Simon Crafer Gyroscopic Effect and Inertia

acotrel said:
Your bike sounds as though it is a very good thing. Are you aware of which way it goes when you brake into a corner in the middle of the road on a lean, then immediately gas it hard enough to make it squat. I only found out by guesswork and trial, that my bike oversteers in the correct direction. I had noticed I was able to stop braking and get on the gas earlier. It is a real advantage when competing. My problem then was in finding the reason it can do that. Unexplained things can sometimes bite.
I don't know where I got the idea, your bike had an Atlas motor, I know very well it is an 850. I once saw a similar bike in a pre-1962 historic race. I think that is a good thing to do. It could be like a supercharged Manx.
In my early racing days, I was a total idiot - I did not know where to find information. These days, most things are on the web. It is much better, but too late.
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1957 Wideline Featherbeds came with Dominator motors 500/600 twins (M88/99) as well an International Model 30 single, Atlas 750 came later in the Slimeline frames (around 1962) they came in 650 Dominator or 750 Atlas motors as well ES2 singles, they were building 4 Atlas to 1 Dominators at the factory, the 650 Dominators where a smoother motor to the Atlas 750, the 1960 Manxman 650 first came out with the slimline frame then the 650SS, I could be wrong but close enough.
Al I never brake into corners, I use my body and engine to slow me down before I get into the corners and power out of them, very rarely use my brakes at all when riding up in the ranges or in the twisties, or anywhere, even when racing my mates, even when riding my dirt bikes never use brakes, unless something jumps out in front of me, am the same with all my bikes only use brakes for stopping or when someone pulls out in front of me, or if I see cops on the side of the road, speed camera cars etc. I am a very aggressive rider and have been so all my bike riding days of 50+ years and have learned to slow my bikes down without jumping on brakes, I am also the same in my cars as well driving trucks most of my life, never been a big heavy brake person.

Ashley
 
ashman said:
1957 Wideline Featherbeds came with Dominator motors 500/600 twins (M88/99) as well an International Model 30 single, Atlas 750 came later in the Slimeline frames (around 1962) they came in 650 Dominator or 750 Atlas motors as well ES2 singles, they were building 4 Atlas to 1 Dominators at the factory, the 650 Dominators where a smoother motor to the Atlas 750, the 1960 Manxman 650 first came out with the slimline frame then the 650SS, I could be wrong but close enough.
Al I never brake into corners, I use my body and engine to slow me down before I get into the corners and power out of them, very rarely use my brakes at all when riding up in the ranges or in the twisties, or anywhere, even when racing my mates, even when riding my dirt bikes never use brakes, unless something jumps out in front of me, am the same with all my bikes only use brakes for stopping or when someone pulls out in front of me, or if I see cops on the side of the road, speed camera cars etc. I am a very aggressive rider and have been so all my bike riding days of 50+ years and have learned to slow my bikes down without jumping on brakes, I am also the same in my cars as well driving trucks most of my life, never been a big heavy brake person.

Ashley
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Ashley, when I was a kid, my friend was Allan Greening. He built the first race bike I owned, but he would never sell it to me. In those days, he used to ride 500cc bikes such as a G90 Matchless, and BSA B33. I used to ride 650cc Triumphs. To get booked back then, the police had to follow you for about one kilometre. Everywhere we went was a road race. However I came to understand my life expectancy might not be very great, so in 1979 I went racing on proper circuits. The first time I raced, I locked the front brake and slid down the road on my back at about 90 MPH. My two young sons were standing watching at the corner where I crashed. The good thing was, I never had to watch them riding motorcycles. When the older one was working, he had a ZXR750 Kawasaki - he was a very competent and careful rider.
You can only ever ride as fast as your front brake will allow. Every crash I have ever had, has been due to the front brake, except the one where I put a footrest on the road and lifted the rear wheel.
 
cash said:
Over the years I've been a bloody expert at getting knocked off and thrown down the road due to ice or snow, odd things like a blown front tyre etc. I made my mind up 30 years ago not to let it happen again and so far I've been lucky.
A few days ago a blind bas**rd driving a big white van tried to cross a roundabout between me and the car I was following round. Luckily I got the bike stood up while hitting the stoppers as hard as I dared and by throwing the bike left I missed him by inches. How the hell he didn't see me I will never know the LED head light as usual, the bike is pretty loud, I was only a couple of car lengths behind the car I was following and it was broad daylight.
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Were you using the main/high beam?

