LETTERS
Another fantastic T-shirt tale, plus heartfelt puncture thanks.
It was 1975, I was 18, rode a 1972 Kawasaki 500 H1 and was working at Loughborough’s Brush Electrical Machines. My mate at work, Steve, was two years older and had a 900 Z1. We rode to Dieppe in France and two days later crossed into Spain near Port Vendres. We camped at Rosas for a week and I bought the Easy Rider shirt from a shop there. Quite an adventure – no mobile phones, no compulsory crash hats, no breakdowns, just lots of petrol and two-stroke oil for the H1. Sadly Steve died later that year. The shirt is tatty now, think I will get it copied. 45 years and 23 bikes later still buying Bike (bought the first one).
Richardhaywood,email
Where’stheyouth?
On the cover of Bike December it says: Brilliant bikes for knockdown prices. The new kitchen can wait. I think this says a great deal about how you perceive your readers.
I was reading Bike when I was in my teens, before I got my first motorcycle. But now you are targeting the mag at the middle aged and older rider – the well off with money to spare who are looking for new toys to amuse themselves. Where are the young bikers? Where is the new blood? We aren’t all well-off posers with a nice house. Has biking lost the broad appeal it used to have? Are today’s bikers just chavs on stolen bikes or weekend warriors with money to burn? Domhemming,email
Oneisnotenough
Great article on the new Aprilia RS 660 ( Bike, December). But what’s this? The wheels don’t match. You mean I have to buy the snot green bike to get two red wheels? Come on Aprilia, fit two sexy red wheels to the red and black bikes. Jimgarnett,email
Stop,stop,stop
Just stop it, stop it now! £5000 2010 Blade? ( Bike, December.) Why do you tempt me? I was happy as I was with my perfectly good Bandit, a bit of cash in my pocket and time to spend with the family. Then you come along with all your alluring talk of spacious ergonomics and analogue dash, lovely power and midrange. I spent years getting that snub nosed beauty out of my mind. Dare I look again? By the power of Iannone, it couldn’t happen, could it…?
Petertaylor,email
Filthy story
BMW want to be known for their superb engineering. And yes there have been some missteps along the way, but mainly on the quality front. The designs have been good, including their earlier effort at a cruiser; the R1200C was a fine bike but the small front mudguard allowed dirt to get on the paralever front suspension. And what did the designers of the new R18 cruiser learn from this? Nothing. At least
with the R1200C, the mud was near harmless, but as your reviewer pointed out on the R18, the crud coats the oil cooler. So, having spent £19,000 on the bike you must also purchase a power washer, or fit a proper mudguard!
Brothers
Here is a photo (right) of my brother, Paul J Shudick, drag racing a 1966 Triumph 650 TT Special. He was a very good racer and big time motorcycle enthusiast. Especially Brit Bikes. He turned an ET of 12.83 seconds at 101mph during that run. This was at US 30 Drag Strip, Hobart, Indiana, USA. Being eight years older he got me into motorcycles and I have collected Ducati singles for 50 years.
Whatarow
There has been much comment in your letters page lately about noisy exhausts – this is largely the result of the law of unintended consequences…
Back in the eighties, when standard exhausts were less ugly and louder,
I was the service manager at a large multi-franchise dealership and loud exhausts were frowned upon. At the time aftermarket exhausts were largely legal (remember Motad?) and we used to refuse to do MOT tests on bikes that were excessively noisy.
Now that the EU have imposed draconian rules on emissions and noise new bikes are sporting ugly dustbins for exhausts and sound like washing machines. Result? Everybody fits aftermarket exhausts that are more attractive and invariably noisy.
At shows such as the NEC all major manufacturer bikes are displayed with aftermarket exhausts fitted, although there is usually one bike with a standard exhaust tucked away on the stand where nobody notices it. Only Ducati seem able to make bikes with exhausts that don’t offend the eye and sound like a bike (I have a V4 Streetfighter which looks and sounds great with the standard set-up). Suzuki on the other hand strap what looks like a dustbin on the side of their bikes, safe in the knowledge the new owner will fit an Akrapovic within days of purchase. Mikeloughlin,email
Valvesprings
Just read your Ducati V4 valve spring article (Bike, January ’21), and as usual it’s an interesting read, thanks. The V4 sprung valve train drive architecture looks very similar to the Aprilia V4, except in the Aprilia the cams operate directly on buckets, not through a finger. Given the ongoing issues with the Aprilia V4’s top end (ten years now) I wonder if the Ducati/vag engineers identified with the Aprilia’s struggles and used the finger arrangement in an attempt to solve it?
By the way the last broken valve spring I heard about was in an Aprilia V4 – a newish RSV4 – with a broken inner inlet spring caught before any damage. Excess noise alerted the owner and he had the sense to stop. Colinchapman,email
Notatriumph
It’s been interesting reading about the new ‘Triumph’ Trident. One media outlet even calls it a Hinckley bike. I know there have been items in Bike regarding where a bike is built, but it’s not British. I’ll keep my T595 thanks. Stevegilbert,email