- 12 hours ago
What is a Beautiful Motorcycle?
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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.
00:01:11So maybe something's more beautiful in daylight. The other day I was at the tax man 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.
00:01:34It is. In the tax department, it's a good day.
00:01:38Yeah.
00:01:41Must 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.
00:02:00I 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, uh,
00:02:14well, that's what one of my philosophy professors said. It's a, it's beauty is an ideal. Okay.
00:02:21Sounds good.
00:02:23Well, you know, you know, when you see it, isn't that what the judge said?
00:02:28Um, um, I do have a list and it kind of coincides with the first bike that you put, which
00:02:34you said
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 3940 triumph speed twin. Sure. Um, uh, massively
00:02:53elegant. It certainly extended its beauty into the 650 as the bikes evolved, but it is a fabulous,
00:03:02uh, looking machine. It has that lithe, uh, airiness that you're talking about that they,
00:03:07they did expand on it by in the sixties through, through the pre-unit and then to the unit,
00:03:12unit twins. Um, there was a little more air around it. It was not as hunkered down because it had
00:03:20suspension 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,
00:03:34Oh, that's really different. What is you can see right through it
00:03:40because the carburetors are just sticking out there with their carburetor.
00:03:44Weirdness. That's a carburetor. And there's a, there may be an air filter box. Um, you can see
00:03:52it, but the carburetors, they're connecting to the air filter box and it's all light and airy
00:04:00spoked wheels. That is wire spokes, wire wheels. And, um, the traditional drum brake of the past,
00:04:10which sort of was a transition that sort of hinged on 1970. But, uh, that look was the updated
00:04:23British single because they always had these, except for the slopers that they made in the twenties
00:04:29and thirties, but they had this standing up straight cylinder, uh, straightforward as can be.
00:04:37And, uh, as time passed, the engine moved toward the front wheel and, uh, what works in racing soon
00:04:49becomes a style and production as we've seen this time. And again, many of the bikes on Mark's list
00:04:57are hinge of fate bikes. They were big changes that occurred that, uh, changed everything like the 86
00:05:06Suzuki GSXR. Um, in the past, there had been bikes that weighed as much as a bagger is required to
00:05:17in the baggers championship over 600 pounds. And they were calling them sport bikes. Now,
00:05:26why do people croak and complain about baggers? That's not a race bike. And yet except a, uh, CBX,
00:05:36which is just weighs a ton and has little 125 size fork tubes on it. Well, that's me sneering in
00:05:45retrospect, isn't it? Time to shut that guy up. Well, you're a two-stroke guy, you know, like
00:05:52big fat inline six, four stroke street bikes. I mean, what, what the heck, you know, it's time to
00:05:58cut wood. We got TZ seven fifties, no power valves, just all power, no valves, all power, no valves.
00:06:05That's good. I like it. Well, on the twins, what you say is true about being able to see through
00:06:11the
00:06:11bike. It's a famous Jay Leno quote, never trust a motorcycle. You can't see through he's, he's good
00:06:15for the rye quip, that Jay Leno. Uh, and he's a great collector of, of beautiful things. Everything.
00:06:22Yeah. Take, yeah. Taking that speed twin to the 1960s triumphs. I mean, a Bonneville, the
00:06:29tigers, they just, they, they, the shape of the tank, they rode handy. They rode lithely. They,
00:06:38they look wonderful. They're narrow waisted. They're easy to engage with. They make that sound. They
00:06:44vibrate a certain way. It, it does communicate to people who have experienced it. And it certainly
00:06:49is an elegant form, which they've extended to the new bike. So as soon as you were saying,
00:06:54like I could see through, we can see through these bikes, the speed twin, the new speed twin 1200,
00:06:59for example, I took a picture of it out here in the parking lot and it is got a hole
00:07:05in it and it's got a,
00:07:07it's got fuel injection, but it has very, uh, mono, Amel monoblock carburetor looking fixtures and it's
00:07:16right there and you can see through it. And I'm, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll have that image up
00:07:21already. Well, this is why I think the sunlight was coming through. That's why I walked out and it was
00:07:27late in the day and there's this flash of sun coming through the middle of the bike, the heart of
00:07:32the
00:07:32motorcycle right behind the engine pow. And it, it, uh, they've done a beautiful job with those forms
00:07:39that are, that are so evocative that it, you know, it, there's this, you know, when the first Bonneville
00:07:49came out in 2001, when they first went retro at triumph, they were trying to be a modern motorcycle
00:07:55manufacturer. They were going to compete with 600 CC four cylinders. They were going to make 1200 CC
00:08:02land ripping Hayabusa. Like, you know, they were just going for it on in all categories. That was
00:08:09their plan. Yeah. And then they decided they could finally go retro. And in 2001, I went and rode the
00:08:16Bonneville. And what struck me at that time was there was an uneasy truce between that Bonneville
00:08:23and what had come before it was there. It looked very, it was very close, but they put the kick
00:08:33in
00:08:33the pipes. Yeah. They put the kick in the pipes. It, it was a very good example, but it actually
00:08:40rode less like a triumph than you wanted it to. It was too modern in a sense that Kawasaki W650
00:08:47actually rode more like a vintage triumph and it sounded more like a vintage triumph with the way the
00:08:52pipes were. And it was a very interesting time around that. Now with the, with the Speed Twin, we've seen
00:08:59the newer version of that Bonneville form for so long.
00:09:06They've updated it and kept the essence of the bike, but in a new form with 17s and like neat
00:09:16tires.
