days you could run off and buy a 50 cc for a few hundred rand, and second-hand bikes were plentiful and cheap. Many were trashed or destroyed and landed up as scrap. Today, a 50 cc is like gold to some collectors, and twice as hard to find. This bike came from the Heidelberg collection and was donated to the museum in this beautiful untouched condition back in 1990 by Pieter Marais of Vereeniging, who had the insight to save this beauty for us to enjoy today. After standing all these years it has been a fun job re-commissioning this motorbike and seeing it come to life again, mainly because it was a reminder of my first bike rebuild as a kid. What a trip down memory lane…
This stunning Suzuki AS 50 is a 1969 model and was the last year this model was available. (It was followed by the AC 50 and AC 100.) The engine is a 49 cm3 air-cooled two-stroke with a rotary valve system that allows the little mill to pump out 3,6 kW at 8 500 r/min. All this power is delivered via a chain and sprockets to the back wheel through a five-speed constant-mesh transmission featuring a wet clutch and foot changer. It is a lot smaller than I remembered, with a wheelbase of only 1,165 metres and runs on 17-inch spoke wheels. Brakes are mechanically-operated drums front and back and work rather well: the bike weighs only 80 kg.
On the road, being so small and light makes it fun to throw this Suzuki around a little. It has telescopic front forks and swing-arm dual oil dampers at the rear, which all helps the plate steel frame give rather safe and predictable handling. Not bad for a 49-year-old schoolboy’s bike. The top speed was claimed to be 90 km/h and a standing quartet-mile could be covered in 13,2 seconds.OK, maybe if the rider was still 12 years old and weighing next to nothing…
However, riding this little Suzuki sure brought back memories; the scream of that little 50 cc, the smell of two-stroke, the handlebars, the switches and the grips. Boy, it was like meeting a long lost friend! I have to admit that one or two of the tears that ran off my face while riding it had nothing to do with wind in my eyes…
