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Transcript

00:00:00Hey, welcome to the Cycle World Podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer, the Editor-in-Chief. I'm with

00:00:04Kevin Cameron, our Technical Editor. Today we're going to talk about beauty, aesthetics.

00:00:11What is beauty? Beautiful motorcycles. So we're going to have a list and it might be

00:00:15somewhat partial. It could be influenced by our life experience or other environmental

00:00:20factors.

00:00:21Oh, could it?

00:00:24What have we seen? Why, if you haven't seen it, you can't know it's beautiful.

00:00:29Well, an example of how a small change can make something that was before unappealing

00:00:38into a fascination. I saw this at Ducati's exhibit at one of the European shows, probably

00:00:44Milan. Extremely bright light on one of those motorcycles that bears the name of a famous

00:00:53long-ago rider. And the intense light made every detail apparent. It wasn't just, yeah,

00:01:04that colorful thing there with a lot of parts and stuff. It brought my eye to every point.

00:01:13So maybe something's more beautiful in daylight. The other day I was at the taxman and everyone

00:01:20in the room was smiling. And I said, why is everyone smiling? And one of them looked at

00:01:24me and said, because it's a good day.

00:01:28Hey, all right.

00:01:30So there's a big subjectivity here.

00:01:34Yes. In the tax department. It's a good day.

00:01:38Yeah.

00:01:40Must not be done with their taxes yet.

00:01:43Yep.

00:01:50Well, are you going to offer us a motorcycle or shall I?

00:01:54Well, I think you should do because you're the one with the list.

00:01:58I do have a list.

00:01:59I just wrote maundering sentences about beauty, which is a mystery to me.

00:02:08Yeah. It is a mystery. That's what it's, you know, beauty is an ideal. That's what,

00:02:12uh, well, that's what one of my philosophy professors said. It's a, it's beauty is an ideal.

00:02:19Okay. Sounds good.

00:02:23Well, you know, you know, when you see it, isn't that what the judge said?

00:02:29Um, I do have a list and it kind of coincides with the first bike that you put, which you

00:02:34said

00:02:351960s, uh, triumph six fifties. Yeah. Um, I, I would go back to the, um, the core document, the, um,

00:02:44the original, and I would say the 1940, uh, ish 39, 40 triumph speed twin.

00:02:51Sure. Um, uh, massively elegant. It certainly extended its beauty into the 650 as the bikes

00:02:59evolved, but it is a fabulous, uh, looking machine. It has that live, uh, airiness that

00:03:06you're talking about that they, they did expand on it by in the sixties through, through the pre-unit

00:03:11and then to the unit, unit twins. Um, there was a little more air around it. It was not as

00:03:18hunkered

00:03:19down because it had suspension and it was a little taller, um, the rear suspension, but, uh,

00:03:27well, those, when, when young people today look at those motorcycles, they say, oh, that's really

00:03:35different. What is you can see right through it because the carburetors are just sticking

00:03:43out there with their carburetor. That's a carburetor. And there's a, there may be an air filter box.

00:03:51Um, you can see it, but the carburetor is there connecting to the air filter box and it's all

00:03:59light and airy spoked wheels. That is wire spokes, wire wheels, and, um, the traditional drum

00:04:08brake of the pass, which sort of was a transition that sort of hinged on 1970. But, uh, that look

00:04:21was the updated British single because they always had these, except for the slopers that

00:04:28they made in the twenties and thirties, but they had this standing up straight cylinder,

00:04:34uh, straightforward as can be. And as time passed, the engine moved toward the front wheel

00:04:45and, uh, what works in racing soon becomes a style and production as we've seen this time. And again,

00:04:54many of the bikes on Mark's list are hinge of fate bikes. They were big changes that occurred

00:05:02that, uh, changed everything like the 86 Suzuki GSX-R. Um, in the past, there had been bikes that weighed

00:05:14as much as a bagger is required to in the baggers championship over 600 pounds. And they were calling

00:05:22them sport bikes. Now, why do people croak and complain about baggers? That's not a race bike.

00:05:33And yet except a, uh, CBX, which is just weighs a ton. And it's little 125 size fork tubes on

00:05:43it. Well,

00:05:43that's me sneering in retrospect, isn't it? Time to shut that guy up.

00:05:49Well, you're a two stroke guy, you know, like big fat inline six, four stroke street bikes. I mean,

00:05:55what, what the heck, you know, it's time to cut wood. We got TZ 750s, no power valves, just all

00:06:02power,

00:06:02no valves. All power, no valves. That's good. I like it. Well, on the twins, what you say is true

00:06:10about being able to see through the bike. It's a famous Jay Leno quote, never trust a motorcycle.

00:06:14You can't see through. He's, he's good for the right whip that Jay Leno. Uh, and he's a great collector

00:06:19of,

00:06:19of beautiful things. Um, take, yeah. Taking that speed twin to the 1960s triumphs. I mean,

00:06:26a Bonneville, the tigers, they just, they, they, the shape of the tank, they rode handy. They rode

00:06:36lively. They, they look wonderful. They're narrow waisted. They're easy to engage with. They make

00:06:43that sound. They vibrate a certain way. It, it does communicate to people who have experienced it.

00:06:48And it certainly is an elegant form, which they've extended to the new bike. So as soon as you were

00:06:53saying, like I could see through, we can see through these bikes, the speed twin, the new speed twin

00:06:581200, for example, I took a picture of it out here in the parking lot and it is got a

00:07:05hole in it and it's

00:07:07got a, it's got fuel injection, but it has very, uh, mono, Emil monoblock carburetor looking fixtures

00:07:15and it's right there and you can see through it. And I'm, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have that

00:07:20image up already. Well, this is why I think the sunlight was coming through. That's why I walked

00:07:26out and it was late in the day and there's this flash of sun coming through the middle of the

00:07:31bike,

00:07:32the heart of the motorcycle, right behind the engine, pow. And it, it, uh, they've done a

00:07:38beautiful job with those forms that are, that are so evocative that it, you know, it, there's this,

00:07:47you know, when the first Bonneville came out in 2001, when they first went retro at triumph,

00:07:53they were trying to be a modern motorcycle manufacturer. They were going to compete

00:07:57it with 600 CC four cylinders. They were going to make 1200 CC land ripping Hayabusa. Like,

00:08:05you know, they were just going for it on in all categories. That was their plan.

00:08:10Yeah. And then they decided they could finally go retro. And in 2001, I went and rode the Bonneville.

00:08:17And what struck me at that time was there was an uneasy truce between that Bonneville and what

00:08:24had come before it was there. It looked very,

00:08:31it was very close, but they put the kick in the pipes. Yeah. They put the kick in the pipes.