00:09:17It's a, it's a, and it's working for them. I mean, it's really, it's really working for them, but
00:09:23it isn't, it 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
00:10:12using. That's a great chassis. That's the foundation of the bagger race bike. So new chassis,
00:10:20much better handling than the previous versions. And the road King was such an essential form
00:10:27that they nailed at that time, especially it was a better motorcycle, but the proportion,
00:10:35the resolution of it going out back to the bags, they really, they really hit it. And particularly
00:10:41that era, that 09 era, the colors and finishes they were doing were just impeccably classic and
00:10:51wonderful. The depth of the burgundy paint on Peter Egan's 09, it might've been a 10. I know it
00:11:00was an 09 cause it had the straight cut fifth gear that they changed later. It was too noisy for
00:11:05customers. So they changed to a helical fifth the next year in 2010. Um, but it was just exquisite.
00:11:12And, you know, we've, we've transitioned in style to blacked out things like Harley's stuff is blacked
00:11:19out. So even when you do the road King, which was a very traditional, like what you would call the
00:11:23jukebox look, right? A lot of Chrome and some reds like it's, it's seriously a column of style
00:11:30for Harley. It's like, do the jukebox bike, whether that's a heritage, there is that segment of
00:11:35customers still would, would like to have that, but we went blacked out and it's still a really nice
00:11:40form, but there's something to be said for the deep, the deepness of those finishes, the deepness of
00:11:46the chrome and the deepness of that burgundy that you just, you get lost in a reverie.
00:11:52I don't know what else to say. I went to, I went to Bonneville with, uh, Indian. They wanted to
00:11:58set a
00:11:58record and some 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, uh, creamy green
00:12:22color. That was my uncle's 1948 Buick. Now there is a language without words, which can be very powerful
00:12:34because I remember going to the swimming hole with my uncle who had driven up from New York
00:12:40the night before and had no sleep. And we're jumping on his bed, take us to the swimming hole
00:12:47in that 48 Buick with that color. So if you know that those colors can be there in the minds
00:12:56of people,
00:12:58uh, of a certain age, you can sell them something. Yes. Strong feelings associated with that color
00:13:08because it lit up right away on my instrument panel. And, um, I'm not sure I like, I like that.
00:13:19I don't want
00:13:20parts of my brain belonging to controllers outside of my knowledge, but there it is. I noticed that a
00:13:28lot of the bikes on your list here are really, um, moments of big change. The Max Norton, for example,
00:13:37the change to the twin loop frame and all hydraulic suspension with weight forward. Uh, the 1940 Speed
00:13:45twin was they designed Edward Turner designed the engine to fit in the existing single cylinder
00:13:53frame. So what they were changing was a new engine sound, a new degree of performance
00:14:02and a new reason to buy. So that was a big, a big one. 1920 ish, um, Indian scout. In
00:14:13the beginning,
00:14:13the big Indians and the big Harleys were for athletic young men, no bones about it. They were
00:14:23for athletic young men. And people asked the reasonable question, what if we made a more
00:14:28available motorcycle? One that more kinds of people could ride. That is what Scout was designed to be.
00:14:36It was done intentionally because somebody was thinking. So here it is on your list.
00:14:42Yeah, it was a, well, it was such an elegant form.
00:14:45And of course the GSXR, a hundred pounds lighter than the competition. Just marvelous.
00:14:54And then the Vincent twins, no frame, no steel tubing, thinking again, thinking new.
00:15:07Uh, Perilla Grand Sport. Well, Giuseppe Salmaggi went from company to company designing things
00:15:16when they didn't have someone on staff to do it. Salmaggi at your service sign here. And, uh,
00:15:24the Grand Sport had a high camshaft and you can see it way up there with little, little pushrod,
00:15:32little 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 250. And I was like, well, I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm kind of a gorgeous hunk
00:16:04of man.
00:16:05Am I going to, is that going to be, is that going to be the, the riding experience I'm looking
00:16:10at?
00:16:10Because 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 Perilla 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. Um, but yeah, the Perilla with the high cam,
00:17:02I liked it because it was, it's, it is, it is a push rod, but they were moving towards saying,
00:17:10we should get rid of these push rods eventually. Shouldn't we? As other people already had,
00:17:15they were just moving the cam. Let's make them real small. And of course, Vincent did,
00:17:18Vincent did the same thing on their Comet single. They raised the cam up. So the push rods became
00:17:27shorter. So it was a step toward overhead cam, which typically uses half the valve spring pressure
00:17:36of a push rod and rocker engine, because there's got to be some spring there to heave the push rod
00:17:42back, uh, and forth and, uh, to rock the rockers. So that's a point. Commando, um, 74,
00:17:53a commando roadster you've listed here was England's, the parallel twins last stand.
00:18:03Everything 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 crankshaft
00:18:49just saying the same song as the flexibility of the fork tubes. So there's that front wheel doing
00:18:55that thing. And that is, it's a, it's a, an important feature that says, yes, you're among friends.
00:19:06It's alive.
00:19:07Because you know this. Yes. It's doing stuff.
00:19:09So.
00:19:10It's alive. And if you pull the brake, if you pull the brake, it changes because the wheel can't,
00:19:14can't dance with it. Right.
00:19:16And they're changing the vibration. That was the thing is that they were changing the vibration to
00:19:20a horizontal.
00:19:21By adding more counterweight, the more counterweight you add, the less it shakes up and down, the more
00:19:28it shakes back and forth.
