You wonder what happened to the British motorcycle industry.

The Yamaha RD 250 had five gears actually it had six but top was blanked off for the UK market as we believed six gears was a sign of a narrow power band. You could remove the blank from the rotary gear selector and fit a smaller one to get six gears. Some tight folk just threw away the blank leabing them open to selecting first gear at 90mph. I love the Yamaha sales thinking, cheaper to male all the gearboxes the same but blank off for the fussy UK market.
 
I have never been a biker but part of my training in the army was to be able to road test all the vehicles I repaired.
At the time the smallest bike the army had was the BSA B40. 350 single. They were death traps and took a very brave person to ride them fast on the road with nobly tyres. I think getting round the test route without them braking down or you falling off and you past you’re test.
Later they were replaced with a thing called a Canam I think. I never did repair the motorbikes but did ride a BSA in Germany that nearly killed me during an altercation with wet cobbles and a tram.
 
Wikky said:
I had a 2 stroke BSA Bantam 175cc for a while then got a Yamaha yds6 250cc 2 stroke.....what a difference. Revvy, punchy engine with blistering acceleration. Even though it had f and r drum brakes they were far better than the BSA.
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I traded in an early Honda CB72 for a RE/GT Enfield !! (biggest mistake of my biking career ) If only I had known. Weve proved we could be capable (Triumph ).
 
Wikky said:
I had a 2 stroke BSA Bantam 175cc for a while then got a Yamaha yds6 250cc 2 stroke.....what a difference. Revvy, punchy engine with blistering acceleration. Even though it had f and r drum brakes they were far better than the BSA.
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Of course your Bantam was a German design robbed by us after the war, mirror image to put the gearbox lever on the British side. I had a 175B 14/4, excellent bike had true neutral handling. I upped its compression ratio by stuffing the crankcase and tweaked the porting, ran it on Mobile 1 Jet Turbine Oil, did not go any faster but smelt like a Bell Jetranger helicopter when cooling down.
 
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Fortunately I was put off parallel twins at the age of 14 - which was when I learned that both pistons went up and down together. I couldn't understand then why they were designed that way and I still can't. So I stuck to my first love - strokers. A friend spent one Winter 'tuning' his 500 Triumph to go racing. I (and quite a few others) went with him for his test ride. Some of you may be aware of the Concrete Road serving Haweswater Dam which wasn't regarded as public road at the time so that's where we went. Several people were spread out over maybe half a mile to keep sheep of the road. I had my newly-acquired Suzuki Cobra - still with American-style high bars. He set off on his test run & I gave him maybe 50 yards start. I passed him within 100 yards & had to wait at the end for him. Mustering all the generosity of youth I almost wet myself laughing :roflmto: .

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Kawasaki gt550.. Oh the joy of cornering whilst frame is flexing, like a fairground ride without paying, new pants please.
 
Wanderlust said:
Kawasaki gt550.. Oh the joy of cornering whilst frame is flexing, like a fairground ride without paying, new pants please.
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The Japanese offerings were technically sophisticated but by no means perfect. The Suzuki I had didn't have that issue (especially compared with a lot of British bikes of the time) but did have tyres made from recycled pushbike brake blocks, crap damping at both ends, and an American riding position. Once those issues were sorted most Jap bikes were very acceptable. Apart from their first attempts at disc brakes (that didn't work in the rain).
 
Living in Germany as a squadie in the early 1970s, used to go for runs with the local bike club. At each stop the guy with the Kawasaki 750 triple would refuel, we Brits on out Nortons and Triumphs would wipe off the oil leaks and check for bits that had fallen off. The Germans with their BMWs would just go to the cafe wondering what the rest of us were up to.
 
Honda 50, my first bike was gutless but 100% reliable even in the hands of a novice 18 year old. A Matchless 250 decided to self destruct the engine and my student income could ill afford any repairs. It was then a Velocette Viper 350cc's of mechanical mayhem and oil leaks from the pushrod tube. It was an absolute b*****r to kickstart so I always push started it and jumped aboard when it condescended to fire up. It was always being repaired, the lighting was courtesy of "Lucas, prince of darkness" with its 6v dynamo electrics and I had to push this paragon of British engineering over four miles (fortunately mostly downhill!) to get home where I found it had kindly stripped all the hard fibre/bakelite timing gears. I repaired it, and sold it. Many years later I graduated to BMWs, mostly bullet proof. A K100RT I had for 14 years and it never, ever let me down in the 60,000 miles I rode it and was simplicity itself to service. I'm prepared to bet it is still purring around in some form or other as last time I heard of it, it had been converted into a trike - sacrilege!
 