00:08:37It, it was a very good example, but it actually rode less like a triumph than you wanted it to.

00:08:43It was too modern in a sense that Kawasaki W650 actually rode more like a vintage triumph and it

00:08:50sounded more like a vintage triumph with the way the pipes were. And it was a very interesting time

00:08:55around that. Now with this, with the speed twin, we've seen the newer version of that Bonneville

00:09:01form for so long. They've updated it and kept the essence of the bike, but in a new form with

00:09:1317s and like neat tires. It's a, it's a,

00:09:20and it's working for them. I mean, it's really, it's really working for them, but it isn't,

00:09:24it isn't. That's what can happen is you listen to your market. Yeah. The market is saying,

00:09:29why does it say triumph on there? If it, if it looks like a Kawasaki, come on fellas. And they

00:09:35did,

00:09:35they came on. Yeah. So that was that person. Yeah. The persistent form though, it, it, um,

00:09:43you know, when I think of Harley's knucklehead and I think of the, the residency in the motorcyclists

00:09:52spirit, that form has been there for so long, it feels like its own truth. You know, it's just

00:10:01there and you just, and you can expect it and it will be there. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's why

00:10:06I put the 09 Harley Davidson road King on there because it was the new chassis that they're still

00:10:11using. That's a great chassis. That's the foundation of the bagger race bike. So new chassis, much better

00:10:20handling than the previous versions. And the road King was such an essential form that they nailed at

00:10:29that time, especially it was a better motorcycle, but the proportion, the resolution of it going out

00:10:36back to the bags, they really, they really hit it. And particularly that era, that 09 era,

00:10:43the colors and finishes they were doing were just impeccably classic and wonderful. The depth of the

00:10:53burgundy paint on Peter Egan's 09, it might've been a 10. I know it was an 09 cause it had

00:11:01the

00:11:01straight cut fifth gear that they changed later. It was too noisy for customers. So they changed to a

00:11:06helical fifth the next year in 2010. Um, but it was just exquisite. And you know, we've, we've

00:11:14transitioned in style to blacked out things like Harley's stuff is blacked out. So even when you do the

00:11:20road King, which was a very traditional, like what you would call the jukebox look, right. A lot of

00:11:25chrome and some reds, like it's, it's seriously a column of style for Harley. It's like, do the jukebox

00:11:32bike, whether that's a heritage, there is that segment of customers still would, would like to have

00:11:37that, but we went blacked out and it's still a really nice form, but there's something to be said for

00:11:43the

00:11:44deep, the deepness of those finishes, the deepness of the chrome and the deepness of that burgundy

00:11:48that you just, you get lost in a reverie. I don't know what else to say.

00:11:54I went to, I went to Bonneville with, uh, Indian. They wanted to set a record and

00:12:01some executives rode into our little encampment where people were cooking dinner, a popular, uh,

00:12:08prospect at the time. And one of the bikes, uh, that those fellows rode had this,

00:12:19creamy green color. That was my uncle's 1948 Buick. Now there is a language without words,

00:12:32which can be very powerful because I remember going to the swimming hole with my uncle who had

00:12:39driven up from New York the night before and had no sleep. And we're jumping on his bed,

00:12:44take us to the swimming hole in that 48 Buick with that color. So if you know that those colors

00:12:54can be

00:12:54there in the minds of people, uh, of a certain age, you can sell them something. Yes. Strong feelings

00:13:07associated with that color because it lit up right away on my instrument panel. And, um, I'm not

00:13:17sure. I like, I like that. I don't want parts of my brain belonging to controllers outside of my

00:13:25knowledge, but there it is. I noticed that a lot of the bikes on your list here are really, um,

00:13:33moments of big change. The Max Norton, for example, the change to the twin loop frame and all hydraulic

00:13:40suspension with weight forward. Uh, the 1940 speed twin was, they designed Edward Turner designed the

00:13:50engine to fit in the existing single cylinder frame. So what they were changing was a new engine sound,

00:13:59a new degree of performance and a new reason to buy. So that was a big, a big one. 1920

00:14:08ish, um,

00:14:10Indian scout. In the beginning, the big Indians and the big Harleys were for athletic young men.

00:14:21No bones about it. They were for athletic young men. And people asked the reasonable question,

00:14:26what if we made a more available motorcycle, one that more kinds of people could ride. That is what

00:14:33Scout was designed to be. It was done intentionally because somebody was thinking. So here it is on

00:14:41your list. Yeah, it was a, well, it was such an elegant form. A hundred pounds lighter than the

00:14:49competition. Just marvelous. And then the Vincent twins, no frame, no steel tubing, thinking again,

00:15:04thinking new, uh, Parilla Grand Sport. Well, Giuseppe Salmaggi went from company to company designing

00:15:14things. When they didn't have someone on staff to do it. Salmaggi at your service sign here.

00:15:24And, uh, the Grand Sport had a high camshaft and you can see it way up there with little,

00:15:31little push rod, little stubby guys going out to the valves, one cylinder. It was a miniature manx.

00:15:38Oh, I was deadly, deadly, deadly obsessed with buying a Grand Sport for a long time. I was shopping.

00:15:46I found the Grand Sport guy. I was talking to him. He had Grand Sports in his collection. He's like,

00:15:52well, you could buy one of these. And, but they were not cheap. And they're also, you know, it's a,

00:15:58it's a 1950s, two 50. And I was like, well, I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm kind of a gorgeous

00:16:03hunk of man.

00:16:04Um, am I going to, is that going to be, is that going to be the, the riding experience I'm

00:16:10looking

00:16:10at? Cause the, the elegance of the engine. And I think for me, what's, um, I think the scout,

00:16:17the manx, the, and the Vincent have in common with the Parilla that the shape of the engine suggests

00:16:26and forms what's contained within it. And so when you look at the forms of the engine,

00:16:32you're understanding this here is where the timing gears are, even the, the 40 triumph or the 60s

00:16:38triumph, that, that elegant, uh, triangle with lots of screws holding it. Yeah. And it just, uh,

00:16:46that's such, such the British thing is like, how many, how many screws can we put in to join two,

00:16:52two machine services that are obviously not perfect.

00:16:59Um, but yeah, the Parilla with the high cam, I liked it because it was, it's, it has,

00:17:06it is a push rod, but they were moving towards saying we should get rid of these push rods

00:17:12eventually. Shouldn't we? As other people already had, they were just moving the cam.

00:17:17And of course, Vincent did, Vincent did the same thing on their Comet single. They raised the cam up.

