Time Lords at the TT

[Motu]

So we don't go too far off topic on the why do we ride thread.

In that thread I mentioned how someone rode Hailwoods Honda six and thought it handled terrible - but hey,what if it was so advanced that it was beyond his abilities or comprehension at the time,and only Hailwood was privvy to what was happening? What would someone from that era think of modern bikes if he had never ridden one....and what would we think of a bike 20yrs from the future - could we handle it,would it be an evil handler?

I remember when I rode the first Pro Link Honda enduro bike - shit...no way man,I can't ride a bike like that,too tall,too soft,no,not for me.A year later I had one and was going X ten faster off road - chalk and cheese.

[merv]

Mike and Ago at the Isle of Man were a cut above and it took how long for Mike's lap record to be beaten? I understood the Honda six handled well, the problem he had was with the 500 four and it was the 500 he set the lap record on. It took eight years before Mick Grant broke Mike's record.

[Jackrat]

So we don't go too far off topic on the why do we ride thread.

In that thread I mentioned how someone rode Hailwoods Honda six and thought it handled terrible - but hey,what if it was so advanced that it was beyond his abilities or comprehension at the time,and only Hailwood was privvy to what was happening? What would someone from that era think of modern bikes if he had never ridden one....and what would we think of a bike 20yrs from the future - could we handle it,would it be an evil handler?

I remember when I rode the first Pro Link Honda enduro bike - shit...no way man,I can't ride a bike like that,too tall,too soft,no,not for me.A year later I had one and was going X ten faster off road - chalk and cheese.

Good point mate.
One of my favorite bikes from the early 70s was the T500 Suzuki.
The brakes were crap,the suspension was crap,and all the way through any sweeper type corner the swing arm would flex from side to side making the bike fish tail some thing evil,An then there was the Kawasaki triple 500,it wasn,t the speed of the thing that killed guys,it was the handling.
My first bonnie, didn,t really handle by todays standards but compeared to the jappers of the day it was silk.Also any 500/4 still handled better than any T500.I,m glad I rode them bikes,would I go back,Hell no.

[merv]

Back in about 1971 or 1972 I attended the Gracefield street races and I think the dude was Craig Martin from Aussie and he was riding a T500 and the way it wallowed around the bends over the railway line by the Waiwhetu stream was scary. Ginger Molloy was there too on his GP Kawasaki and it didn't wallow and flex like the T500 it just skipped sideways at the back wheel on bumps. The fastest man then was Geoff Perry on the TR750 and he looked like he was cruising compared to the others. The point is like the guys above had said, bikes have come a long way, but it didn't matter it was still fun to be riding the best there was or any bike for that matter. The early twin shock Jap bikes, besides having fairly flexi frames, had atrocious dampers. Anyone else ride a Honda CB360 around 1974. Man did they pogo stick and wallow.

[merv]

Now, as for Gracefield I haven't got digital copies of the 70's photos but here are the photos I took at the 1983 meeting. Look out for Kevin McGee, Brent Jones, Dave Hiscock, Rob Phillis, Stu Avant, Robert Holden, plus Leppard and Goodin and Gregory and Price on the sidecars.

[merv]

OK only lets me attach five at a time so here are the rest.

[LB]

Great photos Merv. I was the race secretary that day....it's brought back heaps of memories! Dave Hiscock is number H if my memory serves me correctly.

[LB]

Especially memories of the "after match function" at the Lower Hutt town hall. Best I don't go into that here......

[Motu]

Yeah,the early 70s were the best time for bikes I reckon - what you guys are saying is true...but it was all backwards - the older bikes handled great...the new (Jap) bikes handled like shit.A whole generation of riders grew up who didn't want to ride an unreliable dirty bad rep British bike,so only rode evil handling Jappers,never sampling the pleasures of a Commando or oil in frame Triumph.Comparing my wifes 71 Trident against my early sohc CB750 was no contest - the Honda was CRAP! ...nice motor though.

But what I'm asking is can we,especially those riders who have only sampled sports bikes made in the last 10years,reconise a quantum leap in handling,or do we say it handles like shit and walk away.Like,if we could ride Rossi's 2003 Honda,could we ride it? would it be so far out of our experiance that it was unriderable?

Hey Merv,you still there? One of those early riders came to see me yesterday,on this bike,he has had it for 29 years.An easy spot for you,but some may have never seen one of these.He still races the big triples,wearing the leathers with the big K on the back.

[merv]

Hey Merv,you still there? One of those early riders came to see me yesterday,on this bike,he has had it for 29 years.An easy spot for you,but some may have never seen one of these.He still races the big triples,wearing the leathers with the big K on the back.

Ah the joys of disc valve twins. I'm wasn't up with Kawasakis enough to tell if its a 250 or 350. Samurai or Avenger? They were the names weren't they. I never owned one but my memories of those is they were bloody temperamental and the motors didn't last - like 5,000 miles between rebores and new pistons and they made a god awful rattly sound - far worse than the Suzuki T250 and T350 which sounded sweeter but weren't quite as brutal with power.

Its amazing your friend still has it going in such good order.

Graeme Crosby cut his teeth on these and who was the other racer of the day? Wasn't it someone Bone that used to do well on these before the triples came along.

Then I remember Alan Collinson in white leathers blitzing the field on the H2 in the North Island and Owen Galbraith doing it in the South.

[Motu]

Yes,that's Eric Bone's 71 350 A7,dunno what name they put on them.I always wanted the 350 Big Horn...the 250 MX bike was a good slider - I used to do 3rd gear full lock figure 8s on one.My KT250 has the same motor.

[merv]

A friend of mine got a 350 Bighorn when I was at Uni with him in 75 and you'd always find him on the side of the road trying to file up another flywheel key because for some reason it kept stripping them and the flywheel would rotate on the crankshaft. I never got to trail ride with him on that because it was always out of action. Once he bought an XL250 Motorsport then we were away all over the country - no reliability issues with the Hondas worth speaking about. I rode a 73 XL175 on the trails then. Sold it to Chris Harris in 1990 and it was one of the bikes they had up for auction recently - don't know if he sold it though.

[LB]

Motu: I was going to say "is it Eric Bone"!! Honestly. He was at the very first race meeting I ever went to, he used to be around all the time. He kind of mentored Croz for a while there, when Croz started racing on the triples. I caught up with Eric again at Paeroa a couple of years ago when he was there on an H2. I couldn't believe it was him - had my photo taken with him I was so stoked. He's a real enthusiast. A neat guy. And he still wears those same leathers that he wore back in the 70's!

I well remember those triples. Ah, the smell of Castrol R. Can you still buy it these days? And rattly, yes, very much so. But go like stink (till you had to stop for gas - yet again)

Alan Collison was I think the only guy to race in all of the NZ Six Hours. (I may be wrong here but he did ride in heaps of them).

[LB]

Back to the photo - the 250 and 350 were called Samurai and Avenger - not sure which was which.

And Suzuki used to name all their bikes - the T500 was the Titan, they had a Rebel (T250?) and Apache (T350?) and I forget the rest (old age!)

[LB]

And who can remember Mike Gane from Tauranga, wheelstanding his CBX 1000 (the six) at Bay Park and Pukekohe? He was at one stage in the early 80's working at Norjo's in Chch, not sure where he is now. I used to have a blown-up photo of him wheelstanding - I think it's now got lost which is a shame.