Rekindling the greatest ever bike debate

[Big Dave]

This baby. Beats them all if only for nostalgic reasons.

In 1894, the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the first motorcycle available to the public for purchase.


Skyryder

Imagine finding one of them in a shed!

[The Pastor]

Vincent Black Shadow!

dont you dare! 1952 Vincent Black Lightning!

[eelracing]

I reckon most influential would be a better title.

In that respect i would plum for the captain america panhead in Easy Rider.I know it inspired some god awful replicas in some garages as well as manufacturers.Am thinking of the bastardisation Norton did to the commando when they came up with the hi-rider.

High up on my list would also be a Mike Hailwood rep for classic cool.
And the ever popular RD350Lc for inspiring a generation of hooligans.

[Pinstripe]

dont you dare! 1952 Vincent Black Lightning!

I love that song

Reasonably accurate list I suppose, but I would've expected to see a Vincent v twin, BSA Goldstar or even the Suzuki Hayabusa in there.

[Mystic13]

Greatest bikes to me would have to include bikes that created a turning point.

So the first adventure bike should be there.

There should be a 2 stroke. There are a generation of us who grew up around these things.

I agree the Vespa should be on the list.

There should be a chopper and I agree with Captain America's bike for that.

The Y2K and Guzzi should be dropped from the list.

Maybe they should do a 20 greatest list.

[MSTRS:Me]

Greatest bikes to me would have to include bikes that created a turning point.

Agreed. Like the first 2 stroke to have separate oil feed. Or telescopic forks. Or unit-construction engine/gearbox.
Or represented the pinnacle of their type. Perhaps like the RE5.

[xwhatsit]

Turning point? That's why the Cub is #1.

Changed whole nations from horse/donkey/cart to motorbike. Still doing the same thing today.

World's most-produced and longest-running bike model. Keep that at #1.

The Brough Superior shouldn't be on there. Neither should the Vincent replace it (same thing really, the Brough of the 50s...). Neither bikes changed much. Even though everybody loved the Vincent, nobody bought it or copied it. Triumph, Norton, BSA et al kept producing faster and faster parallel twins, and the public kept buying them. As Phil Vincent said (and Ixion has in his sig),

The manufacturers go to a lot of trouble to find out what the average rider prefers, because the maker who guesses closest to the average preference gets the largest sales. But the average rider is mainly interested in silly (as opposed to useful) “goodies” to try to kid the public that he is riding a racer.

And that's what continued to happen. Instead of coming around to the idea of a `sport touring' bike, one designed to cover long distances smoothly with effortless speed, instead they went to sportsbikes and cafe racers, and the trend didn't stop when the Japs came along with the fours either. In fact we're still doing the same thing today; everybody lusts after a bike which looks just like Rossi's, so that's what the manufacturers sink all their money into... so every man and his dog are riding around on Tupperware race-reps and interesting designs like Yamaha's MT03 don't even get a look in.

Of course now we have bikes like the FJR and ST, but you can hardly argue they were inspired by the Vincent Rapide (or the tuned-up Shadow). They're not exactly forefront in the biker consciousness, either.

[3L4NS1R]

where's the GN?!

[Motu]

Turning point? That's why the Cub is #1.

Even though everybody loved the Vincent, nobody bought it or copied it.

The Vincent was an engineers bike - Phil and Phil went to every effort to make things perfect from an engineering point of view....like rockers inline with pushrods,rockers working from the middle of the valve stem to reduce side thrust.Everywhere you look on the bike you see this attention to detail,and that's one of the reasons for Phil Vincent's quote...he felt the manufacturers were pandering to riders taste and not engineering perfection.The perfect bike doesn't sell.

People who have never owned a Cub will never accept them as the best bike in the world,but millions world wide know it's a fact.Duh - what could be better than a gixer?

[Big Dave]

Cub: Appliance - implement - tool - important socio-economic machinery. Yes.
Great motorcycle: No.

Greatness has something aspirational - Even Ranjit of Rangoon wishes he could trade his Cub on a BMW.

[Indiana_Jones]

Bonneville gets my vote

-Indy

[Motu]

Greatness has something aspirational - Even Ranjit of Rangoon wishes he could trade his Cub on a BMW.

Greatness is marketing....good motorcycles don't become great without some media hype.Take out the media hype,and Ranjit will see his Cub is much more use to him than a BMW.But he watches Bollywood....so he wants a BMW.

[xwhatsit]

Cub: Appliance - implement - tool - important socio-economic machinery. Yes.
Great motorcycle: No.

Greatness has something aspirational - Even Ranjit of Rangoon wishes he could trade his Cub on a BMW.

Aspirational, from the sense of `put the whole world on wheels'. Give modern transport to the masses, those who otherwise would've spent their entire lives riding a bicycle.

The CB750 or Vincent Rapide or whatever can be as amazing a motorcycle as you like, but none of them had that scope.

[zzzbang]

The greatest bikes of all time were all early to mid 80's motocross bikes.

the RM465, YZ490, KX500,CR500, YZ250, CR250 etc etc.

If your gna start naming those, dont forget the Maico.

[Big Dave]

Aspirational, from the sense of `put the whole world on wheels'. Give modern transport to the masses, those who otherwise would've spent their entire lives riding a bicycle.

But it wasn't 'just' the cub that did that.