Fireworks, hot dogs, and good times….we hope everyone is having a great 4th of July. Hey, a bit of advice…get out and go for a motorcycle ride! Here in California, the weather is perfect!
I had an interesting article in my newsfeed this morning. It’s a history of the 0 to 60 times of America’s favorite (and only) sports car, the Chevy Corvette. Here’s the link to the article, and because I thought it was interesting, I plotted the 0 to 60 times in an Excel graph….
It’s an interesting display. The first Vette, the 1953 model with a 6-cylinder engine, had a 0-60 time of 11 seconds. The next 60 years would see the Corvette’s 0 to 60 times drop to roughly a quarter of the 1953 number, which incidentally put the 0 to 60 time for a $110K 2017 Z06 at about the same level as my 1997 TL1000S Suzuki (which was about 3 seconds flat). The 1970s were the Corvette’s dark ages (the Claybrook era), and then times turned south again as engineering overcame the bureaucrats’ best efforts. The article and the times are a little misleading as the data mix the most extreme performance models (the ZR1, the Z06, and the mid-60s big blocks) with the regular Corvettes, but you get the idea.
The Excel chart is pretty cool, too. Excel allows for including a photo as the chart background, and that’s what I did here. Cool stuff.
Well, I’m off. There’s a car show in town up here in northern California and I’m going to grab a few photos. This retirement business can be exhausting, I guess…
My good buddy Duane is a real Indian fan. Come to think of it, so is my good buddy Joe G.
Anyway, today I drove my wife and two daughters to the mall, and much to my surprise (and delight) there was a store called Kiehl’s that had a fully-restored 1946 Indian Chief on display. Wow! I had the D810 Nikon with me and I asked the good folks at Kiehl’s if I could take a few photos for the CSC blog.
“You bet,” they said, and I went to work. I’ll let the photos do the talking, folks…
Good times and (if I do say so myself) good photography…I sure had fun today. As I photographed the Indian, I was thinking: I wonder if it would be possible to do something like the ’46 Chief (you know, in gloss black with deeply valanced fenders) when the Cafe Racers get here? Hmmm…that might make for an interesting custom bike.
You probably know that there used to be two motorcycle companies in America…one was Indian, and the other was Harley-Davidson. Indian called it quits a few years after World War II and Harley endured. Do you know why?
Here’s the deal: During World War II, the US government bought motorcycles from both Harley and Indian. The Feds told both manufacturers they had to stop producing motorcycles for the civilian market and focus exclusively on making military bikes. Indian did what the government directed. Harley told the government no deal. “We’ll decide who we sell motorcycles to,” Harley said. Harley sold motorcycles to the Army and the Navy, but they also kept selling into the civilian market. As a consequence, when the war ended Harley still had a civilian customer base. Indian did not. Indian struggled for a few years trying to regain market share, but the damage was done and the handwriting was on the wall. It’s all in The Complete Book of Military and Police Motorcycles. I wrote that book about 30 years ago and it’s no longer in print, but it sure was fun researching and putting it together. One of the best parts was finding the cover photo…it’s of Sergeant Dowgin, a New Jersey State Trooper who went on to command Troop D, the New Jersey State Police detachment that patrols the New Jersey Turnpike (the most heavily-traveled road in the country). I actually met Trooper Dowgin once when I was a little boy (my Dad knew him). The photo came to me from my good buddy Mike B, who retired as the Chief of Police of New Brunswick, New Jersey. Like they say, it’s a small world.
The Indian name was resurrected not too long ago, and the new Indian motorcycle company is doing well. Good buddy Duane just bought a new Indian and he loves it. Joe G. gets test rides on them all the time (as part of his motojournalist duties) and he feels the same way. One of these days I’ll probably grab a ride on one of the modern Indians just to see what all the excitement is about. I hear they’re nice bikes. I prefer my RX3, but if I was in the market for a big bike, I’d definitely take a good look at an Indian. As the ’46 Chief in the photos above shows, they sure have a sense of style.
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Wow, here we are in July already. It’s hard to believe the summer is going by so quickly.