00:17:25So the push rods became shorter. So it was a step toward overhead cam, which typically uses half the

00:17:35valve spring pressure of a push rod and rocker engine, because there's got to be some spring there

00:17:40to heave the push rod back, uh, and forth and the, to rock the rockers. So that's a point.

00:17:50Commando, um, 74, a commando roadster you've listed here was England's, the parallel twins last stand.

00:18:04Everything they had done to those engines had made them vibrate worse. They made the bores bigger.

00:18:11The pistons were heavier. Um, they didn't necessarily adhere to the six 6,500 RPM of the original back in

00:18:201936.

00:18:21So some pretty formidable vibration. And those who remember those twins remember. And of course,

00:18:32for the same reason, the Harley sports are the front wheel whipping back and forth rapidly at idle

00:18:41because the rotation of the engine, the shaking force of the pistons and the counterweights on the

00:18:47crankshaft just sang the same song as the flexibility of the fork tubes. So there's that front wheel doing

00:18:54that thing. And that is, it's a, it's a, an important feature that says, yes, you're among friends.

00:19:05It's alive.

00:19:07Because you know this. Yes, it's doing stuff.

00:19:09It's alive. It's alive. And if you pull the brake, if you pull the brake, it changes because the wheel

00:19:14can't, can't dance with it. And they're changing the vibration. That was the thing is that they were

00:19:18changing the vibration to a horizontal, uh, by adding more counterweight, the more counterweight

00:19:25you add, the less it shakes up and down, the more it shakes back and forth. And it was a

00:19:30little,

00:19:30a little more pleasant. The, the most vibratory motorcycle perhaps I've ever ridden neck and neck with

00:19:38the Royal in the 1999 Royal Enfield 500 bullet that was put together rather roughly at the factory at

00:19:46that time. I was, it vibrated so much. It made me itchy. I wrote a six 50 cafe racer Norton

00:19:54in a

00:19:55feather bed. So a solid mount, um, somebody thought maybe they had used a commando crank by accident

00:20:01because the balance factor of the commando crank is tuned to work with the rubber mounts, which is one of

00:20:06the reasons I picked the commando. I believe the engine is one of those truly beautiful forms

00:20:16leaned forward, the sweep of the pipes, uh, the shape of the timing cover, that three lobed, uh, beauty on

00:20:24the right side. And then the gorgeous glistening polished, uh, primary cover on the left containing a

00:20:32triplex chain, you know, a triple chain that virtually never wears out. If you take care of it. Um, just

00:20:40as

00:20:41elegant as could be. And the other thing about the commando is it is the, it was really the apex

00:20:47for the

00:20:47British twin. It, it, it did, it brought the most, the eight 50, uh, the shape of the tank,

00:20:58the rubber mounting, the, the way that it ran and made torque. You know, we've talked about the

00:21:04combustion chamber of this engine and the shape of the intake ports and the filling. It is a great

00:21:11running engine when they're right. They are just a spectacular fun. It's got, you know, I think mine

00:21:17on the dyno 48 pounds, pound feet of torque at 5,000. Uh, but with the rubber mount, you know,

00:21:26it, it's the same experience you get on a Harley touring bike, uh, with rubber mount or the dinos

00:21:31that were rubber mount before they changed it. There's the motion at idle, but someone throws a

00:21:38switch and now Harley's done a very good job of broadening that smooth area. Like the new touring

00:21:43bikes, you get all of that, you lug it down and you get the chugga chugga chugga and you feel

00:21:48the

00:21:48bike, but it's not, it's the edges are off of it. And then you get up to 2,500 or

00:21:533,000 and the switch

00:21:55goes off and it is glass smooth, but you've got the soundtrack. You know what you're riding. It's a,

00:22:01it's, that's why I picked the commando because it has that, it has an aesthetic beyond just parking it

00:22:08at late light and admiring the horizon line on the gas tank or on the, on the, the shiny aluminum

00:22:17covers. It all, it's beauty extends to the, the level of functionality that it brought to that

00:22:24parallel twin form and that it just runs great. And it steers nice. It's not as sweet as a feather

00:22:32bed,

00:22:33but it is a, it is a good handling motorcycle and it, you can really have a,

00:22:38you can have a good time. XR 750 dirt tracker. This is the closest to two wheels, an engine

00:22:50and a place to sit that you can come. And when I first looked at one, I thought those wheels

00:22:58could not be rolled any closer to the engine without interfering with the suspension motion

00:23:04or something. And, um, of course the engine is like all Harley engines, substantial in weight.

00:23:15Um, but for 1972, it was an outstanding leap forward. They built 200 iron XRs for 1970.

00:23:29And it was a lot of iron. And at Daytona, they kept lowering the compression more and more until they

00:23:37got under six to stop it from detonating because iron keeps heat in. That's why they make stoves out of

00:23:47it. So the logs won't cool off and stop burning. And, uh, they just got one thing wrong.

00:23:56Um, cylinder and head material scratch out where it says cast iron and write aluminum. Of course,

00:24:04it was more complicated than that. And the, uh, limited circulation book on the development of the,

00:24:13uh, XR talks about so many little changes that had to be made along the way,

00:24:22such as the valve train becoming twice as stiff over the life of the vehicle. But where's beauty?

00:24:30I like, well, why are wheels? I like, uh, front sprockets with holes drilled in them.

00:24:39Not because I particularly want it lighter, although I do, but you could make it lighter by

00:24:47making it thinner. Um, except at the, at the sprocket teeth, but there's a kind of

00:24:58important elegance about that. I would like to have sprockets on the wall here. I may yet.

00:25:06Well, I, I, it's the dirt going back to the dirt tracker. Yeah. You said elegance. The,

00:25:13the, the thing that's the most elegant about an XR 750 is it is so essential what you were saying.

00:25:20And it is really, it's hard to be, it's hard to reduce the motorcycle any more than a flat tracker.

00:25:27Yeah. You know, for road racing, we, we have to put some fairings on it because that we're just

00:25:34going to be going that fast. We need all kinds of braking power. It, it changed, it changed things.

00:25:40Yeah. Right. Because you have, you have asphalt and you have grip and, uh, you know, throwing a

00:25:47front brake, hard, hard corner entry to hard trail braking on a mile. I doubt it. Maybe, I mean,

00:25:55we could try it. I don't know, but it's, that's what's so beautiful.

