650 v 750
- Thread starter john robert bould
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Naw that hot boosted H2R is only a last ditch combustion engine effort before its dusted by power-torque and control by fuel cell powered electric cycles and cars and airplanes and boats. Still impressive as hell rocket ship whose need of down force front fairing fins grabbed my attention too. Ghost Rider in Europe teased police and death on tubro sports-race type bike with over 450 hp so quite usable and boy howdy did he.
Comnoz who dislikes vibration ran his ideal engine concept by me couple years ago, a 650 360 twin for the low mass long last piston/bores with turbo to get ~80 hp for fun. If only they'd come up with effective rubber mount that didn't baby buggy the handling.
Comnoz who dislikes vibration ran his ideal engine concept by me couple years ago, a 650 360 twin for the low mass long last piston/bores with turbo to get ~80 hp for fun. If only they'd come up with effective rubber mount that didn't baby buggy the handling.
Time Warp
.......back to the 70's.
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Excuses, history shows it.
As I have said before, some things/entities are not capable of change, to not do so for survival risks extinction.
Triumph rose from the ashes, hopefully Norton will do the same.
The thing with motorcycle evolution is there is a big picture and unless it is examined relating to all of the manufacturers and what they were producing at the same time it can only lead to a lop sided overview.
What has always seemed odd with the British industry is it seems to be conveyed as if only they existed, the same old trumpet for over forty years, same old flat tune. :lol:
Plenty of producers slipped under the waves with only a paper brand name remaining.
As I have said before, some things/entities are not capable of change, to not do so for survival risks extinction.
Triumph rose from the ashes, hopefully Norton will do the same.
The thing with motorcycle evolution is there is a big picture and unless it is examined relating to all of the manufacturers and what they were producing at the same time it can only lead to a lop sided overview.
What has always seemed odd with the British industry is it seems to be conveyed as if only they existed, the same old trumpet for over forty years, same old flat tune. :lol:
Plenty of producers slipped under the waves with only a paper brand name remaining.
Time Warp said:
Thats how history, and industry, works ??
Look at all the (brit) bike makers early in the century, and near a century later they are down to one or 2.
Same in the USA, parts of europe, and almost in Japan. (where 4 emerged, not the usual one or two)
Look at all the car makers, and tyre makers, and magneto makers, and headlamp makers, etc etc etc
In more recent times, computer makers, iphone makers, etc are all on the same trajectory.
Tell us how all those are any different ?
Its like urban renewal - only this time the industrial renewal is in China,
where there are currently over 200 motorcycle makers.... !!
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true, Rohan
but just to be geographically correct, the "featherbed" was conceived and welded up by Rex McCandless in Ireland not Britain, then presented to Joe Craig for extensive testing until being formally accepted as suitable for the Manx race bikes of 1950
Rohan said:
And apparently those 200 makers are producing more motorcycles
than the whole of the rest of the world combined.
Many tiddlers and electric bikes undoubtably, but you know what Edward Turner said about small motorcycles.
And electric bikes are the way of the future.
Just ask Harley Davidson - who are already taking orders....
P.S. When I tried to post this, it said
You cannot make a post so soon after your last.
??
Time Warp said:
Rohan said:
Time Warp said:
When you look closely, practically every motorcycle maker is/was the product of one or 2 men, or maybe a small family company.
When they are gone, its hit or miss if a committee can keep the whole plot going.
Or if one man can be found to successfully take over the reins....
Nortons did carve themselves out that specialist niche "built in the light of racing experience"
With the Commando, since it departed that immediate racing pedigree,
they built what became the JPN Racing Team to continue it....
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1up3down said:
To be geographically correct, you need really to be politically correct as well. I realise some of this may be too suble to those who do not currently hold a British passport, which is in fact called a UK passport, even if I am English!
McCandless lived and worked around Belfast, which is Nortern Ireland, which was, and still is, a part of 'Britain', specifically it is part of the United Kingdom (which is where us Brits live) and not in the Republic of Ireland, where some of the 'Irish' live.
The Irish Republic may no longer be part of the 'UK', but the island of Ireland remains part of the British Isles! I am told great fun can be had in Belfast too, but I haven't been there since I was a long haired teenager in '68!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles
Today Belfast, and the rest of Norther Ireland are part of, unsurprisingly, The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland!
Britain, is more formally defined in these references to the United Kingdom, which describe before and after the establishment of the Republic in 1922, when McCandless was seven!:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ki ... nd_Ireland
But to hell with the politics, we had a great weekend in Dublin recently
If you havent' been there, work out where it is and go - Joined
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Plus to give you 1/2 chance i will fill up with diesel!
Fast Eddie said:
Time Warp
.......back to the 70's.
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Rohan said:
I would have thought it quite exciting to have been a worker through the 1950's and 60's within the motorcycle (factory) trade in general.
If you had got a start in any of the race departments it would have been more so.
The 1950's in general were times of milk and honey. ?
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Time Warp said:
I think the only industry that might have been as exiting for a young engineer in post war Britain would have been Aerospace. But that will have had it's limitations, it is very difficult to fully appreciate the product of your labours, since you are responsible for subsystems rather than completed products.
Potentially you could eventually ride the motorcycle you were developing, which to me would be the really exciting thing to be able to do. Though for everyone who did there will have been many, doing drawings, calculations and riding home in the rain to the growing family on an outdated 500 single or a slightly newer twin with a sidecar attached. Post war Britain was not a glamourous place.
I had the opportunity of a chat wth Norman White earlier this year and of course we are talking about the '70s and clearly a downhill slope, but he and of course Peter Williams did get to do live the dream for a while......
Time Warp said:
Re “The 1950's in general were times of milk and honey. ?”
Not quite, in the UK rationing did not quite fully end officially until 1954
New models of cars and motorcycles ( like the 650ss and Atlas e.t.c.) up to the mid-1960s, were for the first one or two years of their production, not available in the UK Home market as the Government was still trying to pay off its war debt, hence the Export or die logo that they devised.
But hey :!: it wasn’t all doom and gloom, we got immigrants from places like Jamaica to come and be employed as bus conductors e.t.c. and Bananas which were scare during the WW2 were now available
I love a banana sandwich :!: - Status
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