It seems the Norton story grabbed a lot of attention. We’ve had quite a few emails from you, our readers, and we thank you for your kind words. It was a grand adventure riding that old thoroughbred, and it sure was fast.
I was out on the rifle range yesterday and later that day when I was prepping cartridge cases for reloading my left wrist was bothering me big time. I thought at first I had hurt something shooting my 30 06, and then I realized: The Norton’s heavy clutch did this! Wowee, that stiff clutch sure lit up my wrist.
The “when did it start for you?” nature of the Norton blog elicited a mini-bike photo from my good buddy Joe Gresh and another one from my good buddy Missouri Charles. These guys still own their very first motorcycle!
Here’s the photo Joe sent of his minibike…
Joe told me that his Dad built his minibike. It has a 2-1/2 horsepower Briggs “sloper” engine tilted a few degrees forward. It sure looks cool, Joe.
And here’s Missouri Charles’ minibike…
Charles tells me that his Mini was built by Bird and it had a 3-horsepower Tecumseh engine.
Both of the above photos are awesome. Charles and Joe, thanks for sharing them with us!
More good news: Our good buddy Roland Wheeler is continuing to light up the track with his RC3. Yep, Roland took first place in the F Superstock Expert class at Buttonwillow yesterday!
Roland, we’re proud of you! Keep on showing those other guys (and the world) what the RC3 can do in the hands of a talented rider like you!
Ah, a bit more fun stuff on this fine July morning, boys and girls. I mentioned a visit to the rifle range. I shot my old .30 06 made by Browning in the early 1970s. I’m a soft touch for a pretty piece of walnut, and this one sure answers the mail in that regard…
It’s a single-shot, falling block B78 with an octagonal barrel, and I mounted a period-correct Weaver 2×7 scope on it. And that walnut! Check this out…
It’s a sweet shooter, too. I found a load that the old Browning will sink into just over an inch at 100 yards. Good times.
And speaking of good times, I stopped my by good buddy Paul’s place yesterday, and he shared a couple of vintage photos with me. One was another photo of his Dad, Walt, in the 1940s. I showed a photo of Walter and his vintage Harley on the Norton blog a couple of days ago. Here’s another one Paul shared with me…
ATGATT had a different meaning back then, I guess. It was more like “all leather, all the time” back in the 1940s.
I love these old vintage pics. Here’s one more…this is Walt with Paul’s little brother Michael. This would have been taken in the early 1970s…
The MGA was Paul’s ride back in the day. We were next-door neighbors and I spent a lot of time riding around with Pauly in that old British sports car.
So, back to the future: Our next company ride is right around the corner, folks. It’s next Saturday and it’s going to be a beautiful run up in the San Gabriel Mountains to Crystal Lake. I’ll be on my TT250 because it’s the perfect bike for the tight twisties we’ll be riding. You can sign up for the ride here, and remember that you don’t have to ride a CSC motorcycle to ride with us (we welcome all brands).
One of the reasons I was back in China a couple of weeks ago was to finalize the next TT250 order. Yep, we’ll be able to announce a ship date on the next production batch in the near term. If you’ve been waiting to order your TT250 (the best deal in all of motorcycling), your patience will soon be rewarded. Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you posted right here.
For me, it started when I was 12 years old in the 7th grade, and it started with British bikes. Triumphs, to be specific. Oh, I’d seen other motorcycles before that, and my good buddy Pauly’s father Walt had owned a Knucklehead after the war. But everything changed when the motorcycle bug bit, it bit hard, and it did so when I was 12 years old. I remember it like it happened last week.
I grew up in a town small enough that our junior high school and high school were all in the same building. It was 7th through 12th grade in that building, which meant that some of the Juniors and Seniors had cars, and one guy had a motorcycle. That one guy was Walt Skok, and the motorcycle was a ‘64 Triumph Tiger (in those days the Tiger was a 500cc single-carbed twin). It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, with big downswept chrome exhaust headers, a cool tank with a dynamite chrome rack, chrome wire wheels, and the most perfect look I had ever seen on anything. I spent every spare moment I had sneaking out into the parking lot to stare at the thing. Some things in the world are perfect, the precise blend of style and function that makes them extremely desirable (things like Weatherby rifles, 1911 handguns, C4 Corvettes, Nikon DSLRs, and 1960s Triumph motorcycles).
