Crank balance and vibration

If you think your Commando vibrates, have a look at the Seeley Nourish 850 in this video and compare it with the other bikes in the race.

Yowza 9K RPM for a tick didn't help. He wanted it bad.

I was waiting for the tach to fly off. My engine is smoother, but I'm not racing around bouncing the engine off 8K RPM every shift.

Holy Vibration Batman !

Looks like a shakey old ride alright, but the adrenalin probably cancels most the vibration problem . The entire race was just a bit over ten minutes so that's not a long ordeal like touring on a paint shaker, 6 or 8 hrs per day.

Glen

My 850 motor is nothing like that, it's vibes are actually pulses, very low down in the rev range. An Atlas probably did not vibrate very much, but in that department a CB750 probably put it to shame. A lot depends on customer expectations. At that time the Mods were riding Vespas and Lambrettas.

What was the BMW rider doing on the final straight ? Looked like he'd decided to coast to victory and stretch his legs like you would on a victory lap ???

acotrel said:

At that time the Mods were riding Vespas and Lambrettas.

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I rode a Lambretta from the mid 60's and still have one, an LI series 1 with a TV175 engine, forks & disc brake which I raced in the mid 70's until switching to Norton. I was neither a mod nor a rocker and nobody cared until I met les Emmery (Fair Spares) - I had ridden my Commando to a Triumph Owners Club Festival of Speed race meeting at Lydden Hill and my scooter, which I was racing in the scooter invitation races, came in a van with some others. Les was there with one of his racers and was talking to me about my Commando when I mentioned that I was there to race my Lambretta. He just stopped talking and walked away!

hybridracer said:

I rode a Lambretta from the mid 60's and still have one, an LI series 1 with a TV175 engine, forks & disc brake which I raced in the mid 70's until switching to Norton. I was neither a mod nor a rocker and nobody cared until I met les Emmery (Fair Spares) - I had ridden my Commando to a Triumph Owners Club Festival of Speed race meeting at Lydden Hill and my scooter, which I was racing in the scooter invitation races, came in a van with some others. Les was there with one of his racers and was talking to me about my Commando when I mentioned that I was there to race my Lambretta. He just stopped talking and walked away!

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I think back then, there was a Lambretta factory produced road-race motorcycle which were quite quick. I have never seen one, but I think they were raced at Bathurst in the 1960s.
You probably don't remember, but in the late 1950s the Mods and Rockers used to fight each other at seaside resorts. So the godbotherers decided to save their souls. Rockers rode real motorcycles. I think Norton wanted to sell Commandos to the desert boots and duffle coat brigade. The Atlas and the 650SS were probably a bit too inspirational. With motorcycles, a lot has to do with mentality. A motor scooter would drive me insane. When I was a kid, most of the guys who rode motorcycles did not have much money. You could get a motorcycle for almost nothing.