00:25:58That when you lay the thing in there, that the tack goes up because you're getting onto the side

00:26:04of the tire at a lower radius. So the engine has to speed up or you've slowed down and we

00:26:09can't have

00:26:10that. I knew I was getting somewhere on a road race course. The, the first time I started really

00:26:17going fast when I was noting RPM change, RPM going up, going through corners where you weren't

00:26:24braking super hard. I was like, Oh, I see. I understand. And then snap wheelies that you

00:26:31could get where you would be, uh, pulling it up on the tire and you were getting like an extra

00:26:36drive

00:26:37essentially from changing the rear gearing as you were accelerating. It kind of hoists the wheel on

00:26:43the tire. It's a real interesting feeling. There've been riders, road race riders who've talked about,

00:26:47uh, uh, continuing to hold the motorcycle at angle of lean because it doesn't wheelie as easily.

00:26:55The center of mass is, has been lowered.

00:27:01Now that's why I said, talked about, it's not proved, but people are thinking about this.

00:27:07Well, where's, where is beauty in all this? Uh, I have hung a picture of the Suzuki RK67 50 CC

00:27:23twin,

00:27:24uh, 17 horsepower at 17,000 something RPM. And it is basically the bike that sent

00:27:36the four stroke Honda's four stroke home from that class. They pulled their entries. Um,

00:27:45they stopped running in that class because well, Honda was preparing to enter automotive

00:27:52manufacturing. That's a big deal. Um, they had a purpose in going racing, which was to make Honda

00:28:02a household word. They had done that. So they could say, well, um, you know, we could have gone ahead

00:28:10and built our three cylinder or our planned four cylinder 50 and carried on, but that's where we

00:28:18stepped off of that class. Well, this motorcycle, everything is crowded together.

00:28:25The rider is squeezed down onto the tank, which is long and strange looking. They called the bread

00:28:33loaf tanks, but this is at least three loaves end to end. And the engine is a, is quite a

00:28:41massive

00:28:42thing. The gearbox is bigger than the power section, but there are the things that are so familiar.

00:28:49The tack cable coming out of the tack and disappearing down to some little gearbox on the

00:28:54engine, the temperature gauge going to the radiator, uh, the carburetors you could see still early

00:29:04type, but I think I'm pleased to stand and look at this thing because it's so single-minded has two

00:29:18inch

00:29:18wheels, two inch wheels, two inch tires. I should say little tiny skinny things as were the, the men who

00:29:25rode them, uh, 14 speed gearbox, all old tech. After 1967, they discovered that the FIM in limiting

00:29:38gearbox speeds to six had not sentenced them to non-competitive performance. They had required them

00:29:47to discover something new. And so here's this motorcycle, which for most people would be,

00:29:58yeah, what, what's the point of it though? And I have to agree the most people ride a motorcycle

00:30:06because they like that kinesthesia. They like for, they, they like to ride just as people who first

00:30:14learned to ride horses in central Asia must have liked to ride. And that's something that can never

00:30:22be forgotten, but this is a certain kind of very focused design. And there I, I stand there every

00:30:30few mornings and just look at it. Well, it's, it's what you said about it in your notes. Um, total

00:30:36weight,

00:30:36128 pounds, as close to nothing as possible, which is exactly why I like the XR 750 knowing the engine

00:30:46is

00:30:46heavy, but also that, that weight, especially the crank weight, circular flywheel in the middle of the

00:30:52bike. A lot of people really credit the bike's ability to hook up and turn by having its masses where

00:31:00they are

00:31:00functioning in the way they are. So it's a very essential motorcycle. The way that you say this,

00:31:07the Suzuki is, even though it's probably had a fairing, you're looking at it with the body off

00:31:11and marveling at what might be a little bit of hidden beauty behind the fairing.

00:31:19They tried to streamline steam locomotives at the end of their period of usefulness and it didn't work.

00:31:28It just made them look like,

00:31:31all the art books have, have the Gestetner calculator case. The Gestetner calculator was

00:31:37one of those things you go chicka, chicka, chicka with the buttons and pull a handle.

00:31:41And it adds that number to the ones you're adding.

00:31:45They thought they could sell more units if they had it styled by a famous designer. So they took it

00:31:52to

00:31:52one and they made a cover for it. They didn't change the machinery. They just put a cover on it

00:31:58with a

00:31:58different shape. And we're like that. We humans change the shape, change the color. Oh, it's all

00:32:08new. I want one. That's okay.

00:32:12You know, I've done an experiment over the years with the cars and trucks I drive and it's the use

00:32:20of

00:32:20headlights. So on my, on my commute, there are two intersections where people tend to pull out

00:32:26when they shouldn't. They can't perceive your presence in closing speed or they somehow ignore

00:32:34your size. But what I found statistically having lived there for a long time is that if I have my

00:32:39headlights on, they hesitate more because I look bigger. I'm more, I'm more present by,

00:32:47by my burning eyeballs on my truck or my car.

00:32:50And think of all the animals who make their hair stand on end to make them look bigger.

00:32:56I'm certain it's true, Kevin. I'm certain we're wired for it. Yeah. That's why, why when you have

00:33:03a mountain lion in your, you know, nearby, you don't lean down, you don't turn and run away.

00:33:10You put your hands up really high. And if you got rocks, you start smacking them together to make

00:33:14loud noises. You got to be impressive to get the lion to be disinterested in you. Yes.

00:33:21Shall I run a picture of a mountain lion? No, no mountain lion.

00:33:30The Indian, uh, scout was a, a terrible story because they created this thing. It was conceptually

00:33:40correct. And then Indian played horrible financial games. They, they bought stock. They played the

00:33:49market with cash on hand and they, they tried to sell people outboard motors and shock absorbers in

00:33:58their motorcycle stores. Hey, we're diversifying. This is the big trend now back in the thirties.

00:34:05And so then they said, Hey, which there's some frames here left over from our singles program. Let's,

00:34:12uh, let's cram the scout motor into those spindly little frames. So the scout has all

00:34:19these different manifestations, but what is memorable is that it was made to be a motorcycle

00:34:28for a larger population of riders. And that, uh, by making it lighter as well as smaller in

00:34:38displacement, they didn't throw away performance when they did so. So it was fun to ride. And

00:34:46if you look at those things long enough and appreciate their history, they begin to look

00:34:56right. Now the bulbous tank that you will find on both Harley Davidson's and triumphs, the 1940, uh, speed

00:35:09twin. That bulbous tank traces back to, um, Howard Davies and George Brough, both of whom adopted

00:35:21saddle tanks at about the same time. One 1924, I think. And what had happened was flathead engines

00:35:30had sprouted overhead valves. So the engine became taller that put an end to the long low

00:35:37look, which fanciers of it, uh, couldn't bear to see end. Oh, flat tanks are, I mean, I, I had,

00:35:46I had flat tanks is waiting circ, you know, orbiting my list, flat tank Norton's. Yeah. Oh gosh.

