If you had a Vintage Motorcycle...

[Night Train]

[QUOTE 2023644, member: 9609"]These often puzzle me - what is the point of the wheel at the front - surely the direction would be purely governed by the tracks?[/quote]
At the time there was no easy 'off the shelf' method for high speed track steering on tracked vehicles. The process was to brake (or declutch one track, which had confusing outcomes when heading down a slope) steer wasting power and causing steering to be an all or nothing affair that could only be carried out at slow speed or stationary. The solution for the German army was to use a conventional differential between the tracks, with steering brakes for slow speed sharp turns, and a pair of steering wheels at the front for high speed steering.
When the steering was turned to near its limits, at slow speed, the inside track would be braked. Otherwise when traveling at speed the tracks would follow the front wheel(s) adjusting speed through the differential as would any wheeled vehicle.

The British inventor, Walter Wilson, invented the 'Wilson Triple Differential Steer[ing system]' just prior to WW2 allowing British tanks to be superior to the competition until the Germans caught up. The Wilson system allowed power to be applied to both tracks equally, albeit at differing speeds, so that high speed steering, and spinning on the spot, was possible. This was a huge advance on previous systems that relied on clutches, brakes and twin gearboxes.
Wilson also invented the 'self changing gears' that lead onto today's automatic gearboxes.

 

[nr.]

Nicey-Oldie: Yamaha SRX-6, Honda XBR 500, Gilera Nuovo Saturno, GSX-R 750 (first poduction version), Guzzi V50 Monza - but only if it worked. Cagiva Mito 125.

oooh, if we're allowing the Saturno (good choice BTW - one of the most beautiful bikes I know of) and the GSX-R, I'd quite like an RC30 please. Well, actually I'd like one an awful lot.

I was offered a V50 Monza last year for a silly amount of money, but sadly didn't have enough room in the garage at the time (it was full of bicycles, so I'm not complaining).

 

[Linford]

It took me 6 years to get hold of my 2003 ZX636R.

It is as motorbikes go, the most unforgiving bike I've ever ridden. It is effectively a 162kg track bike on the road with lights.
If I can keep it in one piece, I'll never sell it as it is the most desireable of the ZX6Rs to date in those circles.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

The spoked wheel version is nicer.....

Drum brakes and a 500cc engine and it's a deal.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Vintage: AJS 7R or some Triton beast or another. But really, I don't like vintage bikes that much....

Classic: Mk I Moto Guzzi Le Mans, Moto Morini 3 1/2 Sport, Any 70s UJM in a Moto Martin frame, Motodd Laverda, Ducati F1, Bimota DB1, mid-70s GL1000 Gold Wing, before they got too silly.

Nicey-Oldie: Yamaha SRX-6, Honda XBR 500, Gilera Nuovo Saturno, GSX-R 750 (first poduction version), Guzzi V50 Monza - but only if it worked. Cagiva Mito 125.

quite a few on that list I've had the pleasure of so as to speak. (not the rice burners though)

Vintage: Sunbeam S7 or a Brough.

Classic: Hailwood Replica with Lafranchoni's (why did I sell it?)

Modern Classic: too many to list....

 

[numbnuts]

I would like this one VéloSoleX

 

[nr.]

If we're allowing racebikes [1] can I add a request for a Britten V1000 to go alongside the RC30 in the garage please? Not sure if it counts as vintage yet - but certainly a classic.

[1] Don't see why not - I've probably done more miles on the racetrack than the road over the years

 

[Hitchington]

A 1965 Lambretta Li 150 would do me.

 

[Basil.B]

Ducati 900 SS, Original Honda Fireblade, Original Ducati 916
Yamaha XT500, Original Yamaha FZR1000

 

[palinurus]

I'd have this, I think Ms P would like the chair. I like the hooter.

 

[vernon]

View attachment 12352

I would like this one VéloSoleX

I met three pensioners in Passau this summer who were riding 1965 vintage Velosolex bikes: a man his wife and his sister in law. They were doing the Eurovelo Six route from St Nazaire to the Black Sea. Two of the bike belong to the chaps parents and the third was purchased and restored to for the threesome. There were very laid back about the journey.

