Commando editorial in Cycle World

ZFD · Jan 3, 2012

Firstly, I owned Commandos before, while, and after I had a Vincent- I just wanted to know if they live up to the hype around them at the time, and because no-one in the Vincent Owners Club I knew let me ride his I had to buy one to find out. After I had one everybody let me ride his. Though mine was the nicest of the lot I found it it hugely overrated and for my style of riding the Commando was much more fun. Vincent spares were also a problem. Not the availability, but the quality of the stuff that was available. Made me quality-conscious a lot earlier than most- this was in the early 1980s!

Secondly, a Commando will never be the same value as a Vincent because it does not have the rarity. With about 50.000 Commandos produced nobody will ever panic at an auction thinking this could be one of the last available. The hype simply ins't there. Wouldn't be there for Vincents either, had everybody had the opportunity to ride one. And was there in huge doses for Commandos had everybody the same opportunity on a Commando. Most lovers of 1970s bikes would probably never consider another marque or model after riding a Commando! Ever ridden a BMW or (worse!) a CB750 of that era, let alone all the other offerings of the times?

Joe Seifert/Andover Norton

Diablouph · Jan 3, 2012

If anyone should try to take my Norton from me, they will have to pry it from my cold, dirty, greasy, confused, smashed, and broke (financially) hands.

Hegel · Jan 3, 2012

In a global population of 7 billion, 50,000 bikes to go around will mean the price of the originals is bound to go up. I don't somehow think our bikes are going to get consigned to the history books just yet. :wink:

I suspect with the ever rising cost in fuel/ insurance, the young 'uns will end up with no option other than to get onto two wheels if they want their independence. I've heard of quite a few in the past year getting bikes, since the price of insurance on cars is way beyond their means.

frankdamp · Jan 3, 2012

The Commando could indeed become the next Vincent Black Shadow. It's a hell of a lot better engineerd than the Vincent, having benefitted from some engineering people that were smarter as a group than Phil Vincent. He had some very good ideas, but had some weird agricultural pseudo-engineering reasons for them.

I remember, just after joining N-V, Peter Inchley came over and dropped the current weekly magazine on my desk with a marker at an inside article by Phil Vincent. His comment was "I think Phil's full of crap. Can you rebut this?"

The article was an attempt by Phil to justify his space-frame monoshock swing arm set-up. He showed a bunch of equations of motion about the rear suspension and concluded that, on a convetional swing-arm there was a moment trying to twist the rear end off the bike that was equivalent to hanging a double-decker bus off a 10' moment arm through the rear wheel spindle. He claimed it to be the equivalent of 4000 times the earth's gravitational pull.

I spent a few hours going through his rationale and discovered he had assumed that the tire and wheel were of infinite stiffness (i.e., didn't respond to any of the forces) and that the bike was of infinite weight (didn't jerk up at the rear). I worked out that, if the opposite view on stiffness and weight were taken, there would be no effect on the bike's structure or the movement of the rear end. Therefore the load was somewhere between zero and 4000g!

I don't think Peter ever sent it in, becasue it was never published. In retrospect, Phil Vincent had some very clever ideas and the performance and handling of his company's products were way ahead of his competition when those bikes first appeared. His engines were a maintenance nightmare. With the annealed copper external oil feed pipes, they were always leaking oil and had the propesnity for catastrophinc failure of the valve train.

I think the multiple number of clever engineers that worked with Bob Trigg allowed N-V to avoid the "One-man-band "characteristic of Vincent and I'd be very pleased if the Commando became the "Next Vincent".

ZFD · Jan 4, 2012

Frank,
With all respect, but I think you mix up Phil Vincent with Phil Irving, the technical "brains" of Vincent. Technical articles were normally written by Irving. Though I have to give you they were both somewhat befuddled and had no idea about cost calculation or production engineering. The build quality was normally erratic, to put it mildly ("you could have anything between a 47° to a 54° V-Twin, but rarely got a 50° Twin"), and a lot of the design was over complicated without giving any real advantage- two guides per valve, valve lifters individually adjustible. All adding to cost of production.

I think my friend Stefan Knittel, historical motorcycle journalist, put it in a nutshell saying about the Phil & Phil show "two alcoholics were running a motorcycle factory".

On a practical scale, i.e. on the road, a Commando beats a Vincent unless you need to go a long distance at continuous high speed, where the Vincent sounds and feels totally relaxed. The first owner of my Vincent had the habit of leaving for Swítzerland from Hampshire on Friday afternoon with his girlfriend, returning Sunday night. This was in the 1950s!

Joe Seifert

SteveA · Jan 5, 2012

ZFD said:
Frank,
The first owner of my Vincent had the habit of leaving for Swítzerland from Hampshire on Friday afternoon with his girlfriend, returning Sunday night. This was in the 1950s!

Joe Seifert

Joe, one hell of a way of avoiding checking into a hotel with the girl!....I am guessing the destination was Basel! could not have got much further than the border of Switzerland, thats 650 miles at least, and on the roads of the day (even the excellent and often very straight French RNs) 50mph would take some doing, especially after dark with '50s lights!, then there is the ferry crossing, and waiting for it both ways, minimum 30 hours travelling, max 24 hours at destination, half of it sleeping!

