1970 Bultaco Sherpa S 200cc Scrambler - 5-Page Vintage Motorcycle Test Article

Description

1970 Bultaco Sherpa S 200cc Scrambler - 5-Page Vintage Motorcycle Test Article
Original, Vintage Magazine article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Bultaco Sherpa S
200cc Scrambler
Throwing a leg over the Sherpa gives you
an instantaneous impression that the machine
is right-on. Hard and crisp and narrow.
A dictionary tells us that the Sherpas are
. a Tibetan tribe generally considered
highly skilled at mountaineering. Sherpas
do their thing on the southern crags of the
Himalayas, enduring an environment that
pretty much demands agility and stamina.
The Sherpa namesakes, the 200cc-and-un-
der Bultaco scramblers, are claimed by
their Barcelona-based makers to be natural
heirs to the tribal attributes. “An out-of-
the-crate racer,” the Iberian brochure as-
sures. Although the Sherpa S reputation is
legend—the basic model having been con-
tinually and steadfastly improved since
1963—we are a hard-headed lot and decid-
ed to see for ourselves
Our 200cc version came in a big card-
board box, covered with stenciled-on wine
glasses and the Bultaco logo (a gloved
hand whose thumb points the same way as
the open tops of the glasses). We cut the
box off and followed the directions in the
clearly detailed manual: put the front
wheel on, pour oil in the engine and forks,
and install an NGK B-9EN sparkplug
Then we went racing for three consecutive
weekends.
For our first race we travelled to the Fly-
ing Dutchman track near Pine Grove, in
the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish farming
region. After paying the required two-buck
insurance fee to a dour-faced club member,
we went about the business of getting our
Sherpa set for the day.
We like the Sherpa handlebars better
than those on any other scrambler. There
is actually a pair of bars, each welded to a
split clamping lug on either stanchion
tube. By loosening the lugs, you can adjust
the bars for nearly five inches of vertical
height, as well as any fore/aft position. For
a rough motocross track, where you stand
on the pegs a lot, the bars can be set high
and straight across. That way you can have
maximum leverage on the front wheel as it
encounters rocks and ruts, and you can
keep your weight back off the front wheel
when accelerating. With the front wheel off
the ground, when you’re trying to acceler-
ate across rough terrain, you get less pun-
ishment through your arms and vision is
less distorted. Then on a smooth course,
like a TT or half-mile, where constant
front wheel traction is critical, you can set
the bars back and down and make like
George Roeder. The control levers are the
pressed steel Amal type with jam-nut cable
tensioners. But the grips are the hard, thin
plastic kind that your hand slips off of after
the blisters break. Not that there’s all that
much distance to shp: a fairly good-sized
hand hides the grip completely. A soft
sponge-rubber doughnut near the brake
lever keeps your hand from getting cut on
the throttle tensioner screw—until you hit
a good bump, that is...
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