00:19:29And it was a little, a little more pleasant that the most vibratory motorcycle, perhaps I've ever
00:19:36ridden neck and neck with the Royal in for the 1999 Royal Enfield 500 bullet that was put together
00:19:44rather roughly at the factory at that time. I was, it vibrated so much. It made me itchy. I wrote
00:19:52a
00:19:52650 Cafe Racer Norton in a feather bed. So a solid mount. Somebody thought maybe they had used a commando
00:20:00crank by accident because the balance factor of the commando crank is tuned to work with the rubber
00:20:05mounts, which is one of the reasons I picked the commando. I believe the engine is one of those
00:20:14truly beautiful forms, leaned forward, the sweep of the pipes, the shape of the timing cover,
00:20:21that three lobed beauty on the right side. And then the gorgeous glistening polished, uh,
00:20:29primary cover on the left containing a triplex chain, you know, a triple chain that virtually never
00:20:36wears out if you take care of it. Um, just as elegant as could be. And the other thing about
00:20:43the commando is
00:20:44it is the, it was really the apex for the British twin. It, it, it did, it brought the most,
00:20:52the 850,
00:20:53uh, 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,
00:21:16I think mind on the dyno 48 pounds, pound feet of torque at 5,000. Uh, but with the rubber
00:21:25mount,
00:21:25you know, it, it's the same experience you get on a Harley touring bike, uh, with rubber mount or the
00:21:31dinos that were rubber mount before they changed it. There's the motion at idle, but someone throws a
00:21:38switch. Now, Harley's done a very good job of broadening that smooth area. Like the new touring bikes,
00:21:44you get all of that. You, you lug it down and you get the chugga chugga chugga and you feel
00:21:48the bike,
00:21:48but it's not, it's the edges are off of it. And then you get up to 2,500 or 3
00:21:54,000 and the switch goes
00:21:55off and it is glass smooth, but you've got the soundtrack. You know what you're riding. It's a, it's,
00:22:02that's why I picked the commando because it has that, it has an aesthetic that beyond just parking
00:22:08it at late light and admiring the horizon line on the gas tank or on the, on the, the shiny
00:22:17aluminum
00:22:17covers, it all, its beauty extends to the, the level of functionality that are brought to that
00:22:24parallel twin form and that it just runs great. And it steers nice. It's not as sweet
00:22:31as a feather bed, but it is a, it is a good handling motorcycle and it, you can really have
00:22:37a,
00:22:38you can have a good time.
00:22:40XR seven 50 dirt tracker. This is the closest to two wheels, an engine and a place to sit
00:22:53that you can come. And when I first looked at one, I thought those wheels could not be rolled any
00:23:00closer to the engine without interfering with the suspension motion or something.
00:23:06And, um, um, of course the engine is like all Harley engines, substantial in weight.
00:23:14Um, 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 a Daytona. They kept lowering the compression more and more until
00:23:37they got under six to stop it from detonating because iron keeps heat in. That's why they
00:23:46make stoves out of it. So the logs won't cool off and stop burning. And, uh, they just got one
00:23:55thing
00:23:55wrong, 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, uh,
00:24:14XR talks about so many little changes that had to be made along the way, such as the valve train
00:24:24becoming twice as stiff over the life of the vehicle. But where's beauty? I like wire wheels.
00:24:33I like, uh, front sprockets with holes drilled in them, not because I particularly want it lighter,
00:24:44although I do, but you could make it lighter by making it thinner, um, except at the, at the sprocket
00:24:53teeth. But there's a kind of important elegance about that. I would like to have sprockets on the
00:25:03wall here. I may yet. Well, I, it's the dirt going back to the dirt tracker. Yeah. You said elegance
00:25:13the, the, the thing that's the most elegant about an XR seven 50 is it is so essential what you
00:25:20were
00:25:20saying. And it is really, it's hard to be, it's hard to reduce the motorcycle anymore than a flat
00:25:27tracker. Yeah. You know, for road racing, we, we have to put some fairings on it because that we're
00:25:34just going to be going that fast. We need all kinds of breaking power. It, it changed things.
00:25:40Yeah. Right. Because you have, you have asphalt and you have grip and, uh, you know, throwing a front
00:25:47brake, hard, hard corner entry to hard trail breaking 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 that when you lay the thing
00:26:00in there, that the tack goes up because you're getting onto the side of the tire at a lower radius.
00:26:06So the engine has to speed up or you've slowed down and we can't have that.
00:26:12I 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 could
00:26:32get where you would be pulling it up on the tire and you were getting like an extra drive,
00:26:37essentially from changing the rear gearing as you were accelerating. It kind of hoists the wheel
00:26:42on the tire. It's a real interesting feeling. There have been riders, road race riders who've
00:26:46talked about, uh, continuing to hold the motorcycle at angle of lean because it doesn't wheelie
00:26:53as easily. The center of masses 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
00:27:2150 CC twin, uh, 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, they stopped
00:27:46running in that class because well, Honda was preparing to edit automotive manufacturing. That's
00:27:53a big deal. Um, they had a purpose in going racing, which was to make Honda a household word. They
00:28:04had
00:28:04done that so they could say, well, um, you know, we could have gone ahead and built our three cylinder
00:28:11or our planned four cylinder 50 and carried on. But that's where we stepped off of that class.
00:28:20Well, this motorcycle, everything is crowded together. The rider is squeezed down onto the tank,
00:28:29which is long and strange looking. They called the bread loaf tanks, but this is at least three loaves
00:28:36end to end. And the engine is a, is quite a massive thing. The gearbox is bigger than the power
00:28:45section,
00:28:47but there are the things that are so familiar. The tack cable coming out of the tack and disappearing
00:28:51down to some little gearbox on the engine, the temperature gauge going to the radiator,
00:28:59the carburetor. Uh, the carburetors you can see still early type, but I think I'm pleased to stand and
00:29:11look at this thing because it's so single-minded has two inch wheels, two inch tires. I should say
00:29:21little tiny skinny things as were the, the men who rode them, uh, 14 speed gearbox, all old tech.
00:29:32After 1967, they discovered that the FIM in limiting gearbox speeds to six had not sentenced them to
00:29:42non-competitive performance. They had required them to discover something new.
00:29:51And so here's this motorcycle, which for most people would be, yeah, what, what's the point of it
00:30:00though? And I have to agree. The most people ride a motorcycle because they like that kinesthesia. They
00:30:09like for, they, they like to ride just as people who first learned to ride horses in Central Asia must
00:30:17have
00:30:18liked to ride. And that's something that can never be forgotten, but this is a certain kind of very
00:30:26focused design. And there I, I stand there every few mornings and just look at it.
