Laverda . Swiftly & with style .

Try this , instead . :wink:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_be ... otostream/


Laverda 1000 Triple Endurance

I really would love to race against this, it's really beautiful ! :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXR65av-Qr0

Aw shoot Alan, us men are such pigs of course we fall in love with various nations creations, but like Nortons at home the best.

Laverdas are very heavy, but still perform well. It would be easy to make one blisteringly fast. There was one 930cc SF model which was raced in our historics. It had a lot done to it, and it beat every other bike in our Period 4, and that includes the methanol fuelled 1100cc CB750 Hondas.

daveh said:

acotrel said:

I sometimes wonder a bit about Alan Cathcart, he seems to talk a lot of speed, but I cannot remember ever hearing about him competing in a road race . I think that assessing bikes alone on a race circuit is quite a bit different to using one in anger, and trying to ace another rider off with it.

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http://www.theriderfiles.com/?p=2501

I watched Cathcart race a Ducati Supermono at Donington Park in the mid-90s. The Supermono race series was run in tandem with the World Superbike Championship. As far as I remember, he didn't do too badly that day. He managed 2nd in the series championship for two seasons.

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I also watched Alan race his own Ducati 600 Supermoto at Brands Hatch, the only one in the race, needless to say, he won.

hobot said:

Aw shoot Alan, us men are such pigs of course we fall in love with various nations creations, but like Nortons at home the best.

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I'd trade any number of Nortons for a V6 Lav. !!!

Replica would do, rijjinals are unobtainium. ?

Course, if you have Als' Norton V8 Nemesis prototype....

Even a Jota is getting to be too big and cumbersome. What could you do with a Laverda V6 - a Cosworth challenge might be a better go ? The best classic racer I've seen has to be the 500cc Paton. A friend of mine has ridden the one we have here in Victoria - says it is like a 250cc GP bike to ride. It is interesting what is about amongst our historic racers . The latest craze is to fit a Katana engine into a Harris frame and make a Suzuki XR69 replica. I don't believe anyone has found a CR 6 speed gearbox for one yet, and so most of the motors are set up to pull rather than deliver top end power like a real racing machine.

acotrel said:

Even a Jota is getting to be too big and cumbersome. What could you do with a Laverda V6

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Spoken by a complete un-racer ?
Go further, faster, of course.....

The video clips of that motor are magic, that motor revs, must have zero flywheel.

Make a wicked road bike...

acotrel said:

The best classic racer I've seen has to be the 500cc Paton. A friend of mine has ridden the one we have here in Victoria - says it is like a 250cc GP bike to ride.

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Expect to see quite a few of the top TT riders on Patons in next year's Classic TT, including John McGuinness (many times TT winner): http://www.iomtt.com/News/2012/11/27/Cl ... nness.aspx

Price? If you have to ask, you can't afford one. Cheaper than a replica MV, though.

Some riders and entrants I spoke to felt that the Paton didn't conform to the rules by being an 8-valver. They claim that the original Paton was a 4-valve.

I've ridden a few Laverda triples and I thought they were like big carthorses, plenty of power and OK in a straight line. Doubtless you could muscle them around a track, but in my view they are best seen as road bikes. Some of the ones I saw trackside in Europe had a lot of work done to them, some with different frames, and they certainly looked the business.

The V6 was (reportedly) lighter than a Jota (considerably) and the weight is set a lot lower..

I always thought the original Patton was two 250 Aermacchi cylinders and heads, and pushrod 2 valve ?

Jota's are heavy and have strange high c of g feeling to me, nice engine though.
SF 's are heavy too but seam to feel more like a bevel ducati than the triples.

I suggest you are thinking of the Linto made by Lino Tonti. Dave Stanley had it in Melbourne years ago, it has a weakness in the coupling of the two Aermacchi crankshafts. It went back to the UK from here in about 1980.

A while back I rode a Ducati 900 bevel. It handled like a dog on suburban streets, but it would probably be great on a big sweeping circuit.

