Battle Of The Twins

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If the BOTT road race class was limited to motorcycles with air-cooled four-stroke motors of less than 1000cc, would you choose to ride a Brooke Henry Mike Hailwood Replica Ducati , or a Peter Williams Replica monocoque Norton Commando ? - Or WHAT ?




 
no question it would be the ducati. a good two valve will make 100 + HP and handles pretty good if a little slow to turn.
 
Would never bet against the Ducati period .... some wishful thinking above ... the old “rose coloured glasses” thing again ....
 
Ahh... I just read the ‘below 1000cc’ part... the 1600cc Irving Vincent wouldn’t fit too well into that category...
 
I think Ken Horner has built 1000cc versions of the Irving Vincent. The one he took to Goodwood Revival two years ago was not a biggie. It was still bloody fast.
A few years ago, we had Sounds Of Singles in Australia. All the bike had to have was a four stroke single cylinder engine. There were no other rules. The lack of capacity limit killed the class. Only the guys with the big motors could really be competitive and the big motors blew up very often. Nobody could afford to race regularly in that class and have any hope of winning. 500cc is about as big as you can have a single and still have reliability. For twins, a capacity limit of 1000cc and air-cooled would make a very good race class. In any case a bigger motor is not always necessarily better. One of the things which holds big twins back, is heat build-up.


1000cc Irving Vincent ? :

 
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I think maybe the big 4 would say 650cc singles can be made very reliable and perform ..... can’t speak for them though .... I do like 500 singles too ....
 
I think a lot would depend on the circuit. Mallory looks like a balls and all circuit. But on a tight circuit, a Peter Williams monocoque Norton might be better.
Let's hope that eventually two guys who are silly enough to buy those things will put the two together on a race circuit ?
How fast are those Japanese V-Twins, most of them must be 4-valve ? In one of the Youtube videos, a Harley won BOTT on Daytona.
 
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