The Montesa 175cc Impala Sports motorcycle was an on-road machine with an air cooled single-cylinder engine, weighing a very light 226 lbs dry. four speed close-ratio gearbox in unit with rocker shift. I bought mine with savings from my job at Bob Vant's Chevron Station on Ogontz Ave, where I worked with Jess Morris. (Later endurance racing champion and, in the workaday world, former physicist. now e information systems specialist and two-time winner of Daytona vintage bike race for Triumphs (2000 and 2001). Back in 65 he was older and had enough sense to ride a Honda.) My Montesa was equipped with 19" Akront aluminum wheels and one-piece welded low handlebars with a couple of wider touring handlebar options. They had a deep red and silver-grey tank with yellow seperation line, a black frame and black fenders, with white license plate ovals on the front fenders that looked exotic in the USA. The front forks extended far below the front axle, a key identification feature. A grey plastic one-piece panel covered the frame behind the engine and under the seat, with a tool-kit that would always fly open and spill out the toolkit if one forgot to lock it. Nice chromed exhaust pipe on the left side, I think.

The engine had a 12 to 1 compression ratio and ran best on Amoco no-lead high octane I seem to remember. Carburator was a Spanish Amal, 25mm I think. Piston had L shaped Dykes rings. This thing had an expensive taste for gas and Castrol R40, which you mixed in the tank, holding the front brake with a finger while plunging the front shocks up and down while the expanding gas fumes hissed out the vent. Brakes were cool double-leading shoe affairs with big airscoop on front, conventional drum at rear.

A delight to take up and down the East and West River Drives and the shadey lanes of Chestnut Hill or open up on the flat country roads of South Jersey, with the prospect of mechanical or electrical failure always in one's consciousness. These created enthusiasm for the make. And one got good at hitch-hiking, siphoning gas, sandblasting sparkplugs, etc. Touring by Montesa was always an adventure. As a cafe cruiser they were fine, just exotic enough without scaring the chicks away.

There were very few lights I didn't burn away from and I won some surprising matches. Missed shifts were embarrasing and resulted in burnt out tail-light bulbs from the soaring voltage. First gear was up real high but slipping the aluminum clutch caused no harm. A gas hog and unreliable to boot, but a pukka Spanish factory racer that most of us felt was more reliable than the Bultaco, the other major Spanish bike then. We did not have Ossas in Philadelphia at that time (1965-66) or ever. One of the "other" Montesas in Philly was owned by Bob Dietz, then a Temple University student who boarded at Laughlin's. He fitted an open expansion chamber and 30mm carb, clip-ons etc to his. The noise was awesome. Bob lent me some important parts off his own machine one so I could enjoy my last days of freedom before military service.

Montesa was sold and serviced with selfless enthusiasm by the immortal Robert M. Laughlin out of 3618 Market Street, (now, ironically, the Monell Chemical Senses Center) where riders and others just passing through boarded for free in exchange for labor. I last saw Laughlin on the steps of the Van Pelt Library on College Hall Green around 1973. He was about fifty at the time and still working on a degree in sociology, and I must say that he was in the right discipline given his rich opportunities for fieldwork.

I still dream at night of riding my Montesa down St Martin's Lane on a long July evening, under the trees that fronted the large estates there, or down a section of Germantown Avenue....ring ding ding ding ding ding-waaaaaaaaaah oh yeah! I took my brother Bob out for a spin once on a Sunday afternoon and we stopped at the Rex Diner for cokes and sandwiches...I think he was impressed.

Mike Leshner (now mlesh@erols.com) and Ann McCormick were frequent passengers, as was Diane Weil and Merle Polloway. Mary Jo, Laughlin's then-girlfriend, would ride side-saddle as I remember. Mike's friend Herby had a cool YDS-2 with the little headlight-mounted windscreen but I don't think we ever all rode together. Mike had a Puch moped; I waited at the lights. he also had a Rambler; the bike-shy girls (other than the above) rode in that...

I used to ride my Montesa with Jesse, Dave Duffy (now a federal judge), Bookends (Carl Bookbinder) and (currently author, has written bike fiction)Jim Wills, who owned CB77s. Rena then had a white CB160 and its performance was about equal to the Montesa up to 60 or 70 mph, but the Spanish 2 stroke had the edge on top speed. And there was Nacky, Janet Smith, now a famed artisan and purveyor of fine native quilts, and Eileen Cooper, who I last saw in 1981.