Supporting Norton Innovations

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A lot of you support this forum with a membership to help this place keep going.

But what of the people who keep our bikes going and improving them?

Sure the traditional model is for someone to slave away and develop a product and may hope to find enough funds to make it to production. And then have to find a way to sell the product. That R&D may or may not be recovered. Most likely not.

But these days there are other options you may or may not be aware of to help fund, this are called crowdfunding. You may have heard of Kickstarter, which goes on the premise that you have a specific product you need help getting off the ground. These typically are past the prototyping stage and need the funding to get into production.

There is another model and that is called Patreon. https://www.patreon.com In this case you provide a monthly amount to the person that you want to support either for what they produce (perhaps it's a weekly video) or music or artwork, really it's anything. Or you just provide a monthly amount just to help them keep creating something you want to see made. This is similar but not exactly the same as supporting this forum.

We have a few people in the Norton community who develop products but do it more out of their generosity and curiosity and not to get rich.

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to put certain people on the spot but real world examples are probably the best way to explain this concept.

Let say a reputable person who does a lot of research in to either providing unobtainable parts or creating new solutions for the old bikes but doesn't want to go through the hassle of selling them wants to develop a new widget.

Most people have no idea of the time it takes to design and develop and test anything, even when you read the forum and watch the videos. This is all unpaid time and rarely is compensated for. Sure there may be a small royalty or return when the parts are eventually sold but that doesn't put food on the table in the meantime.

This is where crowdfunding might come into play. For a small fee, maybe as low as a dollar a month (maybe more) the Norton community would help support the R&D time. What do you get out of it for your dollar? You would be supporting the development of new products for your Norton. Products that may never get developed. Perhaps as a patron you would receive a nominal discount on the final product.

Or maybe there is crowdfunding to help continue the production of impossible to produce parts like heads and other parts?

So instead of hoping for a single source of funding (loans, investors or even vendors) the community could come together and if everyone chipped in a tiny amount it could add up to enough to keep these innovations and research going.

Maybe there wouldn't be enough patrons to make this work but I wanted to throw out the idea.
 
Traditionally most improvements in old British bikes have come from road racing. It might be better to promote a race class for unlimited development of air-cooled four-stroke twin cylinder engined race bikes. Not limited to any one make or brand, just a level playing field for that type of bike. BOTT was almost there until modern water-cooled four valve motors were admitted. To my mind, the original Commando motor is an amazingly good design, although I never believed in it when I built my bike. It still has untapped potential which a suitable competitive environment might release. Crowd-funded race teams might be a good idea.
 
Great idea, although the cost of running a racing team would mean you’d have greatly diminished returns on the research end. The good news is that existing teams are usually will to try new parts if there is a potential competitive advantage.

But I like your thinking!
 
Give me a break!
A Norton Commando is a vintage machine. As such, it is a true hoot to ride and was noted as a phenomenal machine (in it's day).
It is still a phenomenal machine. There have been a plethora of upgrades (improvements) on the original design. Some folks have
made money on design improvements and some not. I am of the opinion that some people want this vintage design to be something
that it is not. I totally respect those whose passion is to take the Commando to the next realm. But this whole discussion of
crowd funding leaves me cold. How many would pursue this type of dream with a Vincent, a Goldstar or a Matchless G80cs when the original design is so elegant!
Geeze! A stock Commando is awesome! But it isn't and never could be my Yamaha FZ-09 regardless of upgrades. Perhaps there should
be a separate forum for those whose passion is tweaking and racing Commandos vs. those who just want to enjoy the stock design and have a
fun ride. I guess I'm getting old. Just saying'. Your mileage may vary.
 
I agree with one thing you said, you’re getting old. :confused:

Some of the best innovations are to just improve the ridability for those who like to ride their Nortons.

Most of the enhancements are reversible so no big deal for those wanting original machines.

There are enough Commandos for all kinds of people. No need to be a splitter, learn to get along with others.
 
With a bit of application, it would be possible to create something which might inspire further development of old type bikes and their components. When I race, I have no problem with competing with the same TYPE of bike in capacity classes. To my mind, there are two TYPES of solo racing motorcycle - call them TT and GP. In the old days we had air-cooled four-stroke singles and twins - TT bikes. After the mid 60s we had two-strokes and four-cylinder bikes - GP bikes. Running the two types together in races proves nothing. A decent two-stroke race bike will beat most any other race bike. My Seeley 850 is a TT bike and for what it is, it is very good. I'd love to race it against air-cooled Triumphs, Guzzis, Ducatis, BMWs and Yamahas, as long as they have air-cooled four-stroke twin-cylinder motors of somewhere near similar capacity. A race class such as that, would inspire improvement of a lot of old-type bikes which are usually never raced. I think a good guy on a 500cc Molnar Manx could give most 750 Commandos a bit of hurry-up.
In short:
Battle Of The Air-cooled Twins and Singles - BOTATS.
 
Sometimes when you go head-on at things, you are doing yourself in. Finding funding for any project is always a problem unless you do the project as part of something else which is already funded. If I wanted to develop a better valve-train for a Commando, I would do it as part of my road racing. What Fullauto does with his cylinder heads is almost completely on speculation. If there was a race class which caused Commandos to be road raced, his cylinder heads would become much more desirable and his financial aspects would be much better. It would be interesting to know if the cylinder heads on Garner's 961 Commando fit the earlier bikes. When you manufacture something, the prototype must be tested and developed in a rigorous environment, otherwise the product will probably fail in service. If you don't road race, you would need to find some other way. There is a difference between design 'verification' and design 'validation'
 
Uh, they don't.

Continuing a development progression is always difficult, eventually the changes must become more radical. If we were going to improve the old Commando motors, a more sensible approach might be to simply step up to Garner's Commandos. If I was going to run a race class, it would provide for both the old and the new as long as there were capacity restrictions.
 
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