ZFD · Jan 5, 2012

Steve,
No idea how he did it but I bought the bike off his widow, who was the girlfriend in question originally. She told me. Maybe he took the Monday off, too- he owned/ran a pub I believe.
Joe

littlefield · Jan 5, 2012

frankdamp said:
I spent a few hours going through his rationale and discovered he had assumed that the tire and wheel were of infinite stiffness (i.e., didn't respond to any of the forces) and that the bike was of infinite weight (didn't jerk up at the rear). I worked out that, if the opposite view on stiffness and weight were taken, there would be no effect on the bike's structure or the movement of the rear end. Therefore the load was somewhere between zero and 4000g!
quote]

I must be getting old, I love this kind of problem solving logic. Nowdays a young engineer would whip it out on finite element and say the results must be right. Both have their place but we seem to be losing the classical reasoning skills.

SteveA · Jan 5, 2012

ZFD said:
Steve,
No idea how he did it but I bought the bike off his widow, who was the girlfriend in question originally. She told me. Maybe he took the Monday off, too- he owned/ran a pub I believe.
Joe

Back for Monday evening opening time, 7pm

No doubt I am more than twice his age then, but I work in Italy, just over the Swiss border near Varese, and I drive my Land Rover back and forth across France and Switzerland at least once a year and never get to see the beauty of either. I did do it on my Pan European a few times, until we came back at the end of October a couple of years ago, constant rain in Italy, Snow in Switzerland, rain in France and then a patch of diesel in a small village in Northern France put my lady wife off pillion duties forever.

And English gentlemen (and ladies) of the '50s were made of sterner stuff than we are today of course, :lol:

I do have to say though that France has always been my favourite riding country....on those RNs....with cars politely pulling out of your way and letting you make all the unhindered progress you want...times change even there though...

ZFD · Jan 5, 2012

You are not working for the late Claudio, or his son, as you are near Varese?
Beautiful bikes, used to have a shrewd operator, too. Having met the current man I have my doubts the show will go on for long.

79x100 · Jan 5, 2012

SteveA said:
Joe, one hell of a way of avoiding checking into a hotel with the girl!....I am guessing the destination was Basel! could not have got much further than the border of Switzerland, thats 650 miles at least, and on the roads of the day (even the excellent and often very straight French RNs) 50mph would take some doing, especially after dark with '50s lights!, then there is the ferry crossing, and waiting for it both ways, minimum 30 hours travelling, max 24 hours at destination, half of it sleeping!

My guess would be that he travelled Lydd - Le Touquet in a Bristol Freighter. I imagine that if you timed it right, you could be on and off in not much more than an hour.

Ron L · Jan 6, 2012

I have noticed that the staff of the "modern" motorcycle mags seem to be much more involved in vintage bikes than ever before. In the '80's and '90's I quit subscribing to most of them because I had no real interest in the but ugly Japanese crotch rockets with the spikey bodywork and fluorescent green, pink, or yellow paint jobs. Now it seems that the staff on these magazines are somewhat older (40-50) than the twenty-somethings that seemed to run them back then. Hoyer has had pre-unit Triumphs and Velocettes, and we all know that Egan has bought and sold Vincents, Triumphs, Nortons, and bevel Ducatis'.

Maybe it's because the industry is no longer as focused on pure sportbikes as it used to be. You see many more articles on "naked" bikes, adventure tourers, and others with more "standard" riding positions.

Anyway, it was almost like an episode of the Twilight Zone to read Hoyer's editorial. Reading that he bought the black '74 850 originally from John Leisner who had the bike for many years. Hmm.... the Norton in my garage that gets the most miles is my black '74 850 (though in Interstate trim). The name Leisner isn't that common (although I did follow his son Andy's 250 racing career) and I have never found one that isn't related to me that has even heard of a Norton, much less owned one. Doppelganger?? Weird.

Ron Leisner

SteveA · Jan 6, 2012

ZFD said:
You are not working for the late Claudio, or his son, as you are near Varese?
Beautiful bikes, used to have a shrewd operator, too. Having met the current man I have my doubts the show will go on for long.

No, but....I do work for Aermacchi....in Aerospace....

The MV Agusta 'World HQ' is 5km from my appartment and I drive past each day on my way to work, the facility actually used to be the Aermacchi aircraft factory, they originally flew float planes off of the lake, then after WW2 it was the motorcycle factory until they started aircraft work again, they moved out when they sold the motorcycle business to HD, won eventually sold the place to the Castiglioni's to start CAGIVA before the bought the rights to the MV Agusta name!

I went to the Aermacchi 'Moto Raduno' in July, it is held at the old factory with the permission of MV, I saw some lovely little racers, mainly 4 strokes but a beautiful 2 stroke GP winner as well......

SteveA · Jan 6, 2012

79x100 said:
SteveA said:

Joe, one hell of a way of avoiding checking into a hotel with the girl!....I am guessing the destination was Basel! could not have got much further than the border of Switzerland, thats 650 miles at least, and on the roads of the day (even the excellent and often very straight French RNs) 50mph would take some doing, especially after dark with '50s lights!, then there is the ferry crossing, and waiting for it both ways, minimum 30 hours travelling, max 24 hours at destination, half of it sleeping!

Click to expand...

My guess would be that he travelled Lydd - Le Touquet in a Bristol Freighter. I imagine that if you timed it right, you could be on and off in not much more than an hour.

I think you are probably right, I read recently about people taking this route in the 50s prior to the cross Channel ferries starting in earnest....

But I suspect that the run to Lydd was a bit of a challenge in itsefl, the A259 coast road would have been slow and none of the motorway routes would be available, and most of the A roads would have taken you towards London...

Commando editorial in Cycle World

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