A ’64 Triumph Tiger, just like the one Walt Skok owned.
Back to the Triumph: One day Walt started it (I had been looking at it for a month before I ever heard it run), and the perfection was complete. In those days, a 500cc motorcycle was enormous. When Walt fired it up, it was unlike anything I had ever heard. It wasn’t lumpy and dumpy like a Harley, it wasn’t a whiny whinny like a Honda, and it wasn’t a tinny “wing-ding-ding-ding-ding” like a Suzuki or a Yamaha (they were all two-strokes back then). Nope, the Triumph was perfect. It was deep. It was visceral. It was tough. The front wheel and forks literally throbbed back and forth with each engine revolution. To my 12-year-old eyes and ears it was the absolute essence of a perfect machine. It looked and sounded like a machine with a heart and a soul. I knew that someday I would own a machine like this.
Fast forward a few years, and I was old enough own and ride my own Triumphs. I’ve had a bunch of mid-‘60s and ‘70s Triumphs…Bonnevilles, Tigers, and a Daytona (which was a 500cc twin-carbed twin back then). I was a young guy and those British motorcycles were (and here’s that word again) perfect. They were fast, they handled well, and they sounded wonderful. I had a candy-red-and-gold ’78 750 Bonneville (they always had the coolest colors) that would hit an indicated 109 mph on Loop 820 around Fort Worth, and I did that regularly on those hot and humid Texas nights. It was wonderful.
Fast forward another 50 years (and another 40 or 50 motorcycles for me). We saw the death of the British motorcycle empire, the rise and fall and rise of Harley-Davidson, this new thing called globalization, digital engine management systems, multi-cylinder ridiculously porky motorcycles, and, well, me writing a blog extolling the virtues of world exploration on 250cc Chinese singles.
So here we are, today.
Jerry, our service manager, owned this ultra-cool Norton Commando. Steve bought the bike and put it on display here in the CSC showroom. We’ve got a lot of cool bikes here, including vintage Mustangs, Harleys, Beemers, our CSC RX3s, RC3s, and TT250s, and more. But my eye kept returning to that Norton. I’d never ridden a Norton, but I’d heard the stories when I was younger.
Back in the day (and I’m jumping back to the ‘60s and ‘70s again), guys who wanted to be cool rode Triumphs. I know, because I was one of them. We knew about Nortons, but we didn’t see them very often. They had bigger engines and they were more expensive than Triumphs, and their handling was reported to be far superior to anything on two wheels. Harleys had bigger engines and cost more than Triumphs, too, but unlike Harleys, Nortons were faster than Triumphs (and Triumphs were plenty fast).
So, like I said, guys who wanted to be cool rode Triumphs. But guys who rode Triumphs really wanted to ride Nortons. Nortons were mythical bikes. Their handling and acceleration were legendary. In the ‘60s, the hardest accelerating bike on the planet was the Norton Scrambler (Norton stuffed a 750 into a 500 frame). I remember guys talking about those bikes in hushed tones. You spoke about reverential things softly back then.
And now, here we are in the present, with a 1973 Norton Commando sitting in our showroom (just a few feet away from where I write the blog). Steve’s Norton is magnificent. It’s original. It’s not been restored and it wears its patina proudly.
“Steve,” I said a few days ago, “you need to let me ride that Norton.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll have Gerry get it ready for you.”
Wow, I thought. I’m going to catch a ride on a Norton. I felt like the little dog who chased and finally caught the bus. Like that little dog, I had now had a mouthful of bus. What do you do when that happens?
