The GREATEST BIKES in the world!

This is it.

This will be THE END of the argument "What is the greatest classic / vintage bike of all time?" (Although we, here, know it's the NORTON COMMANO!)

Too many times have we all seen polls and articles attempting to determine which bikes are "the best". In the final analysis, the judging is flawed in more ways than one, the most significant being that those doing the judging are few and often very select and/or biased in one way or another; also, the field of possible entries is in no way inclusive! This WORLDWIDE contest will put an end to those shortcomings by opening up the entries to ANY AND EVERY motorcycle, and EVERY voter.

www.VirtualBikeShows.Com Will be the center of the universe for motorcycle lovers of EVERY variety - Originals, Restorations, Customs, Race bikes (all types), Choppers, Bobbers, Cafe Racers, On/Off Road bikes, 3-wheelers & Trikes, Military types, Dressers / Baggers, Scooters, "Art" bikes, and even Rat bikes.

There will be a class for EVERYONE from pre-50s to 70s, and even a few limited 80s categories; everything from American to Spanish, Brits, Europeans, Japanese, ALL BRANDS, ALL MODELS, ALL TYPES.

All of the 30+ major classes, a "Before and After" restoration class and "Overall favorite" will be voted on by ALL participants and Virtual Bike Show visitors at large. "Oldest Bike" will be determined by adate of manufacture affidavit. "Ugliest Bike" entries will be selected by the Show committee, and voted on by all participants and visitors.

Submittals will be received for 90 days, starting with the formal worldwide announcement corresponding with Daytona Bike Weeks. Voting will then be open for 30 days, and final vote tallies will be certified within 30 days. Awards will be formally presented on the website, and sent to the winners immediately.

So, start polishing up your beauties, take your best shots, compose your write-ups and get ready to go down in history with THE GREATEST BIKES IN THE WORLD!

AWESOME IDEA!

I need a couple of photos of 50s and pre-50s bikes, preferrably straight side-on shots, fairly close up.

.jpg images preferred, 800x600 max, 300 dpi.

I will be using these photos in the promotion of the "World's Greatest Bikes" contest, so they need to be original photos with full permission from the owner.

A brief paragraph about the bike would be much appreciated, but at least the year, make & model.

grandpaulz@virtualbikeshows.com

THANX!

That means I'd have to buy a Vincent so I can enter.

Coco said:

That means I'd have to buy a Vincent so I can enter.

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Whatever you need to tell yourself. No one is going to argue with that logic. One didn't hit it's reserve of $275,000 at the last auction. Bidding stopped at $240k. :shock:


http://triumphmotorcycles.typepad.com/m ... ction.html

I wouldn't have gone any higher than $265K for that example...

grandpaul said:

I wouldn't have gone any higher than $265K for that example...

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Or at least ask them to wash it first.

I have a 1949 HRD - definitely not one of the greatest bikes in the world. I restored it, hopped up the engine and transmission to make it go as fast as the makers and all the magazines allways promised only to find out that the crank and cases are far too weak once you find enough power to go 125 + mph..... An ordinary Vincent will rarely top 110 mph and if it does it will break down sooner than later. Don´t ask how I know this...
The roadholding capability of the "frame" is more or less a joke as are the "brakes". The gearchange mechanism is erratic at its best .....
After constantly repairing/improving my Egli HRD after almost every high speed session for four years I gave up and put the bike in the shed and never looked back. I am restoring / repairing many Vincent engines for my customers but they all keep the revs below 4000 as they use the thing only for touring. I can´t stay with them on the road as I would never get into top gear on any of my bikes. :mrgreen: I am just waiting for prices to go even more crazy until I put the bloody thing up for sale - or preferably exchange for a couple Nortons.


Cheers

Hartmut

Hey, I've got a couple of Nortons I'll trade you for it - a '75 Mark III Interstate in great original shape, and a '72 Combat with some Dunstall & Norvil stuff on it.

You beat me to the punch Paul, even at today's prices that's a deal.

It's nice to hear an honest report on one though. I think if you invested $275,000.00 on one you wouldn't be telling people how crappy it ran. Yet, fast rewind 60 years and it was the contender amongst the competition of the day.

To put it politely: the Vincent construction is not very good. The combustion chamber is 86mm but the bore is only 84 :roll: The inletvalve is shrouded by the cylinderliner and does not breath properly. By reworking the liner in that area you gain 3 hp per pot. The exhaust valve is 4mm too big - if you put a smaller one in you gain another 2 hp. The cams cannot stand high revs as they are almost smaller than Norton twin cams but have to stand much higher loads due to the heavy valve train and are not lubricated very well. As everything is machined so unprecise inside the timing cover you get a lot of oversize and undersize pinions to correct the backlash between the gears. The mainshafts of the crank are only 1" dia, the bigend is too small as well. To stop the mainshaft from turning in the flywheel a 3mm pin is pressed in :roll: - doesn´t work. The whole crank is flexing so much under load that the inner crank bearings are worked lose in their housings once you rev the thing over 5000....
All the engines that I have rebuilt over the years have different dimensions - the biggest difference (so far) is 2,5mm distance between crank and clutch - the "short" engine had a very sloppy primary chain which needed a lot of tightening of the chain tensioner whereas the "long" engine almost did not need the tensioner at all - both engines were rebuilt with the same new chain of course. This is the main reason why all engine housings and covers are stamped individually as you seldom could use a cover from one engine on another - they don´t fit properly :shock:
This seems to be an ongoing issue - I broke the "unbreakable" Vincent gearbox and destroyed 3rd gear - these were still the original pinions. After getting the replacement I found that it was even more sloppy on the original mainshaft than the old pinion..... seems the dimensions are still not right.
The VOC built a Black Shadow replica from completely new remanufactured parts - all made to new drawings that some experts have spent years on. The bike went on the dyno and had 43,5 hp on the back wheel. The Black Shadow is supposed to have 55 at the crank so I wonder how it lost so much hp when everything is CNC machined high precision stuff. But maybe the rear brakes were dragging a bit :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