Did you employ the audible warning device?
 
Now that I am older, I know that under some circumstances when I was a kid, if I had seen a car - I would have hit it. It is not a comforting thought. I was really stupid.
 
concours said:
Were you using the main/high beam?

Did you employ the audible warning device?
Click to expand...
I use high beam in daylight. I don’t at night of course, the dazzling effect would be dangerous. But it doesn’t dazzle in daylight, it might annoy a few easily annoyable folk, but I don’t see any reason why I should give a flying f**k about that / them.

I’ll take anything that helps put the odds slightly in my favour when faced with half blind, distracted, uncaring drivers.
 
concours said:
Were you using the main/high beam?

Did you employ the audible warning device?
Click to expand...
I run the LED Head Light on its own on dip during the day and believe me its bright.
If you meant my voice? too screw did I the air was blue. I was too busy avoiding the collision and trying not wash out the front tyre to press the horn. In any case for some reason lately the horn sounds more like the Roadrunner, and you know what a pain the horn is to get at.
 
cash said:
I run the LED Head Light on its own on dip during the day and believe me its bright.
If you meant my voice? too screw did I the air was blue. I was too busy avoiding the collision and trying not wash out the front tyre to press the horn. In any case for some reason lately the horn sounds more like the Roadrunner, and you know what a pain the horn is to get at.
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Fast Eddie said:
I use high beam in daylight. I don’t at night of course, the dazzling effect would be dangerous. But it doesn’t dazzle in daylight, it might annoy a few easily annoyable folk, but I don’t see any reason why I should give a flying f**k about that / them.

I’ll take anything that helps put the odds slightly in my favour when faced with half blind, distracted, uncaring drivers.
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THIS is the right answer.

And a loud horn as another tool to help defend against a distracted driver.
 
acotrel said:
I have put this stuff about trail here for a reason. It is important and I believe a lot of people have got it wrong. However I suggest when Peter Wiliams specified the steering geometry for the first Commando, his mistake was the lack of steering damper. Most people have never experienced a full-on lock to lock tank slapper, and do not know how to survive one.
That Featherbed Atlas which Ashley has should handle like a Manx Norton, but it would need rear springs soft enough for the rear to squat about an inch when he accelerates in corners, when on a lean. If his motor is as far forward in the frame as possible, the bike's handling should be excellent, as long as it has 19 inch wheels.

In one of the videos on cornering, they say - if you get into a corner too hot, you need more lean. I suggest the opposite is true. I usually get right out and over the inside of the bike, while I am washing off speed, and when I judge I and slow enough to have grip, I accelerate, and the bike steers itself. It is safer to accelerate when you have less lean. More trail gives less lean. It is impossible to accelerate safely when your bike is at an extreme angle of lean.
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Serious question Al
Why do you keep saying that Peter Williams had anything to do with the design of the first commando?
Over and over again you have been told he did not
Why do you keep repeating it?
 
baz said:
Serious question Al
Why do you keep saying that Peter Williams had anything to do with the design of the first commando?
Over and over again you have been told he did not
Why do you keep repeating it?
Click to expand...
For the same reason that he keeps saying that reducing trail makes a bike more stable.... 🤣

I suppose there's a lot of people here who know he's completely wrong about a lot of things he says, but they also think it's futile to argue with him because he's not going to do any research on the validity of his claims. He's just going to talk about when he raced at winton and ask rhetorical questions about the way he rode, and ask why was he was so awesome if the things he is saying now are wrong....

I find it annoying that he persists rather than do a little research and learn, and I also find it annoying that many people here who know the facts and physics which he clearly doesn't know, don't simply tell him that he's wrong. I think if 10 people here just tell him that he's wrong, it might get him to do a little reading and stop some of his lecturing on shit he clearly knows very little about.

I've already been warned by someone I respect greatly that the flow of baloney is unstoppable... For me, It's so hard to be committed to learning about certain things and not challenge false statements regarding them....
 
