NORTON’S FEATHERBED FRAME

The Featherbed is arguably the best-known and most successful motorcycle frame of all, having given Norton a significant advantage both on the racetrack and the road for many years.

Its name came about after Harold Daniell, Norton’s recordbreaking star rider on the old-style Garden Gate plunger framed racers, had finished third behind two team-mates in the 1950 Junior TT at the Isle of Man. Daniell made his comment, “It’s just like riding on a feather bed”, at the prize giving. Geoff Duke cemented the legend when, after winning that year’s Senior TT, he replied to a radio commentator’s offer of a seat with the words: “No, thanks, I’ve been lying down all morning.”

Ironically, the Featherbed hastened Harold Daniell’s retirement from racing. The new frame was so much better than the Garden Gate that it allowed a completely new technique of “drifting” the tyres in corners — but Daniell could not adapt as well as the new generation of racers such as Duke and Ray Amm.

The Featherbed came about after Irish racer-engineers Rex and Cromie McCandless and their business partner, Artie Bell, were hired by Norton in the late 1940s. Their duplex loop racing frame used a new technique of bronze-welding, which allowed structures to be stronger and lighter than the traditional brazing.

Racing Featherbeds used the famous lightweight Reynolds 531 tubing, while road bikes were built using cheaper mild steel. In each case the two main tubes were first welded to the bottom of the headstock, then run parallel to each other above the engine, bent down behind the gearbox and again to bring them beneath the gearbox and engine.

Then they were bent upwards ahead of the engine, and finally sprung into position inside the top tube rails, where they were welded to both the headstock and top rails. The result was a very rigid structure which, in combination with steeper geometry than was normally used, gave much better handling than most rival designs.