WEAL Norton said:

I have a 1949 HRD - definitely not one of the greatest bikes in the world. I restored it, hopped up the engine and transmission to make it go as fast as the makers and all the magazines allways promised only to find out that the crank and cases are far too weak once you find enough power to go 125 + mph..... An ordinary Vincent will rarely top 110 mph and if it does it will break down sooner than later. Don´t ask how I know this...
The roadholding capability of the "frame" is more or less a joke as are the "brakes". The gearchange mechanism is erratic at its best .....
After constantly repairing/improving my Egli HRD after almost every high speed session for four years I gave up and put the bike in the shed and never looked back. I am restoring / repairing many Vincent engines for my customers but they all keep the revs below 4000 as they use the thing only for touring. I can´t stay with them on the road as I would never get into top gear on any of my bikes. :mrgreen: I am just waiting for prices to go even more crazy until I put the bloody thing up for sale - or preferably exchange for a couple Nortons.


Cheers

Hartmut

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Well that just totally ruined my Vincent buzz. It is just like finding out the most beautiful girl in the class is a transvestite. Vincents have this mystique about them but after that story I don't know what to think. The engines are still beautiful but maybe I'll have to move on to Brough Superior now for my new crush.

Coco said:

Well that just totally ruined my Vincent buzz. It is just like finding out the most beautiful girl in the class is a transvestite. Vincents have this mystique about them but after that story I don't know what to think. The engines are still beautiful but maybe I'll have to move on to Brough Superior now for my new crush.

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Oh, great. Now someone is going to pipe in with a story of looking up the skirt of a Brough and well, there goes that fantasy too.

Well I've ridden a very nice 1200cc Vincent Rapide with lots of improvements and I thought it was good, but considering the significant engineering mods and upgrades and $$$$ that went into it, I have to say it was not representative of an original Vincent twin. Getting back onto my stock 850 Commando I thought this is the better bike irrespective of the $80,000 saving!

Now really putting my neck on the block ....the bike I have the greatest RESPECT for may not be the greatest bike, and that is the original Honda 50 Step Thru. Why? Spent lots of time in Asia and seen farmers carry half a village on the things, ancient unmaintained, neglected but somehow they still fire up and chug along on wrecked roads, mud, traffic jams, heat, humidity, tropical rainstorms and they just keep going!

Mick

I've seen a farmer, his wife, thier kid, and a trailer with a stove on one of those Hondas. They drove it to town an set up a stall everyday to sell cooked food.
All that aside I do quite like all those old handmade English bikes. I've seen truly odd fits of parts though.
My real favorites are almost any old Norton single, Vellocettes, and Goldstars.
I can't get behind an Ariel square four as an engine designed to cook both rear cylinders seems odd.
One of the most enduring designs has to be the prewar BMW R series. From the mid thirties to still in production today.
The Royal Enfield single soldiers on too in modified form.
The Brough Superior would have a vote of mine too evn though I've only seen them in shows.

Come to think of it the only 2 Vincent owners I've met were machinists.

Don't you think you should learn how to put up a proper web page before trying to start some kind of contest? I'm not even talking about design just basic html. Everything is jumbled on Safari.

How many votes from biased people do you realistically think you're going to get with that website?

Look at this website and how tastefully and professionally it is designed. Maybe you might want to ask Jerry or another pro for some help before you attempt these bombastic contests?

Cookie, My dear chap and fellow horizontally opposed enthusiast - this sound vaguely rude, however I digress - I hate to be pedantic (actually I relish the opportunity!) but the wonderful Horizontally opposed BMW engine was first produced in 1920 (M2B15) and powered a number of marques including the Helios - in fore and aft configuration. The first complete BMW machine was the R32 made from 1923 to 1926 and it was this model that set the convention of placing the cylinders across the frame that the R-series has used ever since. I am lucky enough to possess a 1929 R57 overhead valve 500, so of necessity I've had to do my homework. For the benefit of those who have not come across the Chang Jiang motorcycle that Cookie owns a couple of, these are Chinese copies of Russian copies of the BMW 750cc R71 made from 1938 to 1941, so you see it's not only fake Rolex watches and Gucchi handbags that we knock off here in China but also fake BMWs! Now if I can only find a factory to remanufacture the Vincents it seems that the sloppy machining we can achieve here may persuade some people that they are genuine.

sns said:

Don't you think you should learn how to put up a proper web page before trying to start some kind of contest? I'm not even talking about design just basic html. Everything is jumbled on Safari.

How many votes from biased people do you realistically think you're going to get with that website?

Look at this website and how tastefully and professionally it is designed. Maybe you might want to ask Jerry or another pro for some help before you attempt these bombastic contests?

Click to expand...

Of course you could volunteer to clean up the code instead of rag on it. :roll:

swooshdave said:

sns said:

Don't you think you should learn how to put up a proper web page before trying to start some kind of contest? I'm not even talking about design just basic html. Everything is jumbled on Safari.

How many votes from biased people do you realistically think you're going to get with that website?

Look at this website and how tastefully and professionally it is designed. Maybe you might want to ask Jerry or another pro for some help before you attempt these bombastic contests?

Click to expand...

Of course you could volunteer to clean up the code instead of rag on it. :roll:

Click to expand...

I don't do code. But if I did, I'd make damn sure it was decent or hire someone or ask for help before I made anything public. And that's nothing to :roll: about. Unless of course you want to volunteer.