Commando Competence

Went for a ride with a group of bikes I met at a local beach yesterday. Knew one of the blokes, so they invited me to ride with them to have pub lunch at a town about 60km south. They were on a variety of modern(ish) bikes - 2 1200 beemers, Honda Fireblade, Kwacka Ninja, Yammy 900 triple - liquid cooled and a surprisingly new looking Yammy V-Max.
They took a "shortcut" - meaning a 80km detour to beachside town - had some moderate twisties and a good dose of longer straights.
The guts of the story is I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Commando performed in this group of bikes, who weren't going for a leisurely run - It also surprised a few of them "you know you were doing 180 with us there - didn't think you'd stay with us"" was one comment.
It's not something I'd do often but it's nice to know it can.
Cheers

Rob your Norton is a completely new bike, yes its over 45 years old but its been completely rebuilt and modernized so yes its should go great at those speeds, my Norton is old and looks its age but its still reliable and I ride it hard and push it to its limits but then that's the way I ride and that's the way I have rode it for the 45 years of owning it, but of course its unrealistic to keep riding at though speed all the time, but our old bikes can still do it and it does surprise a lot of modern bikes, well not so much the bikes but the owners of modern bikes.
Keep the maintenance up and it will serve you well for a very long time and in their days they were called The Unapprochable Norton, just now the bikes are bigger and more powerful than they were yesterday, but the Norton will always stand out in the crowd where ever it goes, a lot more than the modern bikes.

Ashley

The same occurs with our rides in Mexico - the Commando is never the laggard in the pack and usually the "next oldest" bike is from the mid '00s! I get the same comments including compliments from the bike behind me of how good the bike "looks" when over in a turn in the twisties. It is certainly a very capable machine. Other than (IMO) a more powerful front brake, it needs only to be in OEM good operating condition to keep up with modern bikes on public roads.

Sort of related - I can't recall where I saw the link - maybe here? - but there was a video of a shootout on a race track between an old Suzuki and a current Ducati Panagali v4. Both riders turned quicker lap times on the Suzuki even though the Duck had considerably more power and less weight... Certainly, in the hands of a WSB rider, the results would have been quite different. But it shows that just because a bike has all the advantages on paper doesn't mean "the rest of us" will see any advantage out on public roads...and the opposite might occur.

That’s cool Rob and reminds us that some classics (when sorted) actually take some beating as a usable and enjoyable bike 90% of the time.

My short story:
I was once riding out with some moderns on my T160. We went batting along one stretch and at the next stop an R1 rider said to me:
“That thing shifts, you were doing 120mph back there”
To which I replied:
“Well, I was doing just over 7,000rpm “
And he responded:
“What?! I was doing 7,000 on mine”!!

He walked off shaking his head and it later transpired that he’d basically concluded that mine and his were doing the same revs and speed, therefore mine is as quick his!

What he’d missed was that at 7,000rpm mine was at the red line, whereas his was only half way there!!

But the real moral of the story, is that on that road, on that day, we were both going as fast as we were comfortable going. If you’d given either of us a bike capable of 200mph, neither of us would have actually gone any (ok, much) faster.

I believe this aspect is lost on some sport bike buyers. Many bikes are now much faster than their riders.

Theory of constraints tells us that you can never do more than the bottleneck in any system. Therefore, if the rider is the bottleneck, he won’t go any faster on any bike.

Or, put another way, the guy getting 100% out of his 50bhp machine will keep up with the guy getting 50% out of his 100bhp machine all day long !

Fast Eddie said:

That’s cool Rob and reminds us that some classics (when sorted) actually take some beating as a usable and enjoyable bike 90% of the time.

My short story:
I was once riding out with some moderns on my T160. We went batting along one stretch and at the next stop an R1 rider said to me:
“That thing shifts, you were doing 120mph back there”
To which I replied:
“Well, I was doing just over 7,000rpm “
And he responded:
“What?! I was doing 7,000 on mine”!!

He walked off shaking his head and it later transpired that he’d basically concluded - mine and his were doing the same revs and speed, therefore mine is as quick his”.

What he’d missed was that at 7,000rpm mine was at the red line, were as his was only half way there!!

But the real moral of the story, is that on that road we were both going as fast as we were comfortable going. If you’d given us a bike capable of 200mph neither of us would have actually gone any faster.

I believe this aspect is lost on some sport bike buyers. Many bikes are now much faster than their riders.

Theory of constraints tells us that you can never do more than the bottleneck in any system. Therefore, if the rider is the bottleneck,he won’t go any faster on any bike.

Or, put another way, the guy getting 100% out of his 50bhp machine will keep up with the guy getting 50% out of his 100bhp machine all day long !

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Word.

Of course a high powered bike will run off and leave our Nortons on a straight road. One of our regular riders has a V4 Panigali like the one I referred to in my earlier post. If we hit a straight, he's gone as if flipping a light switch - "Where'd he go? He was here; now he isn't!" But when the road is twisty/fun he's not really any faster than most of the rest of us. It's not so much that he isn't capable himself but the public road places a common sense/physical limit based on visibility, road surface, etc. Blasting into a turn you can't see around at a speed where you can't react to anything from a car in your lane, to a refrigerator laying on the road, to that gravel that always seems to be at the apex is suicidal.

Fast Eddie said:

Theory of constraints tells us that you can never do more than the bottleneck in any system.

Click to expand...

Mr Goldratt, never got the software purchase to be approved but still used the theory to good effect.

kommando said:

Mr Goldratt, never got the software purchase to be approved but still used the theory to good effect.

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Thats the very fella.

Like many in his game, he over egged it a lot to sell more products. But cut through the crap and his basic Theory Of Constraints is sound, and applies to many things in life.

Fast Eddie said:

Thats the very fella.

Like many in his game, he over egged it a lot to sell more products. But cut through the crap and his basic Theory Of Constraints is sound, and applies to many things in life.

Click to expand...

The constraints in my life have been in effect, constant! Time and Money, when I have had the time, I haven't had the money, when I have had the money I haven't had the time!

Though at the moment the variable, enthusiasm, has been having a significant effect too!