We all get old and the brain works in different ways and everything we see on YouTube is right, right, Al keeps telling us his Seeley is so good built out of bits and pieces, but we will never know how good it is as he is the only one who USE to ride it.
Anyway it's hard to change some one's ideas when it's stuck in their head even if they been proven wrong time and time over, being set in his own ways he will always be right no matter what he gets told or proven other wise.
For someone who has had very long breaks from racing and over 10+ years since he has been on his bike, maybe why he has troubles finding a race track to let him ride, maybe it's for his own safety they don't let him.
In a way I feel for Al and he seems to have a love of his bike as we all do, but I think he has left it a bit long now to race again from pressure from others and lost of old racing mates, I just feel sorry for his bike just sitting in the shed and if anything happens to Al it be just another pile of junk to others in his family and I have seen that happen before.
Maybe find someone to take your bike on Al before it's too late.

Ashley
 
baz said:
Serious question Al
Why do you keep saying that Peter Williams had anything to do with the design of the first commando?
Over and over again you have been told he did not
Why do you keep repeating it?
Click to expand...
So no answer then?
 
o0norton0o said:
For the same reason that he keeps saying that reducing trail makes a bike more stable.... 🤣

I suppose there's a lot of people here who know he's completely wrong about a lot of things he says, but they also think it's futile to argue with him because he's not going to do any research on the validity of his claims. He's just going to talk about when he raced at winton and ask rhetorical questions about the way he rode, and ask why was he was so awesome if the things he is saying now are wrong....

I find it annoying that he persists rather than do a little research and learn, and I also find it annoying that many people here who know the facts and physics which he clearly doesn't know, don't simply tell him that he's wrong. I think if 10 people here just tell him that he's wrong, it might get him to do a little reading and stop some of his lecturing on shit he clearly knows very little about.

I've already been warned by someone I respect greatly that the flow of baloney is unstoppable... For me, It's so hard to be committed to learning about certain things and not challenge false statements regarding them....
Click to expand...
Ok, here’s the deal…

Al is a good guy with good intent.

But there are some topics he struggles with. And he ignores/ forgets when corrected.

If you search back, you’ll see that folk have taken turns in trying to challenge him, they get bored, someone else takes over, ad infinitum.

Currently, it’s your turn.

You’re doing good.

Carry on.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Ok, here’s the deal…

Al is a good guy with good intent.

But there are some topics he struggles with. And he ignores/ forgets when corrected.

If you search back, you’ll see that folk have taken turns in trying to challenge him, they get bored, someone else takes over, ad infinitum.

Currently, it’s your turn.

You’re doing good.

Carry on.
Click to expand...

I don't want to carry on. With 10 people telling anyone that they are wrong, any normal person would do a little reading to check their own statements. Then they would learn about the topic they claim is "so important" instead of insisting everyone else is wrong and they are right.

At this point, it's pretty well documented that his information is wrong for anyone who searches for the effects of trail length in the forum, so I've done my job correcting the bad information. I've given up on trying to get him to learn the science, so to continue to correct him is just elder abuse. 😞
 
o0norton0o said:
I think if 10 people here just tell him that he's wrong, it might get him to do a little reading and stop some of his lecturing on shit he clearly knows very little about.
Click to expand...
Sorry, this has being going on for too long and way over 10 people have already told him he is wrong and yet he persists. Time to move on to something that can be fixed or you will go mad yourself.

I would leave him one post he can add to as often and as little as he but only that one post which can have a warning that facts in the post are wrong and a danger to life.
 
o0norton0o said:
I don't want to carry on. With 10 people telling anyone that they are wrong, any normal person would do a little reading to check their own statements. Then they would learn about the topic they claim is "so important" instead of insisting everyone else is wrong and they are right.

At this point, it's pretty well documented that his information is wrong for anyone who searches for the effects of trail length in the forum, so I've done my job correcting the bad information. I've given up on trying to get him to learn the science, so to continue to correct him is just elder abuse. 😞
Click to expand...
You have done well Luke, and your Force was strong.

Time to hand over the light sabre to the next…
 
Have any of you ever changed fork yokes on a motorcycle and altered the trail ? I have been around for a long time, and I usually ride slower bikes faster.
 
acotrel said:
Have any of you ever changed fork yokes on a motorcycle and altered the trail ? I have been around for a long time, and I usually ride slower bikes faster.
Click to expand...
Yes I've changed fork yoke offsets many times and frame rakes
And I have used raked yokes
But I've only been doing this for 44 years so not really long enough to comment here?
 

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