I sat on the Norton that afternoon. It felt big. The pegs were set far to the rear and my hips hurt immediately from the bike’s racing ergos (and maybe a little from the femur and spine fractures I suffered in a motorcycle accident a few years ago). I don’t bend as easily as I used to. Maybe my mouth wrote a check my body wouldn’t be able to cash. But I was committed. The Norton went back to Gerry in the Service Department so he could get it ready for me to ride. There could be no backing out now.
So today was the day. I was nervous, I was excited, and I was a little giddy. All I’ve ridden for the last 7 or 8 years have been 150cc Mustangs and the 250cc Zongs. Lightweight bikes. Singles. Under 25 horsepower. Electric starters and all the amenities. Modern stuff. I rode my TT250 in on the 210 freeway this morning, the weather was perfect, and I realized on the way in how much I love riding the TT. While I was riding the TT, I thought about riding the 850 Norton. It dawned on me that I had not even heard it run yet. I realized I really like electric starters. Even though my TT250 has a kick starter, I hadn’t kick started a bike in probably 35 years. The Norton is an 850, and it’s kick start only. Hmmm.
When I arrived at the plant, Steve pushed the Norton outside for me. We both tried to figure out where the ignition key went and we solved that problem (it’s on the left side of the bike). We tried to guess at the ignition key’s run spot (it has four or five positions). We picked the second one and I tried kicking the engine. It’s a complicated affair. You have to fold the right footpeg in, and when you kick the starter, you have to try to not hit the gear shift lever on the right side of the bike. We kicked it a couple of times. Hmmm again. Lots of compression. Then Steve had to run back into the plant to take a phone call. I tried kick starting the Norton a couple of times again without even a cough from the engine.
I played with the key and clicked it over one more notch. Another kick, and the mighty 850 fired right up. It settled into an easy idle. Ah, success. It was wonderful. It sounded just like Walt Skok’s Triumph. I was in the 7th grade again. I looked around to see if Steve had seen me start it, but no one was there. It was just me and the Norton. Okay, I thought, I’ll just ride around in the parking lot to get the feel of the clutch, the throttle, and the brakes.
Whoa! I thought as I let the clutch out gingerly. This puppy has power! The Norton was turning over at an easy idle and it felt incredibly powerful as I eased the clutch out. I tried the rear brake and there was….nothing. Oh, yeah, the rear brake is on the other side. I tried the front brake, and it was strong. Norton had already gone to disk brakes by 1973, and the disk on Steve’s Commando was just as good as a modern bike’s brakes are today.
I rode the Norton into the shop so Gerry could fill the fuel tank for me. The Norton has a sidestand and a centerstand, but you can’t get to either one while you are on the bike. You have to hold the bike up, dismount on the left, and then put it on the centerstand. The side stand was under there somewhere, but I didn’t want to mess around trying to catch it with my boot. It was plenty scary just getting off the Norton and holding it upright. It was more than a little scary, actually. I’m riding my boss’s vintage bike here, it’s bigger than anything I’ve been on in years, and I don’t want to drop it.
Gerry gave me “the talk” about kick starting the Norton. “I don’t like to do it while I’m on the bike,” he said. “If it kicks back, it will drive your knee right into the handlebars and that hurts. I always do it standing on the right side of the bike.” Hmmmm. As if I wasn’t nervous enough already.
I tried the kickstarter two or three times (with everybody in the service area watching me) and I couldn’t start the thing, even though I had started it outside (when no one was around to witness my success). Gerry kicked the Norton once for me (after my repeated feeble attempts) and it started immediately. Okay. I get it. You have to show it who’s boss.
I strapped my camera case to the Norton’s back seat (or pillion, as they say in Wolverhampton), and then I had a hard time getting back on the bike. I couldn’t swing my leg over the camera bag. Yeah, I was nervous. And everybody in the shop was still watching me.
With the Norton twerking to its British twin tango, I managed to turn it around and get out onto Route 66. A quick U-turn (all the while concentrating intensely on “shift on the right, brake on the left”) and I rode through the mean streets of north Azusa toward the San Gabriels. In just a few minutes, I was on Highway 39, about to experience riding Nirvana.