DiggerJon said:
Honda 50, my first bike was gutless but 100% reliable even in the hands of a novice 18 year old. A Matchless 250 decided to self destruct the engine and my student income could ill afford any repairs. It was then a Velocette Viper 350cc's of mechanical mayhem and oil leaks from the pushrod tube. It was an absolute b*****r to kickstart so I always push started it and jumped aboard when it condescended to fire up. It was always being repaired, the lighting was courtesy of "Lucas, prince of darkness" with its 6v dynamo electrics and I had to push this paragon of British engineering over four miles (fortunately mostly downhill!) to get home where I found it had kindly stripped all the hard fibre/bakelite timing gears. I repaired it, and sold it. Many years later I graduated to BMWs, mostly bullet proof. A K100RT I had for 14 years and it never, ever let me down in the 60,000 miles I rode it and was simplicity itself to service. I'm prepared to bet it is still purring around in some form or other as last time I heard of it, it had been converted into a trike - sacrilege!
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The crazy thing is that if you go to Stafford Classic bike show you will see knackered restoration project BSA's Triumphs etc for upwards of £5k(usually more) that will almost certainly cost at least the same again to put them right or a tidy BMW the you could throw a leg over and ride to scotland without even thinking about it for less than £3k

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pappajohn said:
In 1965(?) Honda developed a 6 cylinder 250cc race bike and a 2 cylinder 50cc race bike...... Can you imagine the Smallheath engineers trying to make that after a lifetime of vertical single and twin cylinder bikes.
The British bike industry went tits up because they preferred 'tried & tested' to future innovations.
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British engineers can and do anything, and as for developing the race hondas british engineers were behind that,the main man behind the jap two stroke was Blair Q.U.B. british! Check.
When it comes to product funding, was not available due to a globaist banking networks favouring the far east for cheap labour, so dont be insulting to brish engineers, are you an engineer?
 
normski said:
British engineers can and do anything, and as for developing the race hondas british engineers were behind that,the main man behind the jap two stroke was Blair Q.U.B. british! Check.
When it comes to product funding, was not available due to a globaist banking networks favouring the far east for cheap labour, so dont be insulting to brish engineers, are you an engineer?
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You are banging the wrong drum. Short sighted investors and incompetent Boards were the main culprits in my view. An engineer can only work within the constraints imposed by such entities. The 'Not Invented Here' syndrome also applied in many sectors. Much of British industry suffered from this effect, and still does...
I have lots of examples tucked away in my memories of 22 years in general management consultancy, but I think Royal Ordnance Leeds was about the worst example I encountered. It took them15 months to build one very unreliable tank! They also had 800 admin staff as opposed to 400 shop floor workers, and I use that term very loosely...
 
normski said:
British engineers can and do anything, and as for developing the race hondas british engineers were behind that,the main man behind the jap two stroke was Blair Q.U.B. british! Check.
When it comes to product funding, was not available due to a globaist banking networks favouring the far east for cheap labour, so dont be insulting to brish engineers, are you an engineer?
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Whilst there can be no doubt about the skills of Dr Gordon Blair and many other British engineers, for me it was Ernst Degner (defected from what was then East Germany) that led the initial two stroke racing revolution
 
Nasher said:
Whilst there can be no doubt about the skills of Dr Gordon Blair and many other British engineers, for me it was Ernst Degner (defected from what was then East Germany) that led the initial two stroke racing revolution
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A quote from an MCN article:

"Over the next few years the two-stroke would go on to utterly dominate GP racing, so much so that after 1975 not a single world title was won by a four-stroke until the rules were changed and the MotoGP era began in 2001.

That quarter of a century or so gave us some fabulous two-stroke GP bikes which in turn gave us some unforgettable road bikes.

After all, machines like Yamaha’s RD250 and 350LC, Suzuki’s RG500 and Kawasaki’s scary H2 750 triple would never have existed if it wasn’t for the two-stroke’s reign of terror in GPs.

Incredibly, the two-stroke’s decades of dominance can be attributed to one man: a genius East German engineer called Walter Kaaden whose ground-breaking work on the two-stroke at the struggling MZ factory transformed the ‘stinkwheel’ from cheap, smoky moped into glistening global dominator.

Most remarkable of all, Suzuki and the other Japanese factories only built winning two-strokes after Suzuki paid star MZ rider Degner a king’s ransom to defect from East to West and sell Kaaden’s hard-earned secrets.

Degner’s betrayal of Kaaden is a real-life James Bond story that proves that fact is nearly always more fascinating than fiction."
 
tonyidle said:
A quote from an MCN article:

"Over the next few years the two-stroke would go on to utterly dominate GP racing, so much so that after 1975 not a single world title was won by a four-stroke until the rules were changed and the MotoGP era began in 2001.

That quarter of a century or so gave us some fabulous two-stroke GP bikes which in turn gave us some unforgettable road bikes.

