Commando in Context.

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From Cycle Mag Sept `78;
'Letters' page.
'Quickie Kings'.
"I have read you mag' periodically for a few years now & have always been impressed with the perfomance figures you manage to extract from your test bikes at the drag strip. ...1/4 times of the fastest...tested?
Peter Scott ,Sth Perth, Western Australia.
1978 Honda CBX ------- 11.55 @ 117.49.
1978 Yamaha XS 11------- 11.82 @ 115.38.
1978 Suzuki GS 1000 ------- 11.89 @ 113.35.
1978 Kawasaki Z1R- ------- 11.95 @ 110.25.
1979 Kawasaki KZ 1300------- 11.96 @ 114.35.
1977 Kawasaki KZ 1000------- 12.06 @ 111.66.
1973 Kawasaki H2 750------- 12.28 @ 110.29.
1975 Kawasaki Z1A------- 12.37 @ 107.39.
1973 Kawasaki Z1 903------- 12.39 @ 110.70.
1979 Kawasaki KZ 1000ST------- 12.41 @ 108.30.
1979 Suzuki GS 1000 EN------- 12.44 @ 108.43.
1979 Honda CB 750F------- 12.59 @ 107.39.
1970 Norton S 750------ 12.69 @ 103.68.
1972 Dunstall Norton------ 12.70 @ 102.65.
1973 Triumph Trident------ 12.72 @ 106.00.
1978 Suzuki GS 750------ 12.72 @ 105.01.
1977 Honda CB 750F------ 12.74 @ 105.14.
1977 Suzuki GS 750------ 12.75 @ 104.77.
1970 Triumph Trident------ 12.78 @ 103.92."

Interesting that Commandos are the only twin cylinder bikes to make that list, NO H-Ds, BMWs, Ducatis,Laverdas,Moto-Guzzis,Kawasakis,Yamahas,Triumphs, in fact , no non Brit Euros at all!
 
O good, another 1/4 mile ET thread. More bullsheet...

I'd comment firstly that the euro's tend to gear them tall, so they last on the motorways !
Kills the 1/4 mile times = only in the 13 seconds bracket.
It was said at one stage that the asians were building them purely for the 1/4 mile times - the whole design brief was to be 1/10 sec quicker than the yamahonsaki that came out last month.

One magazine, who shall remain nameless, reportedly candidly one time that they simply looked at the 1/4 mile time the opposition mag had managed, and subtracted 1/10th or 2/10th or 3/10th sec off, and added 5 hp to the dyno sheet !!!!! More bullsheet... ??

Try achieving some of the times reported today. ??
Some bikes have rev limiters in 1st 2nd and 3rd gears, so the rider doesn't accidently loop it in the lower gears. H*ly Cr*p Batman, when not enough hp is too much ??
 
Rohan said:
...
Some bikes have rev limiters in 1st 2nd and 3rd gears, so the rider doesn't accidently loop it in the lower gears. H*ly Cr*p Batman, when not enough hp is too much ??
Don't worry, you can usually disable the "safety feature" by turning it off in the ecu or pulling a few pins from the transmission sensor wiring :twisted:

You paid for all the horsepower, why would you want to have it neutered in the bottom three :lol:
 
I wonder if the Z1R pilot survived the deceleration :roll:

when I was selling rice rockets for a living 20 years ago the majority of the customers simply bought the one with the biggest numbers according to the Magazines.
At first I couldn't believe how bl**dy stupid some of them could be.
My favourite example was the GPZ1000RX - fastest bike available at the time, and the only marketing positive it had.
The Factory launch at some European GP circuit got cut short because all the bikes got er... 'launched' by the Gentlemen of the Press in the first day.
Utter junk!

Classic BIke did a comparison between a 750 and 850 MkIII a few years ago, and the 850 looked hopeless due to the monstrously tall gearing.

