Lost in the Supermarket

Like birds, whales, and my fellow gringos, I fly south for a dose of vitamin D in Winter, down to San Jose del Cabo, the geological tip of California and the traditional finish line of Baja desert racing.  I’m not usually a big-box shopper, but stocking up for a week’s supplies means hitting La Comer, the retail chain that sells everything – including motorcycles. Unless you’ve been south of the border, you’ve likely never heard of an Italika; they’re ‘hecho en Mexico’ and the country’s largest producer (ok, monopoly), with about 400,000 units sold last year (in 2016: Italika sales for 2025 were 1.7M).  Italika originally used Korean-sourced engines, but make their own design now; their cruisers, sportbikes, scooters, dirt bikes and quads mostly employ the same 150cc four-stroke single-cylinder engine, but their ADV- and sportbike-styled machine use 250ccs – woo!  Most importantly, they’re cheap; around a $Grand for any variety, and double that for the big ones.  They’re parked right by the checkout line at Mega, eclipsing the candy bars for my impulse-purchase attention.  Even Suzie Heartbreak thinks we should buy one!

We norteños also have a history of motorcycles for sale in big retail stores. Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck were the Amazon.com of their day, with doorstop catalogs selling everything from perfume to a prefab house, all delivered to your door.  Sears got the motorball rolling in 1911 with the Sears Auto-Cycle, in striking red/white livery and nickel-plated Spacke motor, a 1000cc v-twin F-head with an elegant shaft-and-bevel drive for the magneto. It cost $169. Sears dropped motorbikes in 1916, but returned to form in 1951 with the Cruisaire, a re-badged Vespa scooter, for $279.95.  They sold thousands, partly due to excellent timing, as Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn starred in the 1952 film ‘Roman Holiday’, with a Vespa as Best Supporting Actor.  Sears soon expanded with a line of bikes branded ‘Allstate’, starting with a Cushman step-thru in 1952, then Puchs and Gileras into the 1960s. In 1967 they were all re-badged Sears after a 50-year hiatus, but by 1969 Sears was done with motorcycles.  They had a brief fling in 1977 selling mopeds during the Great Moped Craze (when I bought mine!), selling Free Spirits (Puch), to compete with JC Penney’s Swinger (Puch), and Mongomery Ward’s Riverside mopeds (Columbia/AMF/Minarelli).  All of them quit selling motorbikes by the 1980s.

Montgomery Ward was the original catalog merchandiser, founded in 1872, but it took until 1955 for them to join the two-wheel bandwagon, selling ‘Riverside’ branded Motobecane mopeds.  These were followed with Riverside Lambrettas and Bianchis, but by 1965 they’d switched almost exclusively to Benellis.  The Italian motorcycle industry was expert in making inexpensive, reliable, high-performance small bikes, with fervently watched national competitions of small bikes in long-distance racing, like the Milano-Taranto or Moto Giro.  With a strong Dollar/weak Lire postwar, Italy was the perfect supplier to America’s hunger for small bikes.  ‘Monkey Ward’ jazzed up their Benelli singles with names like Wildcat, Fireball, and Cobra.  I remember being dazzled by the metalflake and chromium sparkle of the Wildcat Scrambler at age 6, while my older brothers went totally apeshit, begging my long-suffering father – a single dad – to buy one.  We never did, and couldn’t afford them, as even a new bicycle seemed extravagant in 1968.

My big brothers got their first bikes (used) when they got jobs.  Don Carlos ring-dinged around Stockton on a Suzuki Titan and Honda 550 Four, before abandoning 2 wheels in favor of a Porsche-powered VW Beetle.  Dave raced DKW dirt bikes with Sachs engines and funny Earles ‘banana’ forks, until he discovered that playing a guitar brought dramatically fewer injuries, and a lot more girls. In 1978 I found a used Honda Express to ferry me to night classes, so I could escape High School a year early; the bike bug bit hard and never left.  I didn’t buy a chain-store motorcycle, but tempting kids at the grocery store with cheap and cheerful bikes makes so much sense.  It works on adults too, every time I shop at La Comer.  Mexicans agree, and I see many times more Italikas on the road than any other make.

By The Numbers:

$999: a new Italika ‘Trabajo’ DT150 Clásica

$369.95: 1967 price for a Wards Riverside 125

37,000: Montgomery Ward employees laid off in 2000

 

[This column was originally published in Cycle World in June of 2017]