After all, machines like Yamaha’s RD250 and 350LC, Suzuki’s RG500 and Kawasaki’s scary H2 750 triple would never have existed if it wasn’t for the two-stroke’s reign of terror in GPs.

Incredibly, the two-stroke’s decades of dominance can be attributed to one man: a genius East German engineer called Walter Kaaden whose ground-breaking work on the two-stroke at the struggling MZ factory transformed the ‘stinkwheel’ from cheap, smoky moped into glistening global dominator.

Most remarkable of all, Suzuki and the other Japanese factories only built winning two-strokes after Suzuki paid star MZ rider Degner a king’s ransom to defect from East to West and sell Kaaden’s hard-earned secrets.

Degner’s betrayal of Kaaden is a real-life James Bond story that proves that fact is nearly always more fascinating than fiction."
Click to expand...

You're absolutely correct, I had the right story, but the wrong name

Note to self: check before you post - your memory isn't what it was 🙂

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pappajohn said:
In 1965(?) Honda developed a 6 cylinder 250cc race bike and a 2 cylinder 50cc race bike...... Can you imagine the Smallheath engineers trying to make that after a lifetime of vertical single and twin cylinder bikes.
The British bike industry went tits up because they preferred 'tried & tested' to future innovations.
Click to expand...
The fact is BSA never invested in new machinery when I used to visit they were using pre war machines plus tunnel vision but the triple Rocket was a eye opener to
 
tonyidle said:
A quote from an MCN article:

"Over the next few years the two-stroke would go on to utterly dominate GP racing, so much so that after 1975 not a single world title was won by a four-stroke until the rules were changed and the MotoGP era began in 2001.

That quarter of a century or so gave us some fabulous two-stroke GP bikes which in turn gave us some unforgettable road bikes.

After all, machines like Yamaha’s RD250 and 350LC, Suzuki’s RG500 and Kawasaki’s scary H2 750 triple would never have existed if it wasn’t for the two-stroke’s reign of terror in GPs.

Incredibly, the two-stroke’s decades of dominance can be attributed to one man: a genius East German engineer called Walter Kaaden whose ground-breaking work on the two-stroke at the struggling MZ factory transformed the ‘stinkwheel’ from cheap, smoky moped into glistening global dominator.

Most remarkable of all, Suzuki and the other Japanese factories only built winning two-strokes after Suzuki paid star MZ rider Degner a king’s ransom to defect from East to West and sell Kaaden’s hard-earned secrets.

Degner’s betrayal of Kaaden is a real-life James Bond story that proves that fact is nearly always more fascinating than fiction."
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How could the 'Kettle' be missing from this list? surely the most iconic and enduring 2 stroke ever made.
 
jongood said:
How could the 'Kettle' be missing from this list? surely the most iconic and enduring 2 stroke ever made.
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The kettle was a good bike, but the Yamaha YR5 begat the RDs, LCs and the most successful race bike ever - the TZs (so many parts were interchangeable between the bikes over many years)

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Got fed up with not getting to where I wanted to go and having to carry half my tools about when riding my Triumph Bonneville so traded it in for a Honda 750. It was like going from an Austin 7 to a Porche.
I read somewhere that the Audi 5 cylinder engine complete with vibration dampers was based on a BSA design!
 
Redken said:
Got fed up with not getting to where I wanted to go and having to carry half my tools about when riding my Triumph Bonneville so traded it in for a Honda 750. It was like going from an Austin 7 to a Porche.
I read somewhere that the Audi 5 cylinder engine complete with vibration dampers was based on a BSA design!
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I had one of these, the most comfortable and reliable bike I ever owned. I even took it to Germany when I was stationed in Osnabruck. Smooth, quiet, handled well, and the crankshaft could be split and removed in two halves using only an Allen key! I padded the crankcase and skimmed the head to match and it would do 90 mph! Ironically, the engine design was nicked from DKW as part of the WWII reparations...
Ariel_Golden_Arrow.jpg
 
Mclouis700 said:
The fact is BSA never invested in new machinery when I used to visit they were using pre war machines plus tunnel vision but the triple Rocket was a eye opener to
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Was that not due to us helping rebuild other Countries industrial workshops.
 
John Barrett said:
I had one of these, the most comfortable and reliable bike I ever owned. I even took it to Germany when I was stationed in Osnabruck. Smooth, quiet, handled well, and the crankshaft could be split and removed in two halves using only an Allen key! I padded the crankcase and skimmed the head to match and it would do 90 mph! Ironically, the engine design was nicked from DKW as part of the WWII reparations...
View attachment 457203
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Had one , great little bike needed de - coking quite often I did all the mods and it was a good stable ride
 

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