50th anniversary Cafe Racer

Clive said:
I say Sir!
Casting aspersions on a chap's sanity and the size of his exhaust. Through the media of the Internet I smite you across the mazzard and challenge you to a sound-off.

How can such an abbreviated excrescence match the flowing majesty of a pair of long open pipes! I have my suspicions you may be one of those radical full-face helmeted lefties who pollute our noble and ancient sport.
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Hold on there sir before this escalates out of control. Full face helmet? Leftie?? How very dare you!?

No need to get all uppity with me just because you’re weird ...
 
Fast Eddie said:
You can’t do that, nor can you turn them upside down, hacksaw the lug off etc as the threads are needed, they are used to mount the brake and clutch reservoir brackets.
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Sorry about that - the Sport has different reservoir mounts so I see what you mean from the photo above
 
Fast Eddie said:
Hold on there sir before this escalates out of control. Full face helmet? Leftie?? How very dare you!?

No need to get all uppity with me just because you’re weird ...
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I demand satisfaction sir. Exhausts at dawn, or the next Midlands-ish based meet-up. The short black Knight vs the Weird Silver One then we'll see who's steed has the advantage!

ps apologies to all for the historical liberties taken and this rather vulgar antipathy....
 
What is the challenge? Which sounds the nicest?

The Black Knight has nothing to fear there sir.

Consider your gauntlet well and truly picked up !
 
Fast Eddie said:
Here’s my posh screws... most likely that no normal folk would ever notice, but they finish the job off nicely to my eye.

BTW, take care removing the originals, by my reckoning, the left hand thread should be on the left hand bar and vice versa, but they were t’other way around.

Nice - but bit confused where you purchased from, was there a UK supplier for these or did you order from the US via the link: http://corsair-industries.com/parts/Ducati Billet Parts/Ducati 8mm Mirror Plug
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Got them from US, didn’t take long, and due to the low value they didn’t get caught up in customs etc.
 
Clive said:
Hi Phil - The standard Euro4 compliant long exhausts have baffles in them - the 'open' exhausts are available in long or short form. The short do sound a bit better than the long open which is why most people go for them. My dilemma was that I prefer the look of the long so I got the factory to make some long open with half the absorption silencing missing. According to Clem they sound good - I'll let you know when I pick it up.

Regards Clive
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I must admit having had the bike in the shed for past fortnight that the look of the long p-shooters are really growing on me!
 
50th anniversary Cafe Racer
Recruitment drive for our Swiss Motorcyling Norton wanna bee s , Mr Garner & team seem to be all the top shows these days, Zurich one looks a big un , Ralphi get down there & send us some pic s
 
Ok, with 4 inches of snow being forecast, and the roads nice and dry, I couldn’t resist it any longer and today I took the bike out for a short ride on some local private roads (honest orrificer).

I only did about 15 miles, but that was enough gist of things.

Impressions...

First thing, it started on the button, first time every time without any fuss.

No cutting out, or low / high idling issues.

No errant warning lights.

No jerkiness or anything like that, pulling away was always effortless.

Handling is surprisingly neutral for something with such a big daft back tyre!

Bottom end torque is much better than I was expecting. It’s really easy to be in a too high gear with the engine lolloping along, almost like a Harley, with the low revs deceiving you into going quite a bit quicker than you thought!

Of course, I’ve no idea what the upper rev ranges are like, but a can’t wait to find out!

There’s no intrusive vibration as such, but you still feel you’re on a nicely unrefined and honest mechanical device.

Mine has the de cat, shorties and relevant map already fitted. I guess that may explain some of fact as to why it runs so sweet.

And stroll on, the sound of the bloody thing, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up! What a fabulous aural treat, not too loud, nice and deep, very throaty. Truly fabulous!

I have always thought it was a huge shame that Norton didn’t fit a 360 crank to these bikes for a more authentic Cdo sound. I was wrong. Today I really, really, fell in love with the off beat V Twin esq uneven rumble.

Down sides? Not many really...

The clip ons are quite clip-ony, around town they’re less than ideal, but you soon get used to it and out of town they’re fine. I guess it’s not impossible to imagine that one day I’ll want flatter bars, but for the time being at least, clip ons are it!

There is, as we already know, more mechanical noise than most other modern bikes emit. But with the shorties fitted, this doesn’t seem any worse than any of my old Brits.

In summary...

I’m really very chuffed. I’ve been liking this bike more and more as I’ve got up close to it whilst fiddling with it for the last couple of weeks, but now I’ve ridden it, I really do get it, I am smitten!

I really can’t wait for proper good weather, and for March to roll around so I can legally take it off of the ‘private roads’!

To anyone out there who thinks they want one but is sitting on the fence... get off the bloody fence, life is short and if you think you’ll like a 961, you’re wrong... you’ll bloody love it!
 
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Fast Eddie said:
To anyone out there who thinks they want one but is sitting on the fence... get off the bloody fence, life is short and if you think you’ll like a 961, you’re wrong... bloody love it!
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Nigel,

Come on now, don't beat around the bush, just how do your feel about it?:D
 
I mirror your observations. The bikes are just great; full of character and little intricacies.
Have you had any issues with finding neutral? That's the only small annoyance I have with mine. Hopefully when fully run in and post first service this will appear again.
 
RVR961 said:
I mirror your observations. The bikes are just great; full of character and little intricacies.
Have you had any issues with finding neutral? That's the only small annoyance I have with mine. Hopefully when fully run in and post first service this will appear again.
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No I haven’t. On the contrary actually.

I should have said similar to MxMartin, I’m really impressed with how sweet and slick the gearbox is. I’m very surprised too as folk say it’s a Harley gearbox, but I have never ridden a Harley that had gearbox like this!
 
Well, tomorrow is the last exhibition day of SWISS-MOTO, but I opted for skiing!
Seems to be a small stand of Norton according a friend of mine who was there yesterday and is a CR 961 owner as me...
 
Hi Eddie,

I am very pleased you like your bike!

All the team here have worked crazy hard to improve the bike over the years and I am glad it shows. We have tried to iron out the niggles without losing the character, this is not so easy believe or not as you can soon end up with a very stale affair. Not what Norton is about at all.

RVR961,

Neutral should be easy. If its due a first service give the guys a tap on the shoulder and tell them, the shift mechanism is adjustable so it can be tweaked and hopefully make it better.

Nice to hear some positives!

Simon
 

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