Wow, this is sweet, I thought as I climbed into the San Gabriels. I had no idea what gear I was in, but gear selection didn’t seem to make any difference. The Norton had power and torque that just wouldn’t stop. Go faster, more throttle, shifting optional. It didn’t matter what gear I was in (which was good, because all I knew was that I was somewhere north of 1st). I looked at the tach. It had a 7000-rpm redline and I was bouncing around somewhere in the 2500 neighborhood. And when I say bouncing around, I mean it literally. The tach needle oscillated ±800 rpm at anything below 3000 rpm (it settled down above 3000 rpm, a region I would visit only once on today’s ride). The low speed torque was incredible. I realized I didn’t even know how many gears the bike had, so I pulled over and clicked through all of them just to get a count (the number is four).
The Norton was amazing in every regard. The sound was soothing and symphonic. It’s what God intended motorcycles to sound like. Highway 39 is gloriously twisty and the big Norton (which suddenly didn’t feel so big) ate it up. The Norton never felt cumbersome or heavy (it’s only about 20 lbs heavier than an RX3). It was extremely powerful. I was carving through the corners moderately aggressively at very tiny throttle openings. Just a little touch of my right hand and it felt like I was a cannon-launched projectile. (Full disclosure: I’ve never been launched from a cannon, but I’m pretty sure what I experienced today is what it would feel like.) Everything about the Norton felt (and here’s that word again) perfect.
I was having so much fun that I missed the spot where I normally stop to take our CSC glamour shots. There’s a particular place on Highway 39 where I can position a bike and get some curves in the photo (and it looks great in our ads), but I sailed right past it. I was enjoying the ride. But when I realized I missed the spot where I wanted to stop for photos, it made me think about my camera and I reached behind me to make sure it was still on the seat behind me.
My camera wasn’t there! Oh, no, I thought, I lost my camera, and God only knows where it might have fallen off. I looked around behind me, and the camera was hanging off the left side of the bike, captured in the bungee net. Wow, I dodged a bullet there. I pulled off and then I realized: I don’t want to kill the engine because then I’ll have to start it, and if I can’t, I’m going to feel mighty stupid calling Gerry to come rescue me. Okay, off to the side of the road, find a flat spot, keep the engine running, put all my weight on my bad left leg, swing my right leg over the seat, hold the Norton upright, get the bike on the centerstand, unhook the bungee net, sling the camera case over my shoulder, get back on the bike, and all the while, keep the engine running. Actually, it wasn’t that bad, though. And I was having a lot of fun.
I arrived at the East Fork bridge sooner than I thought I would (time does indeed fly when you’re riding an 850 Norton Commando). I made the right turn. I would have done the complete Glendora Ridge Road loop we normally do, but the CalTrans sign told me that Glendora Ridge Road was closed. I looked for a spot to stop and grab a few photos of this magnificent beast. That’s when I noticed that the left footpeg rubber had fallen off the bike. It’s the rubber piece that fits over the foot peg. Oh, no, I thought once again. I didn’t want to lose pieces of Steve’s bike, although I knew from my earlier days no ride on any British vertical twin would be complete without something falling off the bike. I made a U-turn and rode back and forth several times along a half-mile stretch where I thought I lost the rubber, but I couldn’t find it. When I pulled off to turn around yet again, I stalled the bike.
Hmmm. No doubt about it now. I’m going to have to start the Norton on my own.
We (me and my good buddy Norton, that is) had picked a good spot to stop. I dismounted using the procedure described earlier, I pulled the black beauty onto its centerstand, and I grabbed several photos. I could tell they were going to be good. Sometimes you just know when you’re behind the camera that things are going well. And on the plus side of the ledger, all of the U-turns I had just made (along with the magnificent canyon carving on Highway 39) had built up my confidence enormously. The Norton was going to start for me because I wanted it to.