00:30:32Well, it's, it's what you said about it in your notes. Um, total weight, 128 pounds as close to nothing
00:30:39as possible, which is exactly why I like the XR 750 knowing the engine is heavy, but also that,
00:30:47that weight, especially the crank weight, circular flywheel in the middle of the bike. A lot of people
00:30:53really credit the bike's ability to hook up and turn by having its masses where they are functioning
00:31:01in the way they are. So it's a very essential motorcycle. The way that you say this, the Suzuki
00:31:07is, even though it's probably had a fairing, you're looking at it with the body off and, and marveling
00:31:13that what might be a little bit of hidden beauty behind the fairing. They tried to streamline steam
00:31:21locomotives at the end of their period of usefulness and it didn't work. It just made them look like
00:31:31all the art books have, have the Gestetner calculator case. The Gestetner calculator was one of those things
00:31:38you go chicka, chicka, chicka with the buttons and pull a handle. And it adds that number to the ones
00:31:43you're adding. They thought they could sell more units if they had it styled by a famous designer.
00:31:51So they took it to one and they made a cover for it. They didn't change the machinery. They just
00:31:57put
00:31:57a cover on it with a different shape. And we're like that. We humans change the shape, change the color.
00:32:07Oh, it's all new. 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,
00:32:19and it's the use of headlights. So on my, on my commute, there are two intersections where people
00:32:25tend to pull out when they shouldn't. They can't perceive your presence and closing speed,
00:32:31or they somehow ignore your size. But what I found statistically having lived there for a long
00:32:38time is that if I have my headlights on, they hesitate more because I look bigger.
00:32:44I'm more, I'm more present by, by 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.
00:33:00We're wired for it.
00:33:02Yeah.
00:33:02That's why, why, when you have a mountain lion and you're, you know, nearby, you don't lean down.
00:33:08You don't turn and run away. You put your hands up really high. And if you got rocks,
00:33:12you start smacking them together to make loud noises. You got to be impressive to get the
00:33:18lions to be disinterested in you. Yes.
00:33:22Shall I run a picture of a mountain lion? No.
00:33:27No mountain lions.
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.
00:34:12Let's, uh, let's cram the scout motor into those spindly little frames. So the scout has all these
00:34:19different manifestations, but what is memorable is that it was made to be a motorcycle for
00:34:28a larger population of riders. And that, uh, by making it lighter as well as smaller in displacement,
00:34:39they didn't throw away performance when they did so. So it was fun to ride. And if you look at
00:34:49those
00:34:49things long enough and appreciate their history, they begin to look right.
00:35:00Now the bulbous tank that you will find on both Harley Davidson's and triumphs, the 1940, uh, speed twin,
00:35:10that bulbous tank traces back to, um, Howard Davies and George Brough, both of whom adopted saddle
00:35:21tanks at about the same time, one 1924, I think. And what had happened was flathead engines had sprouted
00:35:32overhead valves. So the engine became taller that put an end to the long low look, which fanciers of it,
00:35:40uh, couldn't bear to see end. Oh, flat tanks are, I mean, I, I had, I had flat tanks is
00:35:47waiting,
00:35:49circ, you know, orbiting my list, flat tank Norton's. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely gorgeous. But also
00:35:57could be made. Those tanks were made on a sheet metal break and soldered together. Silver solder.
00:36:04So, uh, leakage was a possibility, but there's the Vincent. Now I want to invoke a, an empty concept
00:36:19of rightness. Oh, you're begging the question. You bet I am, but the Vincent
00:36:26with no frame, no steel tubing visible anywhere, except in the swing arm, uh, was a step away from
00:36:36the traditional motorcycle. And it was the most powerful and fastest motorcycle of its time.
00:36:44And it has an influence that re resounds to this day, uh, because, uh, not only because steel
00:36:58tube frames have taken a smaller part in the present day, but because the idea of the frameless construction,
00:37:08the new, uh, super leggera Ducati has a, a carbon frame that is perched on the cylinder, uh, cylinder
00:37:20heads at the rear and, uh, at the top of the crankcase at the front. And it is as close
00:37:28to nothing
00:37:30as you can make. But that material has so much strength that it takes less of it to do the
00:37:40job
00:37:40that's necessary. And I think there's, there's beauty in that too. Sometimes it comes and goes.
00:37:48Aprilia's 250 GP bike had a essentially curved, curved twin beam aluminum chassis.
00:38:01And I thought that was just a lovely thing. And then they made the, uh, RS 1000 and it just
00:38:09had, um,
00:38:11big old chunks of aluminum out there doing the job, but not looking like Bran Cousy's bird in space.
00:38:18Or like, uh, the strange forms taken by icicles as water runs down and drips off the end.
00:38:26I think those organic forms are fascinating because they, they excite your curiosity.
00:38:33What is in there that's making this happen? Well, you pulled the Vincent back out and the twin,
00:38:40because you'd mentioned the, the comet earlier, because the comet is what they built. And then
00:38:45they were like, well, you know, what if we put another one of these cylinders on here and on
00:38:51something and doubled it to a thousand. Um, and I think the comet is a pretty nice looking motorcycle,
00:38:59but having the two cylinders at the angles that they run with the two pipes, with the sweep going into
00:39:07the
00:39:07single, uh, silencer at the rear and the shape of the timing case and that extension of the engine to
00:39:15a twin for me changes the aesthetic massively. In addition to adding the performance you talked
00:39:23about, you know, being the, being the big thousand CC ripper that it was because it's, uh,
00:39:32a lot easier to get 50 horsepower out of a thousand twin than it is a 500 single.
00:39:38You can get there, but it's pretty stressed. It's hard work.
00:39:46During the, uh, during World War II, 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 by
00:40:05the 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
00:40:19engine in an airplane. And I saw one of those bikes once at a, at a,
00:40:25uh, an outdoor show at the, at that museum in Boston. I can't think of the name, but, uh,
00:40:36fine pitch finning die cast, very elegant, very nice. All the same antique is, is all get out
00:40:46because what did it have a hundred millimeter stroke?