Yes of course the Linto, apologies for my ignorance.
And I agree that a 900SS bevel is probably the worst choice of bike in the suburbs, but nice on smooth open sweepers.

graeme

I would like to have a spin on an an SF Laverda, and I always fancied owning one as a road bike. They don't come up for sale very often in Europe, and parts would probably be more expensive and less available than a Commando. I have heard that the SFC - the production racer - was a long, rangy, slow-steering bike, similar to a bevel twin, maybe? I rode a bevel Ducati 750 Sport on the track. It was a Steve Wynne-built bike converted to 900 with a V 2 gearbox and slipper clutch. Very nice, and solid and unflappable but not nimble and poor ground clearance with the stock pipes. Ducati carried that trait on with their belt 8 valvers, which were rock solid on fast sweepers but you couldn't snap them into corners, they had to be rolled in. The last 900 SS bevel I rode was a real beauty. Someone had got at the suspension, which was very plush, and the steering was surprisingly light. I never got to find out how this was achieved, but clearly it can be done.

daveh said:

I would like to have a spin on an an SF Laverda, and I always fancied owning one as a road bike. They don't come up for sale very often in Europe, and parts would probably be more expensive and less available than a Commando. I have heard that the SFC - the production racer - was a long, rangy, slow-steering bike, similar to a bevel twin, maybe? I rode a bevel Ducati 750 Sport on the track. It was a Steve Wynne-built bike converted to 900 with a V 2 gearbox and slipper clutch. Very nice, and solid and unflappable but not nimble and poor ground clearance with the stock pipes. Ducati carried that trait on with their belt 8 valvers, which were rock solid on fast sweepers but you couldn't snap them into corners, they had to be rolled in. The last 900 SS bevel I rode was a real beauty. Someone had got at the suspension, which was very plush, and the steering was surprisingly light. I never got to find out how this was achieved, but clearly it can be done.

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I know a guy - lives here in Fort Lauderdale - who really knows how to set up a Ducati. He's also got quite a collection with his G/F - probably 300 bikes. Rich is quite the expert with bevel singles and twins, and built a replica of Cook Neilson's 'Old Blue' 750SS - 'Deja Blue'.

Rich built a bike for a show here in the US called 'Cafe Racer' where he took the remnants of an 860 GT (not the prettiest bike and turned it into a pretty sweet bike, practically a 900SS. A couple of pics are here, go to photo #22 in particular: http://photos.ducati.net/Motorcycle...-2012/25993159_fkvP83#!i=2157032584&k=nf6D2Lz The Bostrom brothers took this cafe out on the track and on the road - said it was the best-sorted bike they'd tested on the show. There's a couple of pics of Rich and Cook with Deja Blue, too, which Cook took around Barber a few times. Should have taken a pic of Cook sitting on my Ranger, but I didn't take pics of anything that weekend except a P11A.

Vicki has unbelievable Ducati stuff, from toasters and Cucciolos to a couple GP bikes, including a '68 500 single with a prettiest front brake I've ever seen - a magnesium 4LS Fontana.

Actually, Vicki's passionate about Italian stuff in general, and has some excellent machines that she lends out around the country - Mondials, Gileras, Guzzis, MVs, Vespas, etc.

Rich and Vicki are good people

Hi Bill - thanks for sharing those pics. I saw Deja Blue, and very nice it is too!

The other bike that caught my eye was the Rickman Triumph Metisse.

Dave

daveh said:

Hi Bill - thanks for sharing those pics. I saw Deja Blue, and very nice it is too!

The other bike that caught my eye was the Rickman Triumph Metisse.

Dave

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Dave,

If you'd like to see some really good stuff, go the the Barber Museum website. Mr Barber has around 250 acres of land just outside Birmingham, Alabama in the town of Leeds. On this land he built a world-class race track and a museum that has perhaps the largest private collection of motorcycles in the world, and the largest private collection of Lotus race cars. This area of the US is really pretty - rolling hills, great roads, good weather, and the vintage festival is now a must-do for anyone interested in vintage bikes. Normally the second weekend in October.

If you like Ducati, Vicki runs Ducati.net, and travels extensively to organize and photograph Ducati events around the world, posting dozens of albums on smugmug every year, mostly accessible through Ducati.net

Bill - I would love to go to the Barber Vintage Festival! I've seen enough on this forum to convince me it's a goodie. I would really like to compete there, but to make it even close to being cost-effective, that would mean a number of us over here fronting up, filling a container and getting our asses and our bikes over to Alabama. And try to do some other events while we are over there, to make the best of it. As you can appreciate, it would be a big logistical effort and cost quite a few dollars. An Irish team did go to Daytona in the 90s. The alternative would be to visit the event (sans race bike ) and fit it in as part of a bigger trip around the US. So much to do and so little time...

daveh said:

I would really like to compete there, ...

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Perhaps you could work something out where you could borrow a bike here. Maybe some sort of exchange, where you provide a ride for a visitor to Ireland and they reciprocate.

It may be a logistical nightmare - suitable machine, proper insurance, licensing acceptable to sanctioning body, etc., but it could be a reasonable way for someone to get a chance to ride one these tracks.

If you come to Barber, you'll at least have access to a Norton to ride around the facility :wink: