Optimistic sellers

[husaberg]

I'm in awe how much people spend on Classic Race bikes, you can drop 20K into a Norton Commando very easily, those plastic cups must be valuable.

it was a modern race bike when Smith built it.....

[T.W.R]

I'm in awe how much people spend on Classic Race bikes, you can drop 20K into a Norton Commando very easily, those plastic cups must be valuable.

about the same as some people should spend on glasses

[HenryDorsetCase]

about the same as some people should spend on glasses

fuck sake dont even mention that shit - I am getting my eyes tested again and new glasses with progressive lenses after that

[jellywrestler]

I'm in awe how much people spend on Classic Race bikes, you can drop 20K into a Norton Commando very easily, those plastic cups must be valuable.

more than that on some motors alone these days...

[Voltaire]

it was a modern race bike when Smith built it.....

Might have been new but it was not modern.

Parallel Twins....what were Ducati thinking.

[T.W.R]

fuck sake dont even mention that shit - I am getting my eyes tested again and new glasses with progressive lenses after that

Don't worry I've got the same outlay coming up too, There goes a set of tires for the 12R bloody sight hasn't changed just the damn glasses are nigh on poked

[malcy25]

I'm in awe how much people spend on Classic Race bikes, you can drop 20K into a Norton Commando very easily, those plastic cups must be valuable.

LOl, I wish!!! My last big rebuild I spent more than that!

[sidecar bob]

LOl, I wish!!! My last big rebuild I spent more than that!

Yeah, but you also had a proper race bike to show for it at the end.

[malcy25]

Yeah, but you also had a proper race bike to show for it at the end.

True. It's taken a couple of years to get to a point its only trying to kill me 50% of the time.

I could easily spend another 10 k -15k on it. Dymags, new Nitron shock, 6 port cylinders digital ign....=+ 30hp to 160hp.

Shock is probably the only one I will spend on. 130hp is more than adequate!

[husaberg]

Might have been new but it was not modern.

Parallel Twins....what were Ducati thinking.

TWR said otherwise but I had an idea that Taglioni didn't want a bar of them?

[Voltaire]

TWR said otherwise but I had an idea that Taglioni didn't want a bar of them?

Only because alan Cathcarts book was within reach...

" Though Taglioni, who had been against it from the start, wanted nothing else to do with it...."

" appalled" is mentioned as opposed"

[T.W.R]

TWR said otherwise but I had an idea that Taglioni didn't want a bar of them?

I said "Taglioni used them as a test bed for a test bed for the Pantah" .... Pantah share the same valve angle (60deg) & combustion chamber design.

Only because alan Cathcarts book was within reach...

" Though Taglioni, who had been against it from the start, wanted nothing else to do with it...."

" appalled" is mentioned as opposed"

Quotes from the article:

"For Taglioni, far from washing his hands of the development, actually used the GTL and Sport as test beds for his ideas about the Pantah. Thus the parallel twin became a very important interim development model; the missing link in the evolution from bevel to belt"

"So the 500s were little shitboxes ignored and scorned by Taglioni? I doubt it. I figure he thought if he had to make a parallel twin, then he would use it to test and develop his ideas for the coming range of V-twins. And that itself explains a lot"

"Further proof is supplied camshafts used in a couple of race bikes kicking around aussie circuits in the late 70s, bikes raced by Arthur Davis, Peter Molloy & Ken Flaherty, they were factory produced camshafts. Now why would the factory produce stuff like this for a machine which was supposed to be a small tourer or sports/tourer?? The answer is in the profile; the cam specification is identical to that used in the TT2 Pantah, the bike which won two F2 world championships for Tony Rutter"

[F5 Dave]

True. It's taken a couple of years to get to a point its only trying to kill me 50% of the time.

I could easily spend another 10 k -15k on it. Dymags, new Nitron shock, 6 port cylinders digital ign....=+ 30hp to 160hp.

Shock is probably the only one I will spend on. 130hp is more than adequate!

So what are we talking about here? Picture? Heck won' be the first time we've gone off track.

[husaberg]

Only because alan Cathcarts book was within reach...

" Though Taglioni, who had been against it from the start, wanted nothing else to do with it...."

" appalled" is mentioned as opposed"

I cant remember where it was but likely something Fallon wrote in the puff piece that accompanied the street bike mag article that TWR was referencing about the epicycle big twin mentioned it also.
Also I think it came up in an interview that was carried out with Taglioni his wife and mistress. likely also in streetbike.
I did find this

The suits were adamant, and the order was given to develop a parallel twin—and keep the costs down. Renowned engineer Fabio Taglioni, the originator of Ducati’s desmodromic drive, did let it be known that he wanted nothing to do with this project and spent his time working on a smaller capacity L-twin.

Ducati had hoped to attract a new breed of buyer with this bike, but the new ones weren’t coming, and the Ducatisti thought it a slug.This is where the Sport Desmo comes in. Management finally came to its senses after two years of bad sales, asking Taglioni to please beef up the engine and turning the chassis design over to a fellow named Leopoldo Tartarini, who ran his own successful firm, Italjet. In the early ’70s, Tartarini had bought a good many British engines from Triumph and Velocette and bolted them into his own frames.
Taglioni immediately turned to his mystical desmodromic valve actuation and redesigned the heads. He also used a pair of 30mm Dell’Orto carburetors to feed the combustion chambers, where the fuel was compressed with a 9.6:1 ratio. This allowed the engine to rev more easily;

http://ridermagazine.com/2013/05/02/...500-1977-1982/

I said "Taglioni used them as a test bed for a test bed for the Pantah" .... Pantah share the same valve angle (60deg) & combustion chamber design.



Quotes from the article:

"For Taglioni, far from washing his hands of the development, actually used the GTL and Sport as test beds for his ideas about the Pantah. Thus the parallel twin became a very important interim development model; the missing link in the evolution from bevel to belt"

"So the 500s were little shitboxes ignored and scorned by Taglioni? I doubt it. I figure he thought if he had to make a parallel twin, then he would use it to test and develop his ideas for the coming range of V-twins. And that itself explains a lot"

"Further proof is supplied camshafts used in a couple of race bikes kicking around aussie circuits in the late 70s, bikes raced by Arthur Davis, Peter Molloy & Ken Flaherty, they were factory produced camshafts. Now why would the factory produce stuff like this for a machine which was supposed to be a small tourer or sports/tourer?? The answer is in the profile; the cam specification is identical to that used in the TT2 Pantah, the bike which won two F2 world championships for Tony Rutter"

Without starting an argument as much as I admire Taglioni 60 degree valve angles are hardly earth shattering and it was him who stopped Ducati using plain bearings and closing up that valve angle to 50 which was closer to the norm for performance earlier not to mention 4 valve heads.
I don't agree that taglioni designed the parallel twins, He only fixed the obvious f-ups and made them better later.

[T.W.R]

Personally I think the parallel twin is a hideously ugly motor. And having been down the road of having been able to own the last of the Bevels and had mates with Darmahs & one seriously hotted up 500 Pantah I'm glad to have had that experience in the days when one could cane the crap of them without fear of if it broke parts weren't unobtainium. The MHR wasn't worth the hassle but in big open country on song it was a drug all by itself and the Pantah through a big helping of goodies from Brook Henry was an absolute blast