00:35:53Yes. Absolutely gorgeous. But also could be made. Those tanks were made on a sheet metal

00:35:59break and soldered together. Silver solder. So, uh, leakage was a possibility, but there's

00:36:11the Vincent. Now I want to invoke a, an empty concept of rightness. Oh, you're begging the

00:36:21question. You bet I am. But the Vincent with no frame, no steel tubing visible anywhere, except

00:36:30in the swing arm, uh, was a step away from the traditional motorcycle. And it was the most

00:36:41powerful and fastest motorcycle of its time. And it has an influence that re resounds to this

00:36:50day. Uh, because, uh, not only because steel tube frames have taken a smaller part in the present

00:37:02day, but because the idea of the frameless construction, the new, uh, super leggera Ducati

00:37:13has a, a carbon frame that is perched on the cylinder, cylinder heads at the rear and, uh, at the

00:37:23top of

00:37:24the crankcase at the front. And it is as close to nothing as you can make, but that material has

00:37:36so much

00:37:37strength that it takes less of it to do the job that's necessary. And I think there's, there's beauty in

00:37:46that

00:37:46too. Sometimes it comes and goes. Aprilia's two 50 GP bike had a

00:37:54essentially curved, curved, curved twin beam aluminum chassis. And I thought that was just a

00:38:03lovely thing. And then they made the, uh, RS 1000 and it just had, um, big old chunks of aluminum

00:38:12out

00:38:12there doing the job, but not looking like Brancusi's bird in space or like, uh, the strange forms taken

00:38:22by icicles as water runs down and drips off the end. I think those organic forms are fascinating

00:38:29because they, they excite your curiosity. What is in there that's making this happen?

00:38:36Well, you pulled the Vincent back out and the twin, because you'd mentioned the, the comet

00:38:42earlier, because the comet is what they built. And then they were like, well, you know, what

00:38:47if we put another one of these cylinders on here and doubled it to a thousand? Um, and I think

00:38:56the

00:38:56comet is a pretty nice looking motorcycle, but having the two cylinders at the angles that they

00:39:03run with the two pipes, with the sweep going into the single, uh, silencer at the rear and the shape

00:39:11of the timing case and that extension of the engine to a twin for me changes the aesthetic massively.

00:39:19In addition to adding the performance you talked about, you know, being the, being the big

00:39:26thousand CC ripper that it was. Cause it's, uh,

00:39:33a lot easier to get 50 horsepower out of a thousand twin than it is a 500 single.

00:39:37Well, you can get there, but it's pretty stressed.

00:39:42It's hard work.

00:39:46During the, uh, during world war two, a generator unit powered by a 500 triumph engine was created.

00:39:56And some of those engines were put into bikes for street use after the war and can be recognized

00:40:04by the fact that on the sides of the fins, there are, there are little bosses that can be drilled

00:40:12and threaded to hold the air shroud around the cylinders that was necessary to cool the generator

00:40:18engine in an airplane. And I saw one of those bikes once at a, at a, uh, an outdoor show

00:40:28at the,

00:40:29at that museum in Boston. I can't think of the name, but, uh, fine pitch finning die cast.

00:40:39Very elegant. Very nice. All the same. Antique is, as all get out because what did it have a hundred

00:40:47millimeter stroke?

00:40:48However,

00:40:50went a long way.

00:40:51However, GSX-R 750 air oil cooled, fine pitch finning, still alive in 1986.

00:40:59Part of the lightness factor was not having, you know,

00:41:06that eight pounds per gallon of water, big aluminum radiator.

00:41:11Yep.

00:41:12Seven pounds per gallon for oil.

00:41:16Well, uh, we haven't spoken about the Ducati 916.

00:41:21We haven't.

00:41:23And one of the things that's of special interest about this motorcycle to me is that, uh,

00:41:35Massimo Tamborini was not a degreed engineer. He was a person who understood things

00:41:44in his own terms rather than in those given to him by the textbook. I don't mean to denigrate the

00:41:50textbook. There aren't too many people that, uh, correct the vibration periods of a crankshaft

00:42:00by feel. Although I believe that, um, Phil Irving described a means of doing so that you would make

00:42:10a hole in the crankcase with a plug that would line up with screwed in weights in holes in the

00:42:18crankshaft

00:42:18and you would unscrew the weights, pull them out through the hole and put in a different set

00:42:24and ride it until you got one you liked.

00:42:29The point here is that there's more than one way to do these things. One way is to hire engineers

00:42:37from

00:42:38the most prestigious schools and have them design motorcycles. What do they know about motorcycles?

00:42:45They know about, uh, uh, crankshaft vibration. They can calculate material loads and so forth.

00:42:56But the 916 shows us that

00:43:02design of a form

00:43:06has to do with the designer's sense of aesthetics,

00:43:13which isn't taught.

00:43:17This looks beautiful. This is ugly. Put it in the trash.

00:43:20Uh, there have been a lot of efforts to do that to, to, um, in, in, in art and the

00:43:27visual arts.

00:43:28There have been periods when some viewpoint was prominent. And of course, there are many people

00:43:36who had to rebel against it. They started their own movement. Soon they were in charge.

00:43:41But the Ducati 916 was designed by someone who

00:43:47created a shape that he liked the look of.

00:43:50And it happens that most of us like it too.

00:43:55And it's a simple shape.

00:43:59Inside we know is this, this big space hogging 90 degree V twin. How are you going to put that

00:44:06between wheels this way, this way? Um, and they struggled with that problem for years until they

00:44:14solved it by making a V4 that who, which had a much shorter stroke, the engine was more compact.

00:44:20And that gave them more options as where they could put it and how it would be oriented.

00:44:28But Tamborini did this, made this design. And I remember talking to a degreed engineer and I said,

00:44:37to what qualities does Ducati attribute the handling of the trellis chassis?

00:44:49Ducati. He said, it was designed by a genius.

00:44:54I like it. Hard to argue. I mean, that's, that's a nothing statement. That's,

00:45:00that's essentialism. It's at its worth.

00:45:03That's your, that's your, that's your old, uh, Crower roller rockers ad. He,

00:45:07Kevin always brings the roller roller is the fifties, you know, roller rockers were,

00:45:12were thing, uh, still are Crower roller rockers.

00:45:16Crower roller rockers roller tappet cams and what roller tappet cams and something

00:45:22give results that are positively unreal.

00:45:28I love it. All right. So I say that so much positive, positively unreal. Cause it's what

00:45:34does it, what does it even mean? Let's go to marketing school.

