KB - The greatest-ever motorcycles

[gav]

OK, enough bullshit, please list exactly what the Britten has won to make it a world beater? Its gotta be the most over hyped bike mentioned here by far.
C'mon has it ever won anything significant, wait, it beat the factory Ducati's at Daytona! Actually, no it didnt, it beat a couple of privateer teams riding a production superbike, not a factory backed team. The factory bikes were racing in the Superbike class, not the twins or whatever class the Britten rode in. OK, World Bears champion, again, what/who did it beat? Anyone remeber some of the opposition? Think a guy Mike Edwards on a BMW650 single, maybe Alan Cathcart? Hardly a world class field is it. I can remember the Britten racing at Manfield and Aaron Slight was there with his factory RC45 on display, in the lunch break he went out and did some demo laps, just mucking around and pulling wheelies the length of the front straight, think he still lapped as fast as the Britten, this is with no race setup or anything.
Sadly we never really saw just what the Britten was really capable of, and thats the engine. What it needed was a more convential chassis with "real" suspension ala Ohlins and a chance to see just what the engine could do. When ever the bike raced at circuits with "rough" surfaces, it seemed to struggle, Isle of Man and Bathust for instance.
If Shaun Harris is reading this thread, maybe some input from him as to what the riders really thought? Certainly from Tim Hannas excellent book, this comment comes through from alot of the riders. Unfortunately John's reaction was "but it wont be a Britten?" So you want to build the worlds fastest racebike or a fancy museum piece?

[ducatilover]

the britten may be over hiped, but could any manufacturer build something better on the same budget? it seems some of us can easily build the worlds greates bike well excuse me i'm of to play with my lego and create a world class superbike that can be ridden on water

[ducatilover]

oh i have seen a vid of the britten going off the clock at 320kph

[gav]

oh i have seen a vid of the britten going off the clock at 320kph

Interesting....never seen a Britten with a speedo!!
How about this guy? Bill Buckley, at least he decided to race in the toughest world stage. World 500GP's!!
Which do you think would be faster around a race track? The Britten or the BSL500?

[ducatilover]

Interesting....never seen a Britten with a speedo!!

sell i was told it was a britten.....hmmmm oh well i still admire the bloody thing and i would geuss the 500 is the faster one?

[Kickaha]

Interesting....never seen a Britten with a speedo!!
How about this guy? Bill Buckley, at least he decided to race in the toughest world stage. World 500GP's!!
Which do you think would be faster around a race track? The Britten or the BSL500?

The Britten woud piss all over it, the BSL couldn't even beat the local Production Superbikes

[Vagabond]

Suzuki TS 50 ER
Yamaha IT 200
Kawasaki Z 750
Kawasaki Z 1000j
Kawasaki Z 1000 Eddie Lawson (replica)
Suzuki DR 500
Yamaha Jog
Honda XR 600
Honda 900 Hornet
Suzuki S83


Because I owned them all!

[avgas]

Bikes are not based on how good they are round a track.
The britten was legendary for one instance - it was a bike built the old way, to new specs.
To date no other bike has been done like that since then....and worked 100%.
Yeh sure there are bikes that have 'home built' parts - but this was a bike, carved from wood, completely original (even though Britten knew ducatis inside and out he did not use their technology at all).
I dont think it was the greatest bike of all time - i just think its scared the pants off all them.
BSL500 was a bike, built in NZ, that was to another bikes spec (i wont say which one...but some of you will know). The prob with the BSL team was ego's..... they all thought they were fantastic before the first race.
They failed to notice that infact they were the rookies, and lost supporters because of it.

[gav]

the britten may be over hiped, but could any manufacturer build something better on the same budget? it seems some of us can easily build the worlds greates bike well excuse me i'm of to play with my lego and create a world class superbike that can be ridden on water

Seeing as John never seemed to pay anyone for helping him, what budget do you refer to? And its not a world class superbike, its a hand built race bike, that doesnt need to conform to any rules. Superbikes are production based and manufacturers must build a certain amount to be eligible. How much were they selling Brittens for? $160,000 werent they? You'd build a bike better than a Britten for that sort of money, by better I mean more powerful, lighter and better handling and faster around a race track. Ten Kate CBR1000RR? Yoshi GSXR1000K5? Hell, back in 1998 Honda had these for sale NSR500V

[T.W.R]

Gav you obviously didn't watch the show the other night, they ran off the Britten's achievements. plus theres the speed records it set on tram road with john white aboard it & the woman rider( can't remember her name).
Plus to add if it hadn't been for the death of John Britten there would be road going versions now plus a single version.
and who knows what would have evolved at this stage with the race bikes

HA the BSL mmm how did it compare to the other 500s?, where is it now?,do people still talk about it?, and 500gp bikes aren't real world bikes there just the same as F1 cars ( narrow focus single purpose). plus it wasn't exactly built from scratch was it, it was a blend of off the shelf parts & a bit of engineering.

the Britten was a bench mark bike, the BSL was just following on the shirt tales of previous designs

[gav]

The Britten woud piss all over it, the BSL couldn't even beat the local Production Superbikes

Would the Britten beat the current Production Superbikes?

[Back Fire]

I think the Honda NR750 should have been in there... Has everything the Duke 916 has and looks VERY similar.... funny how Honda made the NR750 BEFORE Ducati did there 'legendary and innovative' 916...

[Kickaha]

Would the Britten beat the current Production Superbikes?

Yes it would, Andrew Stroud set a faster lap time at Ruapuna on the Britten several years ago than he has on the GSXR1000 in the last few years

[T.W.R]

Would the Britten beat the current Production Superbikes?

mmm 11 yrs of advancement you do the math? and as for quoting about honda selling their GP bikes mmm they do that every year sell the current model right from the small up to the top line. the Britten sold for $140k and the Honda 500gp bike was roughly $200k AUS the same year

[gav]

TWR, No I didnt see the programme, yes, I do know some of the acheivements, you want to list some of them here though?
I dont think we would have seen a road going Britten, John wasnt interested in production, he only ever wanted to build his quota of 10 and that was it. Thats why he was trying to sell his design to Harley Davidson, Benelli and Indian, all who were interested but nothing ever came of it. John had other ideas to move onto. Yes, a single cylinder MX bike was mentioned at one time, may have been interesting. I guess we will never know now, but the prospect of building a four stroke GP bike and racing in MotoGP may well have been something that he could've looked at. Would have needed more that a twin though!!