Don't want to start an argument,BUT

[Bob]

I've got my own favourites (GPZ900 anybody? First big bore sportsbike that actually handled? for example), but thought you might like to have a look at this article by Dave Minton.

Minton has been a motorcycle journalist for many years and has tested untold thousands of bikes in his time.

I warn you, it is a long article and could take some time to wade through, but it is an interesting idea as it doesn't concentrate on any one time or country, but takes in biking over the last 100 years, pulling machines from a range of eras.

Have a look and see what you think.

[ben444]

I've got my own favourites (GPZ900 anybody? First big bore sportsbike that actually handled? for example)

...highway to the dangerzone ... cool Top Gun bike. I rode one from Christchurch to Invervegas last year, then my mate proceded to ride around the whole country on it. Good old bike.
Top Gun had a huge influence in my life... I think it's why I wanted to start riding bikes in the first place, (and planes I guess)

[Paul in NZ]

Whats a classic?? You may as well ask how long is a piece of string…

It’s whatever turns your crank and blows your hair piece off… Classics are judged by the rosey glow of 20/20 hindsight and not by dreary commercial realities… Classics are NOT bikes that changed the world… No one would deign a Vincent Rapide it’s place but did it change the way bikes were made in it’s time? Nope! At the end of their run the parallel twin and telescopic forks was still king and reigned for a decade afterwards!

A Honda C90 is a classic, best selling bike ever and definitely fit for purpose, yet will we be restoring them? Nope! (apart from an enlightened few) We will be lusting after stuff we could not afford then and can barely afford now. Is a modern MV a classic?? Apart from looking OK (subjective) and being leg wettingly expensive, not really… At least not compared to a 916 that did alter how people designed bikes.

Is a Bonneville a classic? Yes! It was the benchmark against which everything else was measured in terms of emotion! Ie It was the must have bike of it’s time.. yet most of the people that bang on about them owned tiger cubs or speed twins.. Go figure…

Is my Guzzi a classic? Not really! It’s the last (and in some ways the best) of the sporting roundfins but a Mk1 or 750S is way cooler! The even uglier Mk3 is probably better (early ones anyway)

Is my TR6C a classic. To me! Yes! Triumph dominated the off road scene with these bikes in the late 50’s and through the 60’s and yet, despite being rarer than a bonnie, and having won considerably more races, it is worth less..

Years back, we had a Sunbeam Talbot Mk3. A stunning English sporting saloon with great history and breeding. However, ours was made by the Rootes group (Hillman, Humber, Singer etc) and thus not a really pukka job! One day I was tooling along, sun roof back, getting admiring gazes from the populace when I pulled up beside a Mk5 Jag. Ah ha! A fellow classic motorist I thought! Nope! He virtually laughed at my common car and drove off! (wanker) I was mightly vexed but then I thought, I was happy before I met this guy and why let this arsehole ruin my day? Nothing has changed and after all, he will head up the road and meet a guy with a Bentley who will laugh at his jag. Bentley boy will meet a guy with a Rolls who will meet a guy with an Aston Martin etc etc etc.

A Classic is something that speaks to you! It does NOT have to have global acceptance. If it makes you smile when you see it and laugh with joy when you ride it and brings back a memory of where you wanted to be at some other time, it’s a classic. In short, a classic is a time machine and I don’t care if it is a GN250 or Brough Superior.

[vifferman]

So you didn't really start an argument, Jackrat. You must've been way too diplomatic.

Interesting the bikes that younger peoples reckon are classics, like the CBR900 etc. To me, they are just evolutions of earlier classic bikes. Like you can trace the lineage CBR900 back to the CB750. Whatever; I guess that doesn't make a difference.
How 'bout this - is this a classic:

[duckman]

"Classic" is in the eye of the beholder ....

[F5 Dave]

...highway to the dangerzone ... cool Top Gun bike. I rode one from Christchurch to Invervegas last year, then my mate proceded to ride around the whole country on it. Good old bike.
Top Gun had a huge influence in my life... I think it's why I wanted to start riding bikes in the first place, (and planes I guess)

um, that was a 600 tommieboy was on, but doesn't really matter.

I'd put in a vote for some classic stinkwheels :love2:

RD350LC & RZ YPVS. Launched a whole order of motorcyclists .

RZ & RG500 for being the closest thing to a GP bike ever (until Duc & Honda get serious with their MotoGP bikes, 06 perhaps)

[James Deuce]

I used to organise things into types of bikes, but now I like pretty much everything.

Classic though, hmmm:

US: HD XLCH
UK: Bonnie
Japan: 70s CB400, RG250, RC30
Ger: BMW R29, DKW RT350
Italy: Laverda Jota, 916

All subjective of course, and it would be easy to make the list much bigger.

[kerryg]

*cough*Nifty fifty*cough*

Hey, careful.....

[Cajun]

...highway to the dangerzone ... cool Top Gun bike. I rode one from Christchurch to Invervegas last year, then my mate proceded to ride around the whole country on it. Good old bike.
Top Gun had a huge influence in my life... I think it's why I wanted to start riding bikes in the first place, (and planes I guess)

same for me that movie/bike got me in to bikes, i liked them, but that movie help me like them more, i always wanted to be a pilot, that never worked out, damn english at damn school, and damn dylesexia

[vifferman]

same for me that movie/bike got me in to bikes, i liked them, but that movie help me like them more, i always wanted to be a pilot, that never worked out, damn english at damn school, and damn dylesexia

You know Tom Cruise is dyslexic, I guess?

[vifferman]

"Classic" is in the eye of the beholder ....

Well behold this classic then:

[Blakamin]

Well behold this classic then:

what did that used to be? :spudwhat:

[F5 Dave]

what did that used to be? :spudwhat:

It might have been a W model reverse cylinder TZR250 -but in intense need of counselling & a cyanide pill.

Having said that most had a self terminate feature inbuilt.

[vifferman]

It might have been a W model reverse cylinder TZR250 -but in intense need of counselling & a cyanide pill.

Having said that most had a self terminate feature inbuilt.

Hey - that man's good!
And RIGHT.
No, I don't think it's a classic. Not in the classical sense of classic. :spudwhat:
What about this aberration?

[Blakamin]

Hey - that man's good!
And RIGHT.
No, I don't think it's a classic. Not in the classical sense of classic. :spudwhat:
What about this aberration?

Cool...


I swear i used to ride something like that around the beach when i was about 12! oh, the memories (all bad i'm afraid, it was the neighbours and i broke it)