00:45:38Well, the nine six. Yeah. Sorry.

00:45:40You were saying.

00:45:41I'm just, well, I am saying because the nine 16, um,

00:45:47we're, we're very easily, uh, signaled by shapes and we're, we're, we're just susceptible.

00:45:53That's why we put the cover on the calculator and we go, Ooh, that's nice. You know, like

00:45:57doesn't change anything about it, except it's got a cover, um, motorcycles that became supersonic.

00:46:04And we're kind of in that still in that supersonic phase. I mean, at least we're using

00:46:08arrow and MotoGP and we have wings that are actually interacting with the air in a way that's

00:46:13functional and meaningful. What was nice about the nine 16, there were a lot of things that we

00:46:19could say are sort of dumb. Like why would we put the mufflers both under the saddle and very high

00:46:25and at the rear of the motorcycle? Uh, Eric Buell was right. Stuff it underneath the bike. Uh,

00:46:30let's, let's not move the mass up there. And yet we loved it. We loved the organic shapes. You know,

00:46:37we love the, the contours of that bike. They were simple contours. They weren't folded and corrugated

00:46:44simple contours. Yes. Complex curves, um, compound, compound curves and suggestive of

00:46:56animal nature. It's why an E-type looks good. It, it, you know, a Jaguar E-type, it, it has

00:47:02It's the Hopper Hunter on four wheels. It's yeah. And, uh, you know, I go back, I, for me, one

00:47:09of the

00:47:09essential moments for beauty in my whole career and sort of epiphanies of understanding. I went to

00:47:17a metal shaping class with Ron Covell who had done the America's most beautiful roadster. He did all

00:47:24the work with, um, Arlen, a lot of work with Arlen Ness. Arlen Ness did, uh, the, this 57 Chevy,

00:47:33um,

00:47:34custom that he built that had fins on it. Ron was, Ron was an incredible hand forming metal shaper,

00:47:42uh, hammers and dollies. And I took his class and he would say, he was, I'm, I'm going to build

00:47:48a,

00:47:48show you how to build a, uh, chopper tank. And he gets, he gets, he gets out a piece of

00:47:54welding

00:47:54wiring. He says, I use this welding wire to, to get a form and I, and he holds it up

00:47:59and he starts to

00:48:00roll his thumb on it and he starts to put a curve into it. And he says, I'm going to,

00:48:05I'm going to form this until it's a feet. It's a shape that I find pleasing.

00:48:10And I was like, Oh, infinity. Wow. I mean, you're talking about the infant. That's the

00:48:16infinite. It's something that I find pleasing. And when you get those contours and it's absolutely true

00:48:21that somewhere, somewhere between this straight line and this scribble of wadded wire, you have a,

00:48:31a form that has a taper and a shape that, uh, pleases you. And that's to me, the nine 16

00:48:38is that

00:48:39it had those contours. It had those narrow, uh, narrow headlamps. You know, there's talk about,

00:48:47uh, tambourine using the NR seven 50 as an inspiration because the NR had the pipes up in

00:48:52the tail section and it had the squat, you know, sort of cat eye, uh, a little bit of a

00:48:58cat eye

00:48:58headlamp treatment. And, uh, certainly we, yeah, certainly we find inspiration in many places.

00:49:07I read other stories when I'm sitting around and I'm trying to write a story. I read other stories

00:49:12stories and I look for something that, you know, causes a vibration. It makes, makes a feeling

00:49:20happen. I say, Oh, how, and I try to take that feeling and say like, what, what can I mine

00:49:24out

00:49:25of my experience that, that might be like that? Yeah. Well, um, there's a point that I want to make

00:49:34here. And that is that, uh, around 2002, the European design, um, adopted this supersonic look

00:49:45with scoops, with sharp edges, um, zigzags, matte, um, stealth coatings, uh, all stuff borrowed from

00:49:58aircraft. At one point, uh, Eric Buell decided that he would bring to the general world, the

00:50:10little known, uh, Harley Caltech wind tunnel fairing, which was an important element in their resounding

00:50:18Daytona win in 1968 and 69. People called it the whale. They didn't like it because it reminded

00:50:31them of fat,

00:50:41convex blubbery shapes. Bulbous, bulbous, yes. Absolutely. And whereas they liked the look of

00:50:51that sort of F-104-ish business, nevermind that the F-104 is a 50s design. Um, and we can't

00:51:01criticize this because we know that motorcycles don't go fast enough to benefit from the insights

00:51:13of supersonic flight, but the rounded shape doesn't please people right now. So let's get

00:51:24these things sold, put a cover on it that people like and move it, ship it, as it says in,

00:51:32in the

00:51:34famous book about computer development. Well, it was, uh, it was an interesting time, uh, like Honda

00:51:41Hurricane, 87. That was a simple one. Well, yeah, the form of the fairing was, was very, very simple,

00:51:51but they covered everything. And so the fairing, there wasn't even a gap where you looked at the

00:51:57frame. And that was one of the most interesting things about that bike is all of the design,

00:52:03really the aesthetic was outside. It was the, it was, it was the cover. And then if you took the

00:52:09fairing off, it was like, you know, like as a person who says, oh, Vincent's are beautiful or

00:52:15Norton Manx's are beautiful because of the form of the engine. This was just all like all the stuff it

00:52:21had, you know, metal pipes and steel, you know, brackets. And, and, you know, they just had

00:52:26like looking under a car. Yeah, they were. Yeah. The bottom of a car. Absolutely. Is there anything

00:52:31less aesthetic than a car that's rolled? How wrong does it look? Right. So I had a discussion once with

00:52:43the, the, the, uh, people that were doing the, oh, what was that new V twin that, that Polaris did

00:52:55victory.

00:52:58And they said, do you have any opinions about how engines should look? And I said, as it happens, I

00:53:07do.