I much prefer the 'which bike gets the biggest crowd around it' test :mrgreen:
 
I never understood the drag race thing. I buy bikes that are fun to ride..... I hang out with a group of guys who all have those Japenesse bikes that were sold around the Commandos time & while I can see that it was kind of old tech I still think it's much more fun. My friends know I'm not familiar with all those bikes so they allways want me to try them out & frankly I haven't liked any of them at all and especially the two strokes. Good thing we'er free to choose our own wepons!
 
Never the less, it is from a US mag, they rated stop-light contests highly, & the terminal speeds shown are indicative of a bikes power,- gearing notwithstanding -a few 10ths here or there on the E.T. dont matter that much.
 
From 'The Motorcycle World' by Phil Schilling,1974; P149;
"The 750 Norton Commando was an amazing motorcycle.
By 1969 it was in the same speed league with Japanese multicylinder motorcycles.
A swift Commando wheeling down a mountain road could charm a rider & lull him into a fit of forgetfulness.
He could forget that he kicked the motorcycle into life, forget that only 4 speeds lived in the gearbox, forget that oil-tightness was still not an English virtue, forget that the engine belonged to the 1950s.
If the old school had any genius, it lay in beguiling riders into such fits."

& from P148;
"The Norton Commando was the finest example of British creativity.
The Norton name, a fixture in British motorcycling, limped out of the corporate collapse of A.MC. & into the Norton-Villiers combine.There the venerable engine was rescued from the old Norton & Matchless frames & dropped into a new one, to form the Commando model...the motorcycle proved a good steerer.Most important, the frame allowed the rider to escape the vibrations which poisoned the old Atlas.
So there it rested ,a magnificent frame to save an overaged engine...if the motorcycle leaked oil, well, you had to understand that Britsh motorcycles leaked a little motor oil."
 
Sounds wonderful. Where do we find one of these mythical bikes ?!!
 
gtsun said:
I never understood the drag race thing. I buy bikes that are fun to ride..... I hang out with a group of guys who all have those Japenesse bikes that were sold around the Commandos time & while I can see that it was kind of old tech I still think it's much more fun. My friends know I'm not familiar with all those bikes so they allways want me to try them out & frankly I haven't liked any of them at all and especially the two strokes. Good thing we'er free to choose our own wepons!

That was the popular American competition back in the seventies... GTO's, Mustangs, Chevelles, Road Runners all jacked up with Gabriel Skyjackers, the F78-14 Polyglass GT tires tossed in favor of Mickey Thompson N50-15 big fat racing wheels, etc. Of course any twisty road handling was discarded by doing so, but so it went.
 
One of the things most cycle magazine readers learn along the way is age changes your perpective. When you are a 16 year-old, you read the quarter mile times as gospel. You think that your Mach III does 12.78 in the newest mag, and you are next to an XXXX that did 13.31, your bike is always the fastest on in any circumstance. Then somewhere along the line, you realize that these are very controlled runs, with super light weight expert riders on factory prepped machines, and you would be lucky to get within a second of what they do. A big factor is that for the most part, you are not going to abuse your bike the way they do, because your name is on the title, and you are not doing back to back quarter mile runs trying to tweak the technique with each run. On the Cycle "7" test, they talked about how easy it was to feed the clutch in at 6,000 rpm on the XLCH for the best launch. Don't see much of that on the street, do we?

That being said, even today, when reading the stats on a bike being tested, the first thing I look for is the quarter mile time. It shows the reader at home about what the acceleration might feel like. The old "wottle she do?"
 
Once the little kid in you feels the Glee of out powering another, it becomes addictive. Any who try to logically apply safety advice and mature behavior are silly as can be since the over whelming logic point is its plain stupid to get on a motorcycle and expect to have life and limb fully under your control. If I live long enough into old age to reflect on my experiences - the ones that float to the top are not the steady state cruising about behaving maturely... As I'm not too old yet I dream of breaking under 10 sec 1/4's on a Commando. There are some tricks to get stock bikes faster in drags that don't involve the engine.
Here's a Kodak moment on 7th day on 1st ever Combat. Adrenalin tremble is hard state to beat till after life. Quickest 1/4 factory 750 measured by surprised magazine shoot out was 12. 24. May the G Force be with you that can take it...