And you know what? That’s exactly what happened. One kick and all was well with the world. I felt like Marlon Brando, Steve Mc Queen, and Peter Fonda, all rolled up into one 66-year-old teenager. Yep, at that moment I was a 7th-grade kid staring at Walt Skok’s Triumph. Yeah, I’m bad. A Norton will do that to you. I just stared at the bike as it idled. It was a living, breathing, snorting, shaking, powerful thing. Seeing it alive like that was perfect. I suddenly remembered my Nikon camera had video. Check this out…
So there you have it. We get classic bikes in on trade here at CSC, and we’re going to be seeking out more of them. And when I can do what I did today again, well, you know…
Hey, this is cool…I just received my copies of the latest edition of Motorcycle Classics, and my story on the Columbia River Gorge is in it. There are a lot of other cool stories in this issue, including one on the 1977 Ducati that won Daytona. If you’re not a subscriber, be sure to pick up your copy at the news stand (Barnes and Noble carries Motorcycle Classics). In my opinion, it’s the best motorcycle magazine on the planet.
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Here’s another top 10 list from one of my favorite magazines, Motorcycle.com, and it’s on the top 10 cult bikes of the modern era. Nope, we’re not on that list (yet), but I’m predicting within a few years the RX3 will make it. We’ve already made a couple of Motorcycle.com’s top 10 lists for the best value in all of motorcycling. I think we’re probably too new to be considered a cult bike, but I’m sure it’s going to happen. You just don’t meet RX3 owners who aren’t passionate about their bikes (with good reason, I might add). The combination of the RX3’s passionate following and its iconic appearance, I think, have already made it a cult bike.
The KLR 650 made the Motorcycle.com cult bike list, and there’s no denying that the KLR belongs there. I owned a KLR for 10 years (I just sold it this year). It was a good bike, but (and you knew I was going to say this), I like my RX3 better. I just wasn’t riding the KLR anymore, and it needed to go to someone who would enjoy it.
My old KLR, somewhere in Baja.
Two of the bikes on the top 10 cult list are bikes I would like to own someday. Well, sort of. One is the Honda GB500. That’s a Honda 500cc single (it’s been out of production for some time) styled like a British classic bike, and I think it just looks cool. They are a bit pricey, but if the right one came along, I’d be a player.
The Honda GB500.
My “sort of” comment above pertains to the Buell Ulysses, another bike that made the Motorcycle.com list. I’m not a big fan of the Ulysses (although they look and sound cool). My cup of tea is their streetfighter model, the Lightning. I test rode one when they were new and took a pass, but I’m thinking now if I could find a Lightning at the right price (especially in that translucent orange color…it’s awesome), I’d go for it.
A Buell Lightning.
Ah, well, I can dream. When I test rode the Buell a good 15 years ago, it felt like the wheelbase was too short, the bike felt a bit twitchy, and the noise when the rear cylinder cooling fan switched on was unnerving (a band-aid corrective action if ever there was one), but the exhaust note and the overall appearance of the thing was just flat cool. Maybe I’ll take a gander at CycleTrader later today. Don’t tell my wife…
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Hey, we’ve received a bunch of good ideas in response to our request for 2018 RX3 suggestions. We’re giving serious consideration to all of your ideas. Thanks very much for sending them to us!
Wowee, wowee, wowee…I have more cool stuff to share with you this morning.
For starters, things are moving along (albeit slowly) on the Cafe Racer. We are finalizing the configuration with Zongshen and hopefully I’ll be able to report more progress in the very near future. I’ll keep you posted on when the bikes will be here.
With Zongshen’s worldwide success, they are bumping up against capacity issues, and we can’t always get the bikes we want as quickly as we want. Stated differently, demand for Zongshen bikes all over the planet means that getting new bikes is taking a bit longer. It’s similar to what Harley went through in the early 1990s, except you won’t ever have to pay a “market adjustment” (read: dealer gouging) price for our bikes.
High worldwide demand is keeping the plates spinning at all three Zongshen manufacturing locations.
More interesting stuff: I received a nice note from my good buddy Greg (who owns both a TT250 and an RX3, and who rode with us on three Baja runs) telling me about his appearance on a motorcycle podcast. You’ll remember Greg…this is a photo from the TT250 run through Baja…
Good buddy Greg on the Rumarosa Grade in northern Baja.