00:40:48However,
00:40:50went a long way.
00:40:51GSX-R 750 air oil cooled, fine pitch finning, still alive in 1986.
00:40:59Yes, true.
00:41:02Part of the lightness factor was not having, you know,
00:41:06that eight pounds per gallon of water, big aluminum radiator.
00:41:11Yeah.
00:41:12Seven pounds per gallon for oil.
00:41:17Well, uh, we haven't spoken about the Ducati 916.
00:41:21We haven't.
00:41:23And one of the things that's
00:41:27of special interest about this motorcycle to me is that, uh,
00:41:35Massimo Tamborini was not a degreed engineer.
00:41:39He was a person who understood things in his own terms,
00:41:45rather than in those given to him by the textbook.
00:41:48I don't mean to denigrate the textbook.
00:41:51There aren't too many people that, uh,
00:41:54uh, correct the vibration periods of a crankshaft by feel.
00:42:02Although I believe that, um,
00:42:06Phil Irving described a means of doing so,
00:42:09that you would make a hole in the crankcase with a plug that would line up
00:42:14with screwed in weights in holes in the crankshaft.
00:42:19And you would unscrew the weights,
00:42:21pull them out through the hole and put in a different set.
00:42:24And ride it until you got one you liked.
00:42:30The point here is that there's more than one way to do these things.
00:42:35One way is to hire engineers from the most prestigious schools
00:42:41and have them design motorcycles.
00:42:42What do they know about motorcycles?
00:42:45They know about, uh,
00:42:49crankshaft vibration.
00:42:50They can calculate material loads and so forth.
00:42:57But the nine 16 shows us that
00:43:02design of a form
00:43:06has to do with the designers sense of aesthetics.
00:43:13Which isn't taught.
00:43:17This looks beautiful.
00:43:18This is ugly.
00:43:19Put it in the trash.
00:43:20Uh, there've been a lot of efforts to do that to,
00:43:23to, um, in, in, in art and the visual arts.
00:43:28There have been periods when some viewpoint was prominent.
00:43:33And of course,
00:43:35there are many people who had to rebel against it.
00:43:38They started their own movement.
00:43:40Soon 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.
00:44:05How are you going to put that between wheels?
00:44:07This way, this way.
00:44:10Um, and they struggled with that problem for years
00:44:13until they solved it by making a V4 that who, which had a much shorter stroke.
00:44:19The engine was more compact and that gave them more
00:44:22options as where they could put it and how it would be oriented.
00:44:28But Tamborini did this, made this design.
00:44:32And I remember talking to a degreed engineer and I said,
00:44:37to what qualities does Ducati attribute
00:44:45the handling of the trellis chassis?
00:44:49He said, it was designed by a genius.
00:44:54I like it.
00:44:56Hard to argue.
00:44:57I mean, that's, that's a nothing statement.
00:45:00That's, that's essentialism at its worth.
00:45:03That's your, that's your old, uh,
00:45:05Crower roller rockers ad.
00:45:07He, Kevin always brings it.
00:45:08My favorite.
00:45:09Crower roller, the fifties, you know,
00:45:11roller rockers were, were thing, uh, still are.
00:45:14Crower roller rockers.
00:45:16Fully roller rockers.
00:45:17Roller tappet cams.
00:45:19And what?
00:45:21Roller tappet cams and something.
00:45:23Give results that are positively unreal.
00:45:28I love it.
00:45:29All right.
00:45:29So I say that so much.
00:45:31Positive, oh, positively unreal.
00:45:33Cause it's, what is it?
00:45:34What does it even mean?
00:45:36Let's go to marketing school.
00:45:38Well, the nine six.
00:45:39Yeah.
00:45:40Sorry.
00:45:40Can't carry on.
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.
00:45:51And we're, we're, we're just susceptible.
00:45:53That's why we put the cover on the calculator and we go,
00:45:55Oh, that's nice.
00:45:56You know, and like doesn't change anything about it,
00:45:58except it's got to cover, um, motorcycles that became supersonic.
00:46:04And we're kind of in that still in that supersonic phase.
00:46:07I mean, at least we're using arrow and MotoGP and we have wings that are
00:46:11actually interacting with the air in a way that's functional and meaningful.
00:46:15What was nice about the nine 16.
00:46:17There were a lot of things that we could say are sort of dumb.
00:46:20Like why would we put the mufflers both under the saddle and very high and at
00:46:25the rear of the motorcycle?
00:46:26Uh, Eric Buell was right.
00:46:28Stuff it underneath the bike.
00:46:30Uh, let's, let's not move the mass up there.
00:46:32And yet we loved it.
00:46:34We loved the organic shapes.
00:46:36You know, we love the, the contours of that bike.
00:46:40They were simple contours.
00:46:42They weren't folded and corrugated and simple contours.
00:46:46Yes.
00:46:48Complex curves, um, compound, compound curves and suggestive of animal nature.
00:46:57It's why an E-type looks good.
00:46:59It, it, you know, a Jaguar E-type, it, it has.
00:47:02It's the Hawthorne Hunter on four wheels.
00:47:05It's yeah.
00:47:06And, uh, you know, I go back, I, for me, one of the essential moments for beauty in my
00:47:11whole career and sort of epiphanies of understanding.
00:47:16I went to a metal shaping class with Ron Covell, who had done the America's most beautiful roadster.
00:47:24He did all the work with, um, Arlen, a lot of work with Arlen Ness.
00:47:29Arlen Ness did, uh, the, this 57 Chevy, um, custom that he built that had fins on it.
00:47:37But Ron was, Ron was an incredible hand forming metal shaper, uh, hammers and dollies.
00:47:43And I took his class and he would say, he was, I'm, I'm going to build a, show you how
00:47:49to build a, uh, chopper tank.
