Laverda . Swiftly & with style .

nice - but they never made a 1200 Jota :shock: - but still nice (like my 1200 but with a "=badge" stuck on and a different tank/seat combo)

swooshdave said:
Snorton74 said:
I've always wanted a Laverda but they're hard to find in my neck of the woods.

There's nothing but trees in your woods. Come up north to see some good stuff.

Laverda . Swiftly & with style .


ovm-oaks-park-2012-show-t13996.html
 
I note that on the 2 Lavs in the pic, the fork/brake caliper positioning has been reversed, was there an official reason for this , or was it a style thing, - to look current?
Is there any subjective feel, distinctly evident in use, between them, steering or braking-wise?
 
The calipers is plxed in front of the fork leg on some bikes , behind on others. I've never fe lt a d ifference, but it might have an effect if you got into a tank slapper. Mine are a lways behind the fork legs, so the weight tends to straighten the steering, if it gets wobbly. In front or behind, inertia of the calipers has the same effect.
 
Yet its strange then, how few bikes are sold new with front/top mounted calipers now, if it makes no difference?
Is it really just a style thing?
 
J.A.W. said:
Yet its strange then, how few bikes are sold new with front/top mounted calipers now, if it makes no difference?
Is it really just a style thing?

I thought it had to do with what happens when to caliper squeezes the rotor, either tending to lift the tire /wheel or pulling it down towards the pavement. Depending on where the caliper is placed around the rotor.
 
I don't think there's any difference in tendency on the tire while braking if the caliper is mounted forward or aft.

There is a difference in the "moment of gyration" around the steering spindle as the calipers forward position place that mass further from the centerline of the steering spindle.

Mass further away from the centerline of the steering spindle would have a damping effect on the steering. What I do not know is whether it is significant.
 
Ah, tangerine dreams...but beautiful?
Purposeful looking, brutal even, not pretty though..
I saw an interview with Percy Tait, wherein he mentioned racing against those Lav SFC twins, on the factory Trident, at the Bol `d Or - & sucking them into acceleration/revving duels, he reckoned that the excitable continental riders could not accept a pushrod Brit-job pulling lengths on them, so they matched revs to stay with him, but dropped their guts doing so...
 
Sounds like the laverdas were under-geared at the Bol d'Or. It is easy to not recognise when a bike is not pulling as hard as it can. Try dropping a couple of teeth off the back sprocket of a standard 850 commando, you might be surprised at it's top speed, especially if the top three gears are nice and close to get it up there.
 
In 1973 a young New South Wales rider called Vic Vasella bought a n SFC 750 Lav from Jim Eade in Sydney, put it on methanol and brought it to Phillip Island. The fast guys were riding Z900 Kawasakis, and he trounced them. I got the impression that the handling of the Lav was superior, and it was certainly just as fast.
 
Well, Aco just the other day I was having a word with Greg Johnson who raced both Kawasakis & Ducatis in production based racing back in the `70s.
As far as the Italian jobs went - he reckoned their view of what constituted "production' was ah, elastic, even to the extent of sending out race shop parts with bogus [but official looking] parts book addenda,whereas the Japanese were seriously rigid in approach, the analogy perhaps being a Pizza [plenty of toppings options] compared to a Bento box [ah so].
Of course a similar situation existed in British production racing, where factory Triumphs had options listed - like Italian racing drum brakes, Quaife 5-speed boxes & etc.
 
@J.A.W
Have a talk to Mick Hone or Alan Decker about Vic Vasella and the Jim Eade sponsored Laverda. It wasn't trick but straight out of the crate, but it was on methanol. I actually had a discussion with Jim about it years ago. One of Jim Scaysbrooks 'Old Bike' magazines has an article about it. But I watched it happen - he blew Decker and Hone to the weeds. Johnno would know about it, he was riding Jack Walter's TZ750 at about that time. Also Ray Bann would remember, he actually built a 750SF Laverda motor with the SFC cam, into the Seeley that I now own. When I bought the rolling chassis, I couldn't get the motor, much as I would have liked it.
 
Aco, do have an interest in M/C Trader? Latest issue, just out -has one of those Agent Orange SFCs on the cover, but the story is by Alan Crashcart so its likely worse accuracy-wise than even a Matt Spencer diatribe. I find J. Scaysbrook's efforts of similar verisimultude to those 2, who never let the facts cloud a hearty bias...
PM me if you`d be open to a visit in the next fortnight..
 
I saw that photo, it looks great. The SFC is identical to the SF except for the cam and the combustion chamber size. I saw a rusty SF in the back of a utility truck at a country swap meet a few years back, and waited for the owner to return, but lost patience and left. There are still a few around, and my mates recently made a chrome-moly frame for one owned by a friend of Crispin Jobst (OZLAVERDA). A Laverda 750 is worth owning.
I sometimes wonder a bit about Alan Cathcart, he seems to talk a lot of speed, but I cannot remember ever hearing about him competing in a road race . I think that assessing bikes alone on a race circuit is quite a bit different to using one in anger, and trying to ace another rider off with it.
 
acotrel said:
I sometimes wonder a bit about Alan Cathcart, he seems to talk a lot of speed, but I cannot remember ever hearing about him competing in a road race . I think that assessing bikes alone on a race circuit is quite a bit different to using one in anger, and trying to ace another rider off with it.


http://www.theriderfiles.com/?p=2501

I watched Cathcart race a Ducati Supermono at Donington Park in the mid-90s. The Supermono race series was run in tandem with the World Superbike Championship. As far as I remember, he didn't do too badly that day. He managed 2nd in the series championship for two seasons.
 
Alan is a very experienced racer.....750SS Ducati's in the mid 70's, World F1 and Laverda's in F2 championships (he had a Rob North as a spare for one of the F1 races and had to pull a plug lead off so it would pass noise testing, and he still finished well up the field against all the "real" F1 bikes of the time)
 
Yeah, well, ol`Al sure is experienced at crashing,
I`ve seen him wobble around awkwardly, so - not impressed..
& I heard that when he 'tests' various [seriously softened] factory racebikes at the end of the season, the techs traditionally yell - "Break a leg Al"...
As for his 'ego-journalism'...B.S. FACTOR..MAXIMUM ALERT...REPEAT...B.S. FACTOR.. MAXIMUM ALERT..
 
I can't see the cross exhaust under the motor in that photo, perhaps it is a modified SF750, not an SFC ? I would still like to own it.
 
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