Hi,
I also battle with concept of my 70s bikes (Mk2 850, T160 and T140V) being nothing but old, quirky, collectable museum pieces.
I choose to regard them as still competitive (in general use), perfromance bikes. In fact one criteria I have for my little menagerie of Pommie cars and bikes is that they are capable of giving a reasonably modern road performance and certainly at least keep up with modern traffic. Hence my interest focuses on products from the sixties and seventies.
I now ride them far less than I should, when I do (mostly the Commando) but I expect a high level of performance.
I give nothing away when riding against modern bikes. I neither give nor expect any quarter.
I guess as I age, I limit my speeds to stay vaguely in touch with the State limits but I certainly rely their handling to keep up or be ahead of other bikes (and more importantly riders) on mountainous or twisty roads.
I don’t think this means I’m silly or reckless when riding but if you want to be substantially ahead of me, as long as outright horsepower isn’t critical, you had best be prepared to have ago.
I think my arse and body in general has aged more than the bikes and this limits the distance I’m likely to ride on any one day.
Of course in reality both the bikes and I are geriatrics. I’m sure there are plenty of modern 250s that would be ahead of our bikes in performance, handling, and braking but I’m prepared to ignore all that and still regard my bikes as high performance sports machines.
I think that if you forget about the actual CCs of our Commandos and don’t compare them with modern bikes of equivalent capacity but rather think of them as the physically rather small bikes that they actually are, they still give a good account of themselves .
I definitely don’t consider them vintage pieces to be pottered around like veteran car.
They say you are only as old as the woman you feel but in my case, my Norton is as new as I’m prepared to ride it.
regards all
al
I also battle with concept of my 70s bikes (Mk2 850, T160 and T140V) being nothing but old, quirky, collectable museum pieces.
I choose to regard them as still competitive (in general use), perfromance bikes. In fact one criteria I have for my little menagerie of Pommie cars and bikes is that they are capable of giving a reasonably modern road performance and certainly at least keep up with modern traffic. Hence my interest focuses on products from the sixties and seventies.
I now ride them far less than I should, when I do (mostly the Commando) but I expect a high level of performance.
I give nothing away when riding against modern bikes. I neither give nor expect any quarter.
I guess as I age, I limit my speeds to stay vaguely in touch with the State limits but I certainly rely their handling to keep up or be ahead of other bikes (and more importantly riders) on mountainous or twisty roads.
I don’t think this means I’m silly or reckless when riding but if you want to be substantially ahead of me, as long as outright horsepower isn’t critical, you had best be prepared to have ago.
I think my arse and body in general has aged more than the bikes and this limits the distance I’m likely to ride on any one day.
Of course in reality both the bikes and I are geriatrics. I’m sure there are plenty of modern 250s that would be ahead of our bikes in performance, handling, and braking but I’m prepared to ignore all that and still regard my bikes as high performance sports machines.
I think that if you forget about the actual CCs of our Commandos and don’t compare them with modern bikes of equivalent capacity but rather think of them as the physically rather small bikes that they actually are, they still give a good account of themselves .
I definitely don’t consider them vintage pieces to be pottered around like veteran car.
They say you are only as old as the woman you feel but in my case, my Norton is as new as I’m prepared to ride it.
regards all
al
. I rarely go above 5,000 revs, just to check the clutch is still fine.