00:47:51And he gets, he gets, he gets out a piece of welding wire and he says, I use this welding
00:47:55wire to, to get a form and I, and he holds it up and he starts to roll his thumb
00:48:00on it
00:48:01and he starts to put a curve into it.
00:48:03And he says, I'm going to, I'm going to form this until it's a feet.
00:48:07It's a shape that I find a pleasing.
00:48:10And I was like, Oh, infinity.
00:48:13Wow.
00:48:13I mean, you're talking about the infant.
00:48:15That's the infinite.
00:48:16It's something that I find pleasing.
00:48:18And when you get those contours, and it's absolutely true that somewhere, somewhere between
00:48:23this straight line and this scribble of wadded wire, you have a, a form that has a taper
00:48:33and a shape that, uh, pleases you.
00:48:36And that's to me, the nine 16 is that it had those contours.
00:48:41It had those narrow, uh, narrow headlamps.
00:48:45You know, there's talk about, uh, tambourine using the NR seven 50 as an inspiration.
00:48:51Cause the NR had the pipes up in the tail section and it had the squat, you know, sort of
00:48:56cat
00:48:56eye, uh, a little bit of a cat eye headlamp treatment.
00:49:00And, uh, certainly we, whatever it was, 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.
00:49:11I read other stories and I look for something that, you know, causes a vibration.
00:49:17It makes, makes a feeling happen.
00:49:20And 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.
00:49:28Um, yeah, well, um, there's a point that I want to make here.
00:49:34And that is that, uh, around 2002, the European design, um, adopted this supersonic look with
00:49:45scoops, with sharp edges, um, zigzags, mat, um, stealth coatings, uh, all stuff borrowed from aircraft.
00:49:59At one point, uh, Eric Buell decided that he would bring to the general world, the little
00:50:10known, uh, Harley Caltech wind tunnel fairing, which was an important element in their resounding
00:50:18Daytona wind in 1968 and 69.
00:50:25People called it the whale.
00:50:29They didn't like it because it reminded them of
00:50:36fat,
00:50:41convex, blubbery shapes.
00:50:44Bulbous.
00:50:45Bulbous.
00:50:46Bulbous, yes.
00:50:47Absolutely.
00:50:48Bulbous.
00:50:49And whereas they liked the look of that sort of F-104-ish business, nevermind that the F-104
00:50:56is a 50s design.
00:50:58Um, and we can't criticize this because we know that motorcycles don't go fast enough
00:51:09to benefit from the insights of supersonic flight, but the rounded shape doesn't please people right
00:51:21now.
00:51:23So let's get these things sold, put a cover on it that people like and move it, ship it, as
00:51:32it says in,
00:51:33in the famous book about computer development.
00:51:37Well, it was, uh, it was an interesting time, uh, like Honda hurricane, 80, 87.
00:51:45That was a simple one.
00:51:47Well, yeah, the form of the fairing was, was very, very simple, but they covered everything.
00:51:53And so the fairing, there wasn't even a gap where you looked at the frame.
00:51:58And that was one of the most interesting things about that bike is all of the design,
00:52:03really the aesthetic was outside.
00:52:05It was the, it was, it was the cover.
00:52:08And then if you took the fairing off, it was like, you know, like as a person who says, oh,
00:52:14Vincent's are beautiful or Norton Manx's are beautiful because of the form of the engine.
00:52:18This was just all like all the stuff.
00:52:21It had, you know, metal pipes and steel, you know, brackets and, and, you know, they just had
00:52:26like looking under a car.
00:52:27Yeah, they were.
00:52:28Yeah.
00:52:29The bottom of a car.
00:52:30Absolutely.
00:52:31Is there anything less aesthetic than a car that's rolled?
00:52:33How wrong does it look?
00:52:35Right.
00:52:36Yeah.
00:52:36So.
00:52:40So I had a discussion once with, uh, the, uh, people that were doing the.
00:52:51Oh, what was that new V twin that, that Polaris did victory?
00:52:58And they said, do you have any opinions about how engines should look?
00:53:05And I said, as it happens, I do.
00:53:11And so they listened politely and then they said, well, we don't think you'll be very pleased
00:53:17with what we're making.
00:53:18But my idea was that I like the, the shrink wrap look that the cast cases and case covers
00:53:39should in some degree reveal what is inside them, just as the human skin reveals that we
00:53:50are built on a bony structure.
00:53:53We have ribs, we have, we have shoulder blades, uh, we have organs.
00:54:01And I want to have an idea that there are mechanical parts here.
00:54:09This is a machine.
00:54:10It is not designed by the Eggman.
00:54:14The Eggman is my absolute unfavorite when it comes to engine design, because he decreed
00:54:25that simple motorcycles like BSA's copy of the DKW two stroke, the Bantam should be built
00:54:36on an egg shaped crankcase and sticking out of this egg would be a thin cylinder.
00:54:42Oh yeah.
00:54:42Yeah.
00:54:42That makes, that makes sense.
00:54:44Yeah.
00:54:44Every time I go to the fridge for an egg, I think about putting a thin cylinder on it and
00:54:50it would have a shift shaft coming out.
00:54:53It would have a sprocket and so forth.
00:54:55And this has, this, this egg motor has been there for years and years.
00:55:01And I just strongly dislike it because I feel that the engine is a machine and that it is
00:55:10okay to reveal that it contains gears, shafts and linkages.
00:55:16Yep.
00:55:17So here's a story about Victory and Indian.
00:55:21So Gary Gray was around at the beginning of Victory and Gary worked, you know, he, he was
00:55:27part of the team that sort of had to discover how to test fuel tanks for tip over bursting
00:55:33and, you know, instituting a motorcycle program from nothing.
00:55:37Now they were a good manufacturer.
00:55:39They're making thousands and thousands of engines for side-by-sides and quads and all that
00:55:46stuff, but they had to go through that.
