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My bike days are well past, from the vid, does anyone still use Castrol R ? Does anyone remember the smell ? aaaaaah wonderful😊
Any fellow motorbiking coffee fans?
Ahh, the sweet smell of castor oil burning in a two stroke.
I saw a nice period CR500 for sale last week, $24,000 aud.
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Never been a biker since a no fault of mine accident in the late 70s, but the rest of my siblings are all still into bikes in a big way. A few years ago I bowed to pressure to go away on a touring holiday with them but hired a trike and went on three wheels.
Wherever we went we seemed to pull a crowd, folks wanted to be seen with us and have their photos taken with us. It was about the third day of the trip in Aberystwyth that a woman having her photo taken with us told us she had seen all our shows and had bought all our books. I was ok being mistaken for Dave Myers, but the missus was upset that folks thought she was Simon King of The Hairy Bikers 🤣
Flat_Eric Love it, used to see a lot of those on the road at one time…don’t see as many nowadays.
I’d love to get a motorbike, but I’m worried I would just kill myself. I don’t have much restraint when behind the wheel (for good reason I only own a Honda Jazz).
I’ve always had at least one road legal bike since I was 16 over 40 years ago. I was a despatch rider (now called motorcycle courier?) in London at one stage, (riding on a ’65 Bonneville and later a Honda 400 four). Have had too many bikes to list, including a Norvin, but still have two Vincents and a Honda CN250 (the first ‘superscooter’, Honda got it right from the beginning and they were made for many years, a bit of a cult in Japan) in the garage. Spend many years touring and rallying at home and abroad on a Vincent Rapide or Comet. Don’t ride much nowadays but I’m still a Section Organiser in the Vincent Owners Club. Here is a picture of me on the Rapide waiting to go out on a ‘parade’ lap on closed roads on the IOM TT course. It was meant to be a gentle potter but didn’t turn out that way.
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Brilliant! I must admit I was thinking Dave Myers when I saw the photo too!!
That Monster is awesome! One of my favourite bikes ever. Huge fun to ride too.
Having ridden in Central/East London for many years I always had huge respect for the despatch riders. Still a few around and usually a good marker to help spot the best routes through traffic.
A pretty messy non-fault crash in London left me with a leg/ankle of the construction the Terminator might envy. We left London shortly after and not sure I could ride there again. I still ride regularly but it was certainly an eye-opener to how fragile the human body can be versus a car.
I woke up in the trauma ward at about 10:30am and will never forget the radiologist telling me I was the 9th biker he was x-raying that day… before 11am!!
Hardly Ableson - the best way to use scrap pig iron to turn petrol into horrendous noise without any of that annoying horsepower stuff.
Trikes - all the disadvantages of cars, none of the advantages of bikes.
;)
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Harsh but not entirely unfounded 😂
But what trikes lack on practicality, they’re a crowd magnet and they do allow people to have the bike feeling who may otherwise be unable. One of the Fazer 1000 club guys was an ex Navy diver and he had to give up the 1000 for a trike.
One of the worst bikes I ever had was an oil in frame T140 Triumph Bonneville. It was the American version. I got it cheap as it was going on one cylinder once it warmed up (it was a faulty £6 magnet in the Boyer Bransdon ignition unit.). I got it as it was a bike that I had lusted after in my youth. Small tank with no range, gearing for acceleration but under-geared for cruising speeds, uncomfortable riding position due to the wide handlebars etc. I thought of everything that would be needed to make it into a decent bike, then it struck me that I was imagining the British market version of the same bike. It was made for the American market; blasting up the high street but not for going anywhere, made for ‘show, not go’. I think of Harleys in the same light, made for ‘look at me’ but not very practical. I know that there are some well ridden extensively toured Harleys out there but other bikes do it better. When I sold the T140 I told the guy that bought it that it was the worst bike that I had ever owned (I’ll never make a salesman), he said “I know, but it’s an itch that I have to scratch”.
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I’m a lifelong Harley fan but I’m under no illusion they’re not overpriced, under-performing bikes compared to what else is out there. But to me they look bloody cool and let’s be honest the reason we all ride bikes is some ratio of going fast and/or looking cool.
I also really enjoy their unchanged simplicity (like the E61 machines!), the service manual for one of mine covers 40 years of the same model 😂. To think a lot of the Knucklehead engines still on the road are nearly 100 years old as well and going strong.
There’s a great scene in the documentary 6Over where a guy had ridden across America on a rigid-frame Knucklehead and a guy at a petrol station in California mocked him for his ‘bar-hopper’, and asked where he’d ridden from. When he said ‘New York’ the guy was quite surprised.
I think their horrendous reliability in the AMF years and shows like Sons of Anarchy give them an awful name and reputation. Like @Amberale said, there’s a lot of attitudes out there that don’t exactly give them a great image.
I’ve got a few friends who rode Harleys to Sardinia. Did London to the ferry in Genoa (850 miles) in one day on bikes of varying ages. Petrol cans strapped to the back etc.. It’s a labour of love but doing that kind of mileage on 60 year old Shovelheads and Panheads in rigid frames takes a fair bit of dedication!
Not comfortable or even remotely practical, but if I want comfortable and practical I’ll go in the car!
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I’m not just a Harley guy though, I also share this one which I went halves on with my Dad. He gets it in Summer, I use it Winter when the Harleys are a liability to ride.
It’s a really great combination of classic looks and modern functionality. Loads of fun to ride.
I can see myself on a T120 and I think the Mrs will appreciate the comfort over the Street Triple!
Having ridden quite a few different bikes (quite a few years ago) A friend of mine who got into Harleys in later life
brought his Harley over and insisted I take it for a run (trying to get me interested in bikes again)
I succumbed to his ‘pestering’ and took it for a spin.
I can honestly say it was a very disappointing experience. From it’s excessive weight and it’s insistence on heavy understeering at any deviation from straight plus it’s heavy flat bark from the exhaust.
Mrs Elc said it sounded nice and throaty after the whining small bikes. It did not blow my frock up😞
Norvin I remember about 25 years ago a company was going to revive the Vincent brand, saw some lovely renders…Sadly never happened.
amazing looking engines, especially when tarted up.
https://returnofthecaferacers.com/vincent-motorcycle-cafe-racer/black-shadow/
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I like the Scrambler but even the guy in the dealership said “if you are trading the Street for the Scrambler for the benefit of the pillion, a hot exhaust on her inner thigh is gonna be an issue sooner or later”.
My Street is not worth more than book price, but I can enjoy the awesomeness of its performance, the sweet looks and still park it without worrying. (It’s s a cool design but not the latest must-have). If I had the money for a 1200 twin I would keep the Street anyway. OK so insurance etc for 2 bikes is a factor but to be honest it’s worth more to me to keep it than it would be to a dealer and I agree I would regret letting it go. It would be one of those iconic and fun bikes I would regret selling for sure. In any case I’m only window shopping. I think in years to come, the Mk 1 Street Triple R will be like the RD350LC. Future classic. I can hear people in 15 years time saying “what, you had an original R and let it go when it was at the bottom of the depreciation curve?” Not that mine is a pampered low mileage example. It gets used plenty (well, before corona anyway). Most of my bikes have had between 30-60,000 miles put on them by me, I like to keep stuff I buy, until I’ve properly had my moneys worth 🤣🤣
Bit like my coffee setup really.