00:53:11And so they listened to politely and then they said, well, we don't think you'll be very pleased

00:53:17with what we're making. But my idea was that I like the,

00:53:29the, the shriek wrapped look that the cast cases and case covers should in some degree reveal what is

00:53:44inside them. Just as the human skin reveals that we are built on a bony structure. We have ribs,

00:53:55we have, we have shoulder blades, uh, we have organs. And I want to have an idea that there are

00:54:07mechanical parts here. This is a machine. It is not designed by the Eggman. The Eggman is my absolute

00:54:19unfavorite when it comes to engine design, because he decreed that simple motorcycles like BSA's copy of

00:54:30the DKW two stroke. The Bantam should be built on an egg shaped crankcase and sticking out of this egg

00:54:40would be a thin cylinder. Oh yeah. Yeah. It makes, that makes sense. Yeah. Every time I go to the

00:54:46fridge

00:54:46for an egg, I think about putting a thin cylinder on it and it would have a shift shaft coming

00:54:53out. It

00:55:00been years and I just strongly dislike it because I feel that the engine is a machine and that it

00:55:09is

00:55:10okay to reveal that it contains gears, shafts and linkages. Yep. So here's a story about Victory and

00:55:20Indian. So Gary Gray was around at the beginning of Victory and Gary worked, you know, he, he was part

00:55:27of the team that sort of had to discover how to test fuel tanks for tip over bursting and, you

00:55:34know,

00:55:35instituting a motorcycle program from nothing. Now they were a good manufacturer. They're making

00:55:40thousands and thousands of engines for side by sides and, uh, quads and all that stuff. But they

00:55:47had to go through that. And, uh, when they came out, you know, they bought Indian and they started

00:55:51working on Indian and producing Indians. You know, they, they had an aesthetic to begin

00:55:56with because they were evoking the swoopy fenders of the chief, which was very, very nearly close on

00:56:03this list. I liked the essential elements of the one-on-one a little bit better with the less

00:56:06fender. But, um, Gary said, I, I was interviewing Gary, uh, around the, um, Indian chief time. And I

00:56:15said, well, Gary, uh, you know, what lessons have you learned from Victory that you're applying to

00:56:21Indian? And his first answer was kind of glib. And he said, well, everything, you know, like everything

00:56:26we frame design and chassis and handling and mass, you know, masses and all this stuff.

00:56:34And I was like, well, what about the engine? And he's like, yeah, you know, one thing we learned

00:56:38was that we don't let the engineers style the engine. And the first victories they had, they had

00:56:46a funny weight to them, at least from my, my opinion is they, they were there. They generated

00:56:53a top heavy tension on the, uh, non-primary side where the, the shape of the cylinders

00:57:02didn't, didn't carry a broadening taper to the top. And it, to me, it, it brought a tension that was

00:57:09like unresolved. It's to me, it's the difference between the soft tail that they do. Now they do a

00:57:17soft tail low rider S, which used to be a Dyna, but they switched everything as a soft tail, which

00:57:24from an engineering perspective is a good design. It's stiffer, it performs better. And it made sense

00:57:30from a manufacturing standpoint, because why are we making two cruiser platforms for a market that is

00:57:36not going like gangbusters? It's shrinking a little bit. So it makes a lot of sense, but I don't think

00:57:43that the low rider S soft tail that they make now resolves in the same way that the low rider

00:57:49S Dyna

00:57:50with the twin shocks resolves. And that's where, when I look at something, I get a tension that says

00:57:58it's there's no, I'm not, it's not finishing right for some reason. And that's what the victory motor was.

00:58:03And when you look at, you know, you look at, at Indian evoking the flathead in modern times

00:58:10and fitting it into the bike, it's a, it's a very good size. It has, it has pleasing angles. And

00:58:17I'm all, I've always, I've always been a little bit like, well, you know, it's not actually a flathead.

00:58:21I know you had to do that, but at the same time, it's like, well, it's like a, it's a

00:58:26cover that looks

00:58:26like a flathead. It should, I wanted it to be more like a motor, but I also understand when you

00:58:31We're bringing out a line of flathead wallpaper next.

00:58:35Well, I, you know, honestly, I went to a press, a press launch for the Yamaha, the big V twin

00:58:40Yamaha, uh, the star, and it was a push rod and it was a really tall engine. And it, you

00:58:47know,

00:58:47had a very long stroke. I forget what it is, but I was in that meeting, you know, and they

00:58:50were

00:58:50talking about that motorcycle and he said, oh, well we used, uh, you know, we use push rods,

00:58:57uh, you know, the motor's tall and we, we wanted to make it a little bit shorter.

00:59:01And I said, well, you know, um, I'm curious when the flathead version will be coming out

00:59:05because that would be shorter still. And he was an engineer and he had a good chuck. He was like,

00:59:09I appreciate, I appreciate you, but no, we're not making a flathead. Yeah.

00:59:14I have always wanted someone to make a modern flathead, you know, just to put,

00:59:18just to start from scratch and how, how, how good could you make it?

00:59:22Gordon Blair made, did some research into that at one point, um, mostly about, uh, combustion speed.

00:59:31Now, of course the flathead has a lot of unnecessary surface area in the combustion chamber that is

00:59:38exposed to hot gas. And that's a critical factor. And it, it ends up affecting all sorts of things.

00:59:45Like, can we make the cylinder round when the engine is running? But, um,

00:59:52he, he was able to get quite good light up times short, you know, in the thirties and, uh,

01:00:01was able to ameliorate some of the worst features of flathead design by using modern, um, techniques. But,

01:00:10uh, the only modern flathead that I know of, I think Honda built a flathead that needed to fit under

01:00:17the

01:00:17seat of some four wheeler or needed to fit in a little space. So they said, well, take the valves

01:00:25and put them next to the cylinder. And just like, um, Cosworth made the rod ratio 1.8 when they

01:00:35needed

01:00:36to make the engine a little smaller to get air through the Venturi tunnels on the either side of the

01:00:41crankcase. So, um, compromise, compromise.

01:00:48One of the things about the AJS seminar that has always

01:00:54struck me as beautiful is the cover for the camp chain.

01:01:00Oh, exactly. Exactly. And that, thank you for bringing the AJS out. Cause I'm looking at it on

01:01:07the list. I'm like, we didn't talk about that. We got to go next. And here's Kevin. Oh, it's,

01:01:12it's like a marriage.

01:01:13Yeah. You know, we know which way we're going to step. Um, but yeah, the, yeah, the G, the 7R

01:01:20G50,

01:01:21uh, that case where you, you, if you know anything about the insides of an overhead cam engine with a

01:01:27chain driven cam, you know exactly what you're looking at. And it's a beautiful, elegant cast

01:01:34thing. I, uh, it is really, uh, the, the droop of the seat, the shape of the AJS tank. It's

01:01:42a little

01:01:42bit like the Perilla head has that a little bit of a saddle shape to it of the sides coming

01:01:48down

01:01:50with gorgeous contours. Uh, the Perilla, the same, uh, the G50, the AJS seminar, and then the

01:01:57little, the little fairing. And it just, um, also with the, the drum break, having the, the circular

01:02:03discs with the like fins, basically like a giant fin to, to try and take some of that heat off

01:02:10the

01:02:10drum. I'm sure it's, um, it's really got a thing. It appears to me that it was in 1922

01:02:20that AJS discovered intake offset as a means of speeding up combustion. And there was for all to see

01:02:30because

01:02:33people walked around paddocks and looked at things. It was one of the wonderful things about the English

01:02:40uh, they called them the, uh, one. There were two English motorcycle magazines that came out on a

01:02:49weekly basis and they called them the comics and they employed artists to draw the features of new,

01:03:01of innovations on both production and racing motorcycles. And there is a trove of those things,

01:03:09uh, uh, in England that are not being used for anything. And it's just,

01:03:17I love those drawings, which many of which are in those old magazines,

01:03:23but, uh, anyone could have looked at that and said, look at this, this, this intake port goes in on

01:03:34a

01:03:34tangent. Why would they do that? Um, um, one reason would be to, to make the charge swirl around in

01:03:44the,

01:03:44in the combustion chamber as the piston came up and the action began.

