Norton ES2 race bike .

jan nelder · Aug 29, 2025

Nortoniggy said:
Also the Velocette finished in 17th place. It has girder forks and a rather small front drum brake.

Flightwick's Royal Enfield Bullet finished second, so two pushrod singles beat all the OHC singles and the Patons.

apparently the ES2 rider misread a pit board and eased off, so could have been more than 0.3 secs between them. Fantastic results.

johnm · Aug 29, 2025

Nortoniggy said:
Also the Velocette finished in 17th place. It has girder forks and a rather small front drum brake.

Flightwick's Royal Enfield Bullet finished second, so two pushrod singles beat all the OHC singles and the Patons.

Yes my friends in the NZ Velo team got 17 th and 19 th in the 500 and 350 races.

The rider is Rhys Hardisty who is a good guy and fast. He got about 6 th in the Lightweight I think.

The Velo 350 was actually setting faster lap times than the 500 because a piston failed in practice on the 500 and they replaced it with a less than perfect one. They had hoped for a 100 mph lap with the 500 but unfortunately the bike was slow. At least 10 mph slower through the speed trap.

But two finished is good. Haven't talked to them yet to get all the details.

I'm very pleased the Peter Lodge bike ridden by Mike Brown won. Peter has worked so hard on that machine over the years.

acotrel · Aug 30, 2025

Racing with methanol is safer than racing with petrol. Methanol hides-up the tuning errors. That is the reason it makes the bikes faster. I do not care what the speeds or times on the IOM might be - I would not race there on anything faster than a push-bike. Some people love Phillip Island circuit in Australia, because it is lovely - however any crash there is usually a really big one. My problem is that I know what I am like. I don't start my bike at home, because if I start the motor, I have an uncontrollable urge to ride the bike. I probably would not succeed in completing a lap of the IOM - no brains. Casey Stoner has mentioned fear while racing - if you are genuinely afraid, you are probably doing something you should not be doing. Where I used to work, we made nitroglycerine by the batch process. While I was inside the nitration house, the thought never crossed my mind, that I might suddenly disappear. It is only when you are not there, that it becomes a worry.

acotrel · Aug 30, 2025

My father once got upset because an Italian guy said 'when you ride a motorcycle, something grabs you'. My father said 'something might grab you bastards'. I did not tell him that the Italian guy was correct. Motorcycles are a really bad vice. I am lucky - these days I cannot remember the feeling of being inside a road race unless I really think about it. It probably has fewer consequences than sex.

baz · Aug 31, 2025

acotrel said:
Racing with methanol is safer than racing with petrol. Methanol hides-up the tuning errors. That is the reason it makes the bikes faster. I do not care what the speeds or times on the IOM might be - I would not race there on anything faster than a push-bike. Some people love Phillip Island circuit in Australia, because it is lovely - however any crash there is usually a really big one. My problem is that I know what I am like. I don't start my bike at home, because if I start the motor, I have an uncontrollable urge to ride the bike. I probably would not succeed in completing a lap of the IOM - no brains. Casey Stoner has mentioned fear while racing - if you are genuinely afraid, you are probably doing something you should not be doing. Where I used to work, we made nitroglycerine by the batch process. While I was inside the nitration house, the thought never crossed my mind, that I might suddenly disappear. It is only when you are not there, that it becomes a worry.

As expected
Nothing of interest or relevance here

baz · Aug 31, 2025

acotrel said:
My father once got upset because an Italian guy said 'when you ride a motorcycle, something grabs you'. My father said 'something might grab you bastards'. I did not tell him that the Italian guy was correct. Motorcycles are a really bad vice. I am lucky - these days I cannot remember the feeling of being inside a road race unless I really think about it. It probably has fewer consequences than sex.

Blimey
Even less relevance here!!!

acotrel · Friday at 1:13 PM

In about 1957, I had a conversation with one of the Bray brothers in Melbourne. He told me that his 500cc pushrod Matchless engine in the featherbed frame was competitive with the Manx Nortons. However, he used to use it differently. He geared it higher and rode it faster in corners. That is pretty much the way I ended-up using my Seeley 850. The rider adjusts to the bike, and the bike needs to suit the circuit.

robs ss · Friday at 6:04 PM

@L.A.B. , @Jerry Doe
Post #47 - Bot Alert, Bot Alert!!

acotrel · Sunday at 11:58 AM

New Zealand is a very strange place. Was walking around the back streets of Christchurch. There was a guy in a garage making a Delorean car because he could not buy one.

Norton ES2 race bike .

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