Note The Combat Tire Torque.
Commando in Context.

Commando in Context.
 
Nice shots, I have seen & done a few 1/4 mile runs, & well tuned & ridden stock looking bikes are capable of bettering those old magazine test values, I `ve never seen a stock 750 Bonneville [unlike Commandos]tested in the 12s, but I have seen them doing it at the strip, well-ridden by their owners.
 
Interesting the privateers can do so well and glad of it.
My last life time dream machine is 1st to please me but also to put Norton Commando push rod clunker sloppy isolastic handler back in the news - hopefully to flaunt the mostly wasted efforts modern products are. I now think handling wise the almost accidental isolastic two part hinged in the middle chassis is the supremo design with just a few touch ups the designers or bean counters skipped. Just strapping the front down low can take off like a sec in 1/4's on bone stock cycles. Peel should be able tuck at least 1" lower than stock maybe 2" depending on powerful her air mm's work. 16x 5" slick should help in the bee line events.
 
From M.C.I. Road Test Annual 1974, Dave Minton writes,
"The speed advantage of this machine lying solely in its immense torque spread, allowing big throttle openings from as low as 2000 rpm in top gear. As this is only around 40mph, the usefulness of such a wider power spread can be appreciated fully by riders with experience of long, fast rides when the continual effort of gearchanging becomes a wearying & sometimes painful chore. In other words, the 750, once free of town can be held in top gear almost indefinitely without losing ground during low engine speed operation.
I know full well that Vincents used to do it, & Squariels & other oldies.
What they would not do - & NEVER did, so forget the legends - was to cruise at the tremendously high speeds of this one.
It has no limit. Top speed, which came out at around 125mph, was also cruising speed."
Sound somewhat familiar, Commando riders?
Well, Minton is, in fact, describing the H2!
 
Well, from what I've read, the H2 had no power band until you got it up near red line. I remember riding a Z1 back in the day and what a piece of S**t. If you like shifting all the time and getting thrown off when approaching red line and the ring-ding-ding fine.

Dave
69S
 
When I out ran H2 triples on P!!, the way I knew we were in for a sprint, was they'd pull up to me look at how small 150 cc cycle I was on but confused by its mere cruise note - they'd snick down a few time then chain saw sound and smoke chassis and pilot got shoved back then I'd snick down and run right past them padding back up like cazy, each hesitation dropped behind in steps.

Got to ride a hopped up H2 out here with wheelie bar. Very obnoxious stumblling coughing surging low throttle power band to over 6=7 grand then light switch like short burst to catch the rest of it. Its main drag advantage was could keep pulling good to high speeds but not all that hard a G force to me.
 
Minton also has this to say about an 850 J.P.S.;
"Fast riding was very satisfying,but no amount of bullying would shake the bike from its delightful lethargy, which was no slower than other similar sized machines by a jot - it just felt like it, but by the end of my 3 weeks with it , I was beginning to appreciate the pleasures of "gearless" fast roadwork sitting deep in a bike that felt more like a Lancaster bomber."
"Suspension behaved in the best Norton fashion, firm at low speed, excellent at high speed, & more than that I cannot say, as is so often the case with good performances. It has no faults worth mentioning".
He seemed to like it...
 
I routinely rode with two other guys in 1975 (Tenn/Kentucky/Carolina border areas), one with an H2 the other a Yamaha RD400.

The H2 could sometimes beat me in an impromptu drag race (mostly whenever the owner could get it "right, which wasn't all that often), but out on the back roads both the RD and me would leave the H2 in the dust. The H2 was simply too scary at speed to ride with spirit through the twisties.
 
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