01:03:51But, uh, for a long time, only the English did intake offset. But this is the thing about these

01:03:59motors that are like the Manx. You can say, oh, it has intake downdraft. Let me measure that. Oh,

01:04:06well, it says, uh, 12 degrees. Why are they doing it? Well, maybe they want to minimize the

01:04:16short circuiting of fresh charge to the exhaust valve during valve overlap when they're both open

01:04:23a little bit with the piston nearing top center. It was, there were no secrets and, and yet nobody copied

01:04:33it for a long time. And AJS tried all kinds of creative stuff in the 1920s. They, they tried overhead

01:04:43cam. It didn't give them any more power. So they went back to overhead valve. Then somebody said,

01:04:48you know, I think the weight of the, of the push rod and rocker is floating the valves at high

01:04:56RPM and

01:04:57leaving the valve open longer and making more power. So why, why don't we try harder with the overhead

01:05:06cam? And the power went right up, but they were learning by doing, they were changing stuff all the time.

01:05:15And the late Robert Iannucci pursued for years, a 7R that was in South Africa,

01:05:28which had a gear cam drive. He never found out why it was built or who built it,

01:05:35but he was after that bike for years. And one day he phoned me and he said, I've got it.

01:05:43He was, he was, he was always a 7R fan and a G50 fan. And when I was, uh, I

01:05:49had, I had my Parilla

01:05:50phase, which I never acted on the Parilla, but I wanted desperately to have a Parilla, uh, 250 grand

01:05:55sport. And then I was in a G50 phase where I'm like, I want a G50 street bike. You know,

01:06:01I want to

01:06:01take them like you would with a Manx, you know, turning into something you could ride on the road and,

01:06:06uh, and experience more than just at a racetrack. And, uh, I, I had a hard obsession with that.

01:06:12And, you know, Rob was kind of a guy and he could, he could find one or he's like, well,

01:06:16I know someone who has one for sale and kind of flirted with that. And then I got the opportunity

01:06:21to

01:06:21ride one collector in Texas, Herb Harris, and he let me ride a G50. And, um, what I discovered was

01:06:30I

01:06:30didn't, I didn't actually need it. And it was a, it was a great financial relief because they were

01:06:35not cheap. And I was trying to find ways of doing it. Like, what can I sell? And how could

01:06:40I make this

01:06:40a reality? And I rode that bike and I thought, well, you know, this is not spectacularly different

01:06:46than riding a Bella set on the street, a 500 single Bella set. And I was like, I think I

01:06:53can

01:06:54live without it. I think I can make it because it made all the beat, beat, beat sounds. And I'm

01:06:59actually,

01:06:59I've always been kind of a cooking model guy anyway. You know, I've always been,

01:07:04I don't need, I don't need their super aggressive cam and the, and the rack like riding position.

01:07:11Like I understand the emotion behind, you know, the emotion behind clip-ons and the emotion,

01:07:17you know, being a cafe racer or getting on a Panigale B4R. I understand all of that. And I,

01:07:24but also I just like to ride around. I'm very cooking model. I'm

01:07:29very, I own an MSS. I don't own a Thruxton. Yeah. You know, I just, I'm sort of like

01:07:36thinking about that guy riding to his job in Birmingham, you know, to build something in a

01:07:41factory, going to the docks, you know, riding to the docks.

01:07:45In his barber jacket.

01:07:47Yep. I've just always kind of been, been that guy.

01:07:50Yeah. Well, so I think what we've, what we've played with a little bit here is that the idea

01:07:58that motorcycles that command our visual interests are often departures from convention.

01:08:08They're innovative. But at the same time, the Ducati 250s that I saw when I was a,

01:08:21downtrodden college student, which had those sensuous gas tanks. It's just a gas tank. You

01:08:31could have taken that gas tank off and put a, just a regular clunky looking gas tank on it and

01:08:37it would have fed gas just fine. But they chose to make this, this lovely organic shape,

01:08:45which was mysterious because I didn't know why it seemed to be asking me something.

01:08:52But I wanted it. I never had one. And it was steel anyway. Who would have a steel gas tank,

01:08:59right? But, but this is, this is, I'm fascinated by beauty because I feel it. I can't get to it.

01:09:09I can't work out what it might be. So good. The mystery persists.

01:09:18Well, that's yeah. The mystery persists. That's a good, that's a good finish off.

01:09:24Well, the mystery persists. Well, it was, it was fun for me. I sure enjoyed that. We'll try to

01:09:31populate this with all the photos. The producer will be excited when I

01:09:36hurl forth the gigabytes of images. One of the things that struck me. I was looking at

01:09:42photography of an Egyptian sculpture, one of the inevitable kings or head scribes. And of,

01:09:52it was a straightforward portrait of a person. And being as how it's warm there, he wasn't entirely

01:10:01clothed. And there was the curve of, of his abdomen that was perfectly natural.

01:10:11And this was allocated, this was executed in hard black diorite stone.

01:10:21Now, the artist making this thing had to have a clear picture of what this shape had to be

01:10:27while removing bits of the surface with whatever tools they used.

01:10:35And that shape had to be very well in mind. And what immediately sprang to mind was the

01:10:45mathematically described contour of gear teeth, which are also made of very hard material.

01:10:53material. And I think that, that giving precise shape to very hard materials is just fascinating.

01:11:04I like gears. I keep them around here to look at for that reason.

01:11:12Yeah. Well, thanks for listening, folks. That was beauty. We've, we've done it in a little over an hour.

01:11:20We've scratched it. We appreciate you listening. Of course, check us out on Patreon.

01:11:28Hit us up in the comments. We enjoy our time with you and we will catch you next time around.

What is a Beautiful Motorcycle?

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