00:55:47And, uh, when they came out, you know, they bought Indian and they started working on Indian
00:55:53and producing Indians, you know, they, they had an aesthetic to begin with because they
00:55:57were evoking the swoopy fenders of the chief, which was very, very nearly close on this list.
00:56:03I liked the essential elements of the one-on-one a little bit better with the less fender.
00:56:07But, um, Gary said, I, I was interviewing Gary, uh, around the, um, Indian chief time.
00:56:15And I said, well, Gary, uh, you know, what lessons have you learned from Victory that you're
00:56:21applying to Indian?
00:56:22And his first answer was kind of glib.
00:56:24And he said, well, everything, you know, like everything we frame design and chassis and
00:56:29handling and mass, you know, masses and all this stuff.
00:56:34And I was like, well, what about the engine?
00:56:36And he's like, yeah, you know, one thing we learned is that we don't let the engineers
00:56:40style the engine.
00:56:44And the first victories they had, uh, they had a funny weight to them, at least from my,
00:56:49my opinion is they, they were there.
00:56:51They generated a top heavy tension on the, uh, non-primary side where the, the shape of
00:56:59the cylinders didn't, didn't carry a broadening taper to the top.
00:57:06And it, to me, it, it brought a tension that was like unresolved.
00:57:12It's to me, it's the difference between the soft tail that they do.
00:57:17Now they do a soft tail low rider S, which used to be a Dyna.
00:57:21But they switched everything as a soft tail, which from an engineering perspective is a
00:57:26good design.
00:57:27It's stiffer, it performs better.
00:57:28And it made sense from a manufacturing standpoint, because why are we making two cruiser platforms
00:57:34for a market that is not going like gangbusters?
00:57:38It's shrinking a little bit.
00:57:40So it makes a lot of sense, but I don't think that the low rider S soft tail that they
00:57:45make
00:57:46now resolves in the same way that the low rider S Dyna with the twin shocks resolves.
00:57:53And that's where, when I look at something, I get a tension that says it's there's no,
00:57:59I'm not, it's not finishing right for some reason.
00:58:02And 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.
00:58:13It has, it has pleasing angles.
00:58:16And I'm always, I've always, I've always been a little bit like, well, you know, it's
00:58:20not 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 like a flathead.
00:58:27It should, I wanted it to be more like a motor, but I also understand when you're bringing
00:58:32out 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.
00:58:46And it, you know, had a very long stroke.
00:58:48I forget what it is, but I was in that meeting, you know, and they were talking about that
00:58:51motorcycle and he said, oh, well, we used, uh, you know, we use push rods to, you know,
00:58:57the 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.
00:59:07And he was an engineer and he had a good chalk.
00:59:09He was like, I appreciate, I appreciate you, but no, we're not making a flathead.
00:59:14Yeah.
00:59:14I have always wanted someone to make a modern flathead, you know, just to put, just to
00:59:19start from scratch and how, how, how good could you make it?
00:59:23Gordon Blair made, did some research into that at one point.
00:59:26Oh, did he?
00:59:27Um, mostly about, uh, combustion speed.
00:59:31Now, of course the flathead has a lot of unnecessary surface area in the combustion chamber that
00:59:38is exposed to hot gas.
00:59:40And that's a critical factor.
00:59:42And it, it ends up affecting all sorts of things.
00:59:45Like, can we make the cylinder round when the engine is running?
00:59:49Um, but, um, he, he was able to get quite good light up times short, you know, in the thirties
00:59:58and, uh, was able to ameliorate some of the worst features of flathead design by using modern,
01:00:09um, techniques.
01:00:10But, uh, the only modern flathead that I know of, I think Honda built a flathead that needed
01:00:16to fit under the seat of some four wheeler or needed to fit in a, in a little space.
01:00:22So they said, well, take the valves and put them next to the cylinder.
01:00:28And just like, um, Cosworth made the rod ratio 1.8 when they needed to make the engine a little
01:00:37smaller to get air through the Venturi tunnels on the other side of the crankcase.
01:00:43So, um, compromise, compromise.
01:00:49One of the things about the AJS 7R that has always struck me as beautiful is the cover for the
01:00:59camp chain.
01:01:00Oh, exactly.
01:01:01Exactly.
01:01:02And that, thank you for bringing the AJS out.
01:01:06Cause I'm looking at it on the list.
01:01:07I'm like, we didn't talk about that.
01:01:08We got to go next.
01:01:09And here's Kevin.
01:01:10And, oh, it's, it's like a marriage.
01:01:13Yeah.
01:01:14You know, we know which way we're going to step.
01:01:16Um, but yeah, the, yeah, the G, the 7R G50, uh, that case where you, you, if you know anything
01:01:24about the insides of an overhead cam engine with a chain driven cam, you know exactly what
01:01:30you're looking at.
01:01:31And it's a beautiful, elegant cast thing.
01:01:34I, uh, it is really, uh, the, the droop of the seat, the shape of the AJS.
01:01:41It's a little bit like the Perilla.
01:01:43It has that little bit of a saddle shape to it of the sides coming down with gorgeous contours.
01:01:52Uh, the Perilla, the same, uh, the G50, the AJS 7R, and then the little, the little fairing.
01:01:58And it just, um, also with the, the drum break, having the, the circular discs with the, like
01:02:05fins, basically like a giant fin to, to try and take some of that heat off the drum.
01:02:11Um, I'm sure it's, um, it's really got a thing.
01:02:15It appears to me that it was in 1922 that AJS discovered intake offset as a means of speeding
01:02:25up combustion.
01:02:26And there it was for all to see because people walked around paddocks and looked at things.
01:02:37It was one of the wonderful things about the English, uh, they called them the, uh, one.
01:02:45There were two English motorcycle magazines that came out on a weekly basis and they called
01:02:51them the comics and they employed artists to draw the features of new, of innovations
01:03:03on both production and racing motorcycles.
01:03:06And there is a trove of those things, uh, in England that are not being used for anything.
