ELECTRIC STARTERS

I started riding in 1965. Most of the bikes then used kick starters. Not all, in fact there have been electric starters from way back. I have a book dated 1915 that shows an Indian motorcycle with an electric starter. It's just that they were not real popular. All the movies back then had the big, bad, nasty, bad guy, motorcyclists run out to their bikes and kick start them. Now they run out and push a button... It's just not the same. Anyway, around 1968 Honda brought out the CB350 twin. I was working in a Honda shop at the time. All the New Honda 350 owners would kick start their bikes. As it turned out, Honda had wanted them to use the electric starter and thought everyone would, but they didn't ! Some of the internal kick starter parts were made too weak and broke from so much use. We did a lot of warranty work on those 350s but, from that time on, the "Button" really took off.