And just because I love the photo and the location, here’s a shot of the Rumarosa Grade…
Fabulous riding on Baja’s Rumarosa Grade.
As Greg said in his note, the podcast is a little irreverent (read: lots of profanity), but as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Here’s the link:
Greg did a good job explaining the TT250, the RX3, and CSC. Greg, thanks for sending the link to me.
More good news…we’re getting more classic bikes in the showroom and in for maintenance, and I’m going to get out on Steve’s Norton later this week…
Steve’s Norton Commando…I’m riding it this week!
Watch for our report on what it’s like to ride a classic bike up in the San Gabriel Mountains in the next week or so. I’m excited. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden a vintage British twin and I’m really looking forward to it.
And speaking of classic bikes, you’ll remember the story I did on the MotoDoffo visit a few months ago right here in the CSC blog. One of the photos in that feature took a little extra work to get right. The entrance of the MotoDoffo collection is a really cool veranda overlooking the vineyard, and it has a bunch of classic bikes in the eves. The challenge was getting a decent photo properly exposed to show both the bikes and the surrounding hills. When I shot the vineyards, the bikes were underexposed…
The vineyards are properly exposed, but the bikes are too dark.
…and when I set the exposure to capture the bikes, the surrounding fields were overexposed…
The bikes are properly exposed in this photo, but the vineyard is overexposed.
The difference in exposures for the bikes and the fields was too dramatic to try to let the camera adjust for it using its built-in HDR feature, so the drill was to take two the photos shown above (from a tripod), and then cut and paste from one into the other in PhotoShop. Here’s how it’s done..
The bikes properly exposed and selected in PhotoShop.
Copying and pasting the bikes on the photo with the vineyard properly exposed.
And when you roll it all together, everything looks good…
The MotoDoffo veranda, as created through the magic of PhotoShop.
That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned…there’s more good stuff coming your way.
I went over to the BMW dealer’s yesterday to meet my friends Marty and Dennis for lunch, and (I thought) to see the new 310cc BMW. Alas, it was not to be…the sales guy told me the new small BMW hasn’t made it to the showrooms yet. Ah, well, I was only going to be a looky-loo anyway, and then I spotted this stunning boxer twin…
It was stunning, it felt incredibly heavy, the ergos were terrible for this old boy, it was over $15K (which is actually kind of cheap for a new BMW), but boy oh boy, it sure was beautiful. In another life I would have pulled out my checkbook and bought it on the spot. That’s been known to happen, but it didn’t happen yesterday. I sure was tempted, though. My compliments to BMW…that boxer twin is stunning!
I guess the BMW is a cafe cacer of some sort, and that headlight fairing works for me in a retro sort of way. When I was a teenager, the concept of a bike with a fairing was new and appealing. One of the James Bond movies back then (Thunderball; I just found it on the Internet while writing this blog) featured a motorcycle that had the same look…a fairing with a single large headlight…
It’s a look that works. The BMW kind of reminds of the motorcycle in the Bond movie. I like it. I wonder how difficult it would be to modify our new 250cc Cafe Racer with a comparable fairing…
Posted inCSC Motorcycles|Comments Off on Not for me, but wow!
It’s an interesting display. The first Vette, the 1953 model with a 6-cylinder engine, had a 0-60 time of 11 seconds. The next 60 years would see the Corvette’s 0 to 60 times drop to roughly a quarter of the 1953 number, which incidentally put the 0 to 60 time for a $110K 2017 Z06 at about the same level as my 1997 TL1000S Suzuki (which was about 3 seconds flat). The 1970s were the Corvette’s dark ages (the Claybrook era), and then times turned south again as engineering overcame the bureaucrats’ best efforts. The article and the times are a little misleading as the data mix the most extreme performance models (the ZR1, the Z06, and the mid-60s big blocks) with the regular Corvettes, but you get the idea.
RX1E Electric Motorcycle
SG250 San Gabriel Cafe Racer
TT250 Enduro