01:03:14And it's just, I love those drawings, which many of which are in those old magazines, but,
01:03:25uh, anyone could have looked at that and said, look at this, this, this, this is a
01:03:33intake port goes in on a tangent.
01:03:35Why would they do that?
01:03:37Um, um, one reason would be to, to make the charge swirl around in the, in the combustion
01:03:45chamber as the piston came up and the action began.
01:03:51But, uh, for a long time, only the English did intake offset.
01:03:57But this is the thing about these motors that are like the Manx.
01:04:01So you can say, Oh, it has intake downdraft.
01:04:04Let me measure that.
01:04:06Oh, well, it says, uh, 12 degrees.
01:04:10Why are they doing it?
01:04:12Well, maybe they want to minimize the short circuiting of fresh charge to the exhaust valve
01:04:20during valve overlap.
01:04:21When they're both open a little bit with the piston nearing top center, it was, there were
01:04:29no secrets and, and yet nobody copied it for a long time.
01:04:35And AJS tried all kinds of creative stuff in the 1920s.
01:04:41They, they tried overhead cam.
01:04:43It didn't give them any more power.
01:04:45So they went back to overhead valve.
01:04:47Then somebody said, you know, I think the weight of the, of the push rod and rocker is
01:04:54floating the valves at high RPM and leaving the valve open longer and making more power.
01:05:01So why, why don't we try harder with the overhead cam?
01:05:07And the power went right up, but they were learning by doing.
01:05:11They were changing stuff all the time.
01:05:15The late Robert Iannucci pursued for years, a 7R that was in South Africa, which had a gear
01:05:29cam drive.
01:05:31He never found out why it was built or who built it, but he was after that bike for years.
01:05:38And 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.
01:05:47And when I was, uh, I had, I had my Perilla phase, which I never acted on the Perilla,
01:05:52but I wanted desperately to have a Perilla, uh, 250 grand sport.
01:05:56And then I was in a G50 phase where I'm like, I want a G50 street bike.
01:06:01You know, I want to take a, like you would with a Manx, you know, turn it into something
01:06:04you could ride on the road and, and experience more than just at a racetrack.
01:06:09And, 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.
01:06:20And then I got the opportunity to ride one collector in Texas, Herb Harris.
01:06:25And he let me ride a G50.
01:06:27And, um, what I discovered was I didn't, I didn't actually need it.
01:06:32And it was a, it was a great financial relief because they were not cheap.
01:06:36And I was trying to find ways of doing it.
01:06:38Like, what can I sell?
01:06:39And how could I make this a reality?
01:06:41And 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.
01:06:51And I was like, I think I can live without it.
01:06:55I think I can make it because it made all the beat, beat, beat sounds.
01:06:59And I'm actually, I've always been kind of a cooking model guy anyway.
01:07:02You know, I've always been, I don't need, I don't need their super aggressive cam and
01:07:09the, 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 V4R.
01:07:23I understand all of that.
01:07:24And I, but also I just like to ride around.
01:07:27I'm very cooking model.
01:07:29I'm very, I own an MSS.
01:07:31I don't own a Thruxton.
01:07:32Yeah.
01:07:33You know, I just, I'm sort of like thinking about that guy riding to his job in Birmingham,
01:07:40you know, to build something in a factory, going to the docks, you know, riding to the
01:07:44docks.
01:07:45In his barber jacket.
01:07:46Yep.
01:07:47I've just always kind of been, been that guy.
01:07:52Well, so I think what we've, what we've played with a little bit here is the idea that
01:07:58motorcycles that command our visual interests are often departures from convention.
01:08:08They're innovative.
01:08:09Um, but at the same time, the Ducati 250s that I saw when I was a downtrodden college student,
01:08:23which had those sensuous gas tanks.
01:08:29It's just a gas tank.
01:08:31You could have taken that gas tank off and put a, just a regular clunky looking gas tank
01:08:36on it and it would have fed gas just fine.
01:08:39But they chose to make this, this lovely organic shape, which was mysterious because I didn't
01:08:47know why it seemed to be asking me something.
01:08:52But I wanted it and I never had one and it was steel anyway.
01:08:58Who would have a steel gas tank, right?
01:09:00But, but this is, this is, I'm fascinated by beauty because I feel it.
01:09:07I can't get to it.
01:09:09I can't work out what it might be.
01:09:14So good.
01:09:16The mystery persists.
01:09:18Well, that's yeah.
01:09:19The mystery persists.
01:09:20That's a good, that's a good finish off.
01:09:24Well, the mystery persists.
01:09:27Well, it was, it was fun for me.
01:09:29I sure enjoyed that.
01:09:30We'll try to populate this with all the photos.
01:09:33The producer will be excited when I hurl forth the gigabytes of images.
01:09:39It struck me.
01:09:40I was looking at photography of an Egyptian sculpture, one of the inevitable kings or head scribes.
01:09:51And of, it was a straightforward portrait of a person.
01:09:55And being as how it's warm there, he wasn't entirely clothed and there was the curve of, of his abdomen
01:10:05that was perfectly natural.
01:10:09And 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 while
01:10:28removing bits of the surface with whatever tools they used.
01:10:35And that shape had to be very well in mind.
01:10:41And what immediately sprang to mind was the mathematically described contour of gear teeth, which are also made of very
01:10:52hard material.
01:10:55And I think that, that giving precise shape to very hard materials is just fascinating.
01:11:03So, I like gears.
01:11:05I keep them around here to look at for that reason.
01:11:12Yeah.
01:11:13Well, thanks for listening, folks.
01:11:16That was beauty.
01:11:17We've, we've done it in a little over an hour.
01:11:20We've scratched it.
01:11:22We appreciate you listening.
01:11:24Of course, check us out on Patreon.
01:11:28Hit us up in the comments.
01:11:30We enjoy our time with you and we will catch you next time round.
01:11:34Sound.
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