The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

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Baggy Trousers
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#1246 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Baggy Trousers »

Dave the bass wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 9:11 am Out on the Redditch Bullet yesterday, heading up 'Death Hill' near Brands Hatch a Captain Beefheart moment arrived :) ....

"Frank, its the Blimp Frank....its the Blimp..!"

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Blimey! I never imagined I would read of Death Hill on Audio-Talk.

I retired from biking in 1963, so was never a Rocker, but I was a Ton-up Boy and often took my camshaft Norton after an afternoon at Johnson's down the very appropriately-named Death Hill at stupid speeds to the Framlingham roundabout and then on to the Mad Mile at even more ridiculous speeds to the Dutch House. The weekend manic rides-by at Jo's were quite something. Thanks, Dave, for prompting a few memories of a world and wonderful times sadly long gone. :cry:

And it's nice to see a "proper" bike - makes a change from the crashed spaceships that are the current norm. Perhaps it was patented, but I never understood why other manufacturers did not copy the Oilfield's neutral pedal; it was an excellent system.
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Dave the bass
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#1247 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Dave the bass »

^^^ 😊

My Mum and Dad were Johnson cafe regulars at the same time you were there Baggy. Their bike days stopped in 1965 when I was being brewed.

Its 'Farningham' roundabout at the bottom of Death Hill, the Dutch house is still there too but its a Foody Pub now.

Yeah the neutral finder is great, I've had my other (Indian) Bullet for 24 years now and that's fitted with a Neutral finder too, so handy when I was commuting up to London on it. The gearbox is an Albion design, according to history books it was a development of a hand change 'box. It's a very slow-shifting unit but you get used to it.

I've got a Continental GT250 to start playing with soon, it's in 'kit-form' ... bundled in the many boxes of bits are 4 and 5 speed clusters, all Albion internals again but housed in-unit.

Ta for the reminiscences :)
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Paul Barker
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#1248 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Paul Barker »

thomas wrote: Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:40 am Well here's my first bike, my 'crowd' of schoolfriends had the usual suspects, a veritable selection of FIS1E, AP50, SS50 , but I ended up with one of these donkeys.....
IIRC it wasn't equiped with a brake light, I couldn't read the speedo in the dark and the pedal mechanism fouled up pretty quickly so I just used to bump start it every time I wanted to get it going.
....we all had great fun, I learned how to fall off (frequently!) and the bike got trashed.....I wonder where it is now?!
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#1249 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by ed »

you boys!

I'm intrigued. The legend says you put a song on the jukebox in Johnsons cafe and ride to the Farningham roundabout and get back before the song has finished...

I've just rough measured the distance on google maps and make it 4.2 miles, that's 8.4 miles round trip. If the average song was 3 minutes or thereabouts it's not surprising that some riders dodn't come back.
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#1250 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Cressy Snr »

ed wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 2:31 pm you boys!

....If the average song was 3 minutes or thereabouts it's not surprising that some riders dodn't come back.
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#1251 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Mike H »

ed wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 2:31 pm you boys!

I'm intrigued. The legend says you put a song on the jukebox in Johnsons cafe and ride to the Farningham roundabout and get back before the song has finished...

I've just rough measured the distance on google maps and make it 4.2 miles, that's 8.4 miles round trip. If the average song was 3 minutes or thereabouts it's not surprising that some riders dodn't come back.
That would make it 168 mph (average!) — impossible! :shock:
 
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#1252 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by IslandPink »

'The moon in June' would be safer.
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#1253 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Baggy Trousers »

ed wrote: Thu May 19, 2022 2:31 pm I'm intrigued. The legend says you put a song on the jukebox in Johnsons cafe and ride to the Farningham roundabout and get back before the song has finished...
This old chestnut keeps cropping up, but regardless of the number of times it's repeated, it still remains an urban legend. The notion of "record racing" originated in a BBC script for an episode of Dixon of Dock Green and as far as I know, it never progressed beyond that. Being old, I can claim to have "been there" and I have absolutely no recollection of anyone ever attempting this feat; not at Johnson's nor, indeed, at any of the myriad other Rockers' haunts of the period - 1959/1963 in my case. Nevertheless, there were many fast bikes and fast riders about before Barbara Castle emasculated us with her bloody speed limits. One of the fastest at Johnson's was the Triumph-based Voodoo which would shatter eardrums as it approached the speed of sound past the caff on a Sunday afternoon.

And of course it's Farningham . Where did I get Framlingham? It's miles away.
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#1254 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by ed »

Baggy Trousers wrote: Fri May 20, 2022 10:56 pm Nevertheless, there were many fast bikes and fast riders about before Barbara Castle emasculated us with her bloody speed limits.
I can't help wondering what the uk roads would be like now if she hadn't emasculated them/you/us.

If memory serves she also introduced the breathalyser. I do recall buying a copy of Private Eye which had a floppy 45 inside with a song about the breathalyser, sung to the tune of good king Wenceslas. I had kudos at school for a while.
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#1255 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by shane »

IIRC it was introduced as a temporary measure due to the oil crises at the time, and 70mph was chased as it was around about the top speed of a Ford Anglia, so only the wealthy with their flash cars would be affected. It had nothing to do with safety at the time.
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#1256 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by pre65 »

shane wrote: Sat May 21, 2022 10:43 am IIRC it was introduced as a temporary measure due to the oil crises at the time, and 70mph was chased as it was around about the top speed of a Ford Anglia, so only the wealthy with their flash cars would be affected. It had nothing to do with safety at the time.
The road test top speed of an 850cc Mini in 1960 was (from memory) 72 mph.

Also (from memory) road testing cars like the Jaguar E type and AC Cobra on the then new M1 gave the anti speed brigade muchos ammunition.

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#1257 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by pre65 »

Speaking of AC Cobra, I have a compilation of 20 Autocar road tests dated spring 1966 (priced at 9/6d) and the 4.7 litre (289 cu in) Cobra was,

Mean max speed 138mph

0-60 mph 5.5 seconds

overall fuel consumption 15.1 mpg

Not bad for the time. :)
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#1258 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Max N »

Maybe a bit of a random question, but…..
If you were going to set off on a long motorbike trip, what bike would you choose?
Back when I was an active biker, it would probably have been a BMW air-cooled flat twin.
Would that still be a good option?
Or maybe something else?
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#1259 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by pre65 »

Max N wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 12:46 am Maybe a bit of a random question, but…..
If you were going to set off on a long motorbike trip, what bike would you choose?
Back when I was an active biker, it would probably have been a BMW air-cooled flat twin.
Would that still be a good option?
Or maybe something else?
The later boxer twin BMWs are oil and air cooled.

I've got the R1200r, which is a basic "normal" bike, but the current generation of so called rally tourers seem to be a good choice for long distances.

Most manufacturers sell such bikes these days, so there is a good lot to choose from. The big KTM twins have got a good reputation, our Steve might chip in with his experiences.

The only really long ride I've ever done was to the Black Forest in Germany on a Triumph 900 sprint triple, and that was probably 20 years ago, so I'm as out of touch as you really. :(

Are you still in F1 Max ?



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#1260 Re: The Audio-Talk Motorcycling thread.

Post by Max N »

Thanks Phil.
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