It’s not all about animal welfare though guys is it ?
I think we’re missing what’s most obvious in this discussion. I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I doubt I’m speaking only for myself as well...
Surely a huge part of the reason for buying bikes like the Norton, and many other similar types, is as some kind of kick back against the corporate, homogenised, mass consumer driven dull conformist society that we’ve become?
Surely, even as a bunch of sad old men, there’s something in us that bikes like the Norton trigger?
It’s different, it’s raw, it’s an exciting visceral, mechanical, experience that pokes one in the eye of modern dullness.
It’s like comparing cooking on a campfire in the mountains, to popping some homogenised, tasteless, plastic packet food into the microwave !
So, frankly, how good a Chinese Norton may or may not be is entirely missing the f***ing point!
It would just be another mass produced homogenised microwave motorcycle !
So, to answer the original question: yes, a Chinese Norton would be absolutely bloody awful.
And for that reason, I’m fucking out !