Restored Bultaco Jewel in Collection

By Bud Wilkinson

Tucked in a line of heavyweight cruisers and customs outside the entrance to the Warner
Theatre, Charles Olsen’s little black and silver 1966 Bultaco Metralla attracted a disproportionate amount of attention as it glistened in the heat at Torrington Thunder last month.  “It gives you a good feeling to see people enjoy and appreciate an old bike like that. That’s the fun part of it,” the proud owner said.

Two days after the event in Torrington, the 250cc Spanish-made motorcycle took a hit from passing showers but took home the trophy for Best European Bike at the 2nd annual Falls Village Car and Motorcycle Show, making for a very satisfying weekend for the 68-year-old Torrington resident who has been riding for nearly a half-century. (Yes, as one of the four judges for the motorcycle competition, I voted for it.)

The Metralla is one of seven bikes in Olsen’s ever-changing collection of vintage and modern-day machines. Actually, his latest purchase, a 1981 BMW R65, was in the process of being shipped from Iowa when we sat down and talked inside the showroom at Ducci Kitchens, the business he owns that’s on the rotary at the intersection of Route 4 and Route 63 in Goshen.

Olsen currently has four BMWs, two Bultacos and a Suzuki. His first bike, at age 19, was a 1960 Honda 150 Benly. Over the years, he’s owned some 30 bikes, including two Harley-Davidsons – a 1958 FLH and a 2002 Road King. But his brand preference at the moment is BMW, also having a 2011 S1000RR, a 2009 R1200GSA and a 1971 R75/5 in his stable. “I like BMWs. You see so many Harleys when you go out. They all seem to look the same,” Olsen said, adding that BMWs “handle better, they’re faster.”

The other bikes in his collection are a 2005 Suzuki DL650 (V-Strom), the Bultaco Metralla and a Bultaco Alpina, which is either a 1974 or ‘75.  “It’s not registered. I just use it around the house. Take the grandkids out for a ride,” he said of the Alpina.

In 49 years of riding, Olsen has seen much – he’s been to Sturgis and Yellowstone National Park and goes to Laconia every year – and has been down. He crashed on a 1964 Triumph Thunderbird sometime in the mid-‘60s while commuting to a job at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford. “Some guy ran me off the road,” he recalled. “I woke up three hours later in Hartford Hospital.”  He suffered a concussion, a broken bone in his wrist, and kidney damage. He credits the helmet he was wearing with saving his life.

Replacing the Triumph was a Norton Atlas. The Triumph had come from a dealer in New Hartford, while the Norton was bought in Canton. His first bike, the Honda, which the Triumph replaced, was purchased from a dealer in Millerton, N.Y. “It was great back then – a lot of dealers around, a lot of bikes around,” he said. The most bikes that he’s owned at one time is 11.

The Metralla was an impulse buy after reading RIDE-CT’s report in January 2009 about the private Bultaco museum and the Bultaco parts and restoration business owned by the Weaver family in Craryville, N.Y. Olsen went up, got a museum tour from Tim Weaver, and saw the Metralla that was being restored for its then-owner, who lived in Oklahoma. “It was in deplorable shape. It was trashed,” he said.

Olsen then obtained the owner’s phone number and was able to buy it for $2,000. It took a year and a half and another $5,000 before the Metralla looked brand new again. “It’s just a fun bike. It’s a two-stroke. It’s not one you often see,” he said.

Besides having a right-foot shifter, the shifting pattern is different, too. It’s one up and four down. The bike will “will go down the road 60 miles per hour,” he said. It gets more attention, though, when it’s parked where other riders can see it.

(Originally published in “The Republican-American” on July 30, 2011.)