 

[simon.r]

This is in my garage:

Sadly, for all sorts of reasons, it's had very little use for the last 2 years. In fact, this year it's been ridden to the MOT centre and back and to a garage to have a new tyre fitted and that's it I really should sell it, but I know I'll regret it as soon as I do...

How long before it becomes a classic and starts appeciating in value?!

 

[Firestorm]

Laverda Jota

BSA rocket 3

Suzy GT 750

 

[swee'pea99]

Speaking of the

Hunter Thompson, one of my favourite writers, often did, eg:

"Jackson and I were out there in Ventura farking around with a 750 Honda and an experimental prototype of the new Vincent -- a 1000-cc brute that proved to be so awesomely fast that I didn't even have time to get scared of it before I found myself coming up on a highway stoplight at ninety miles an hour and then skidding halfway through the intersection with both wheel-brakes locked.

A genuinely hellish bike. Second gear peaks around 65 -- cruising speed on the freeways -- and third winds out somewhere between 95 and 100. I never got to fourth, which takes you up to 120 or so -- and after that you shift into fifth.

Top speed is 140, more or less, depending on how the thing is tuned -- but there is nowhere in Los Angeles County to run a bike like that. I managed to get it back from Ventura to McGovern's downtown headquarters hotel, staying mainly in second gear, but the vibration almost fused my wrist bones and boiling oil from the breather pipes turned my right foot completely black. Later, when I tried to start it up for another test-run, the backlash from the kick-starter almost broke my leg. For two days afterward I limped around with a golfball-sized blood-bruise in my right arch.

Later in the week I tried the bastard again, but it stalled on a ramp leading up to the Hollywood Freeway and I almost broke my hand when I exploded in a stupid, screaming rage and punched the gas tank. After that I locked it up and left it in the hotel parking lot -- where it sat for many days with a MCGOVERN FOR PRESIDENT tag on the handlebars."

and

"Or maybe not: The Ducati 900 is so finely engineered and balanced and torqued that you can do 90 mph in fifth through a 35-mph zone and get away with it. The bike is not just fast -- it is extremely quick and responsive, and it will do amazing things.... It is a little like riding the original Vincent Black Shadow, which would outrun an F-86 jet fighter on the takeoff runway, but at the end, the F-86 would go airborne and the Vincent would not, and there was no point in trying to turn it. WHAMO! The Sausage Creature strikes again.

There is a fundamental difference, however, between the old Vincents and the new breed of superbikes. If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time, you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society. The Vincent was like a bullet that went straight; the Ducati is like the magic bullet that went sideways and hit JFK and the Governor of Texas at the same time. It was impossible. But so was my terrifying sideways leap across railroad tracks on the 900SP. The bike did it easily with the grace of a fleeing tomcat. The landing was so easy I remember thinking, goddamnit, if I had screwed it on a little more I could have gone a lot further.

Maybe this is the new Café Racer macho. My bike is so much faster than yours that I dare you to ride it, you lame little turd. Do you have the balls to ride this BOTTOMLESS PIT OF TORQUE?

That is the attitude of the New Age superbike freak, and I am one of them. On some days they are about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The Vincent just killed you a lot faster than a superbike will. A fool couldn't ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once, but a fool can ride a Ducati 900 many times, and it will always be bloodcurdling kind of fun."

I wouldn't have one personally. I honestly don't think I'm man enough for that much machine. That's not me being coy or modest, just realistic. My wrists would snap like twigs....that's if I could even kick-start the bugger.

I'm interested - and a tad surprised - that no-one's mentioned a Harley. One came up the road behind me as I was walking back from the pub last night...you could hear that unique growl from a quarter mile back and I remember musing as it thundered past, 'I know everyone says what a pile of crap they are and how you can burn them off in a 1972 Austin Allegro, but is there anything else on God's green earth makes a such a wondrous, thunderous gut-rumbling sound...'

 

[Black Sheep]

the point of a harley is the same point as a ford granada, it's big, its comfortable and it gets you there effortlessly

unlike California or texas, two examples of the Harley's natural habitat, here in england we have very twisty roads and bad weather, two things that make a harley a left of field choice when looking for a touring bike compared to the pan european or even the gold wing.