{"id":25332,"date":"2024-04-13T00:01:45","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T07:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=25332"},"modified":"2024-04-13T12:37:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T19:37:17","slug":"its-always-about-the-motors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/04\/13\/its-always-about-the-motors\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Always About The Motors"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

For me a motorcycle’s appearance, appeal, and personality are defined by its motor.\u00a0 \u00a0I’m not a chopper guy, but I like the look of a chopper because the engine absolutely dominates the bike.\u00a0 I suppose to some people fully faired motorcycles are beautiful, but I’m not in that camp.\u00a0 The only somewhat fully faired bike I ever had was my 1995 Triumph Daytona 1200, but you could still see a lot of the engine on that machine.\u00a0 I once wrote a Destinations piece for Motorcycle Classics<\/em> on the Solvang Vintage Motorcycle Museum and while doing so I called Virgil Elings, the wealthy entrepreneur who owned it.\u00a0 I asked Elings what drove his interest in collecting motorcycles.\u00a0 His answer?\u00a0 The motors.\u00a0 He spoke about the mechanical beauty of a motorcycle’s engine, and that prompted me to ask for his thoughts on fully faired bikes.\u00a0 “I suppose they’re beautiful to some,” he said, “but when you take the fairings off, they look like washing machines.”\u00a0 I had a good laugh.\u00a0 His observation was spot on.<\/p>\n

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A 1200cc Harley Panhead motor I photographed at the Rock Store in Malibu.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My earliest memory of drooling over a motorcycle occurred sometime in the 1950s when I was a little kid.\u00a0 My Mom was shopping with me somewhere in one of those unenclosed malls on Route 18 in New Jersey, and in those days, it was no big deal to let your kid wander off and explore while you shopped.\u00a0 I think it was some kind of a general store (I have no idea what Mom was looking for), and I wandered outside on the store’s sidewalk.\u00a0 There was a blue Harley Panhead parked out front, and it was the first time I ever had a close look at a motorcycle.\u00a0 It was beautiful, and the motor was especially beautiful.\u00a0 It had those early panhead corrugated exhaust headers, fins, cables, chrome, and more.\u00a0 I’ve always been fascinated by all things mechanical, and you just couldn’t find anything more mechanical than a Big Twin engine.<\/p>\n

There have been a few Sportsters that do it for me, too, like Harley’s Cafe Racer from the late 1970s.\u00a0 That was a fine-looking machine dominated by its engine.\u00a0 I liked the Harley XR1000, too.<\/p>\n

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A 1000cc Harley Cafe Racer photographed at one of the Hansen Dam meets. When these were new, they sold for about $3,000.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve previously mentioned my 7th grade fascination with Walt Skok’s Triumph Tiger.\u00a0 It had the same mesmerizing motorrific effect as the big twin Panhead described above.\u00a0 I could stare at that 500cc Triumph engine for hours (and I did).\u00a0 The 650 Triumphs were somehow even more appealing.\u00a0 The mid-’60s Triumphs are the most beautiful motorcycles in the world (you might think otherwise and that’s okay…you have my permission to be wrong).<\/p>\n

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A 1966 Triumph Bonneville and it’s 650cc twin-carb engine. My Dad rode a Bonneville just like this one.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BSA did a nice job with their engine design, too.\u00a0 Their 650 twins in the ’60s looked a lot like Triumph’s, and that’s a good thing.\u00a0 I see these bikes at the Hansen Dam Norton Owners Club meets.\u00a0 They photograph incredibly well, as do nearly all vintage British twins.<\/p>\n

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A late1960s BSA at Hansen Dam. These are beautiful motorcycles, too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we visited good buddy Andrew in New Jersey recently, he had several interesting machines, but the one that riveted my attention was his Norton P11.\u00a0 It’s 750cc air cooled engine is, well, just wonderful.\u00a0 If I owned that bike I’d probably stare at it for a few minutes every day.\u00a0 You know, just to keep my batteries charged.<\/p>\n

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Andrew Capone’s P-11 Norton. You can read about our visit with Andrew here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You know, it’s kind of funny…back in the 1960s I thought Royal Enfield’s 750cc big twins were clunky looking.\u00a0 Then the new Royal Enfield 650 INT (aka the Interceptor to those of us unintimidated by liability issues) emerged.\u00a0 Its appearance was loosely based on those clunky old English Enfields, but the new twin’s Indian designers somehow made the engine look way better.\u00a0 It’s not clunky at all, and the boys from Mumbai made their interpretive copy of an old English twin look more British than the original.\u00a0 The new Enfield Interceptor is a unit construction engine, but the way the polished aluminum covers are designed it looks like a pre-unit construction engine.\u00a0 \u00a0The guys from the subcontinent hit a home run with that one.\u00a0 I ought to know; after Gresh and I road tested one of these for Enfield North America on a Baja ride, I bought one.<\/p>\n

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The current iteration of Royal Enfield’s 650cc twin. I rode this bike through Baja and liked it so much I bought one when I returned from Mexico.\u00a0 Here’s more (a lot more) about that adventure<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another motorcycle that let you see its glorious air-cooled magnificence was the CB750 Honda.\u00a0 It was awesome in every regard and presented well from any angle, including the rear (which is how most other riders saw it on the road).\u00a0 The engine was beyond impressive, and when it was introduced, I knew I would have one someday (I made that dream come true in 1971).\u00a0 I still can’t see one without taking my iPhone out to grab a photo.<\/p>\n

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A 1969 or 1970 Honda CB 750. This is the motorcycle that put the nail in the British motorcycle industry coffin. I had one just like it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After Honda stunned the world with their 750 Four, the copycats piled on.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, Honda stunned the world again when they introduced their six-cylinder CBX.\u00a0 I had an ’82.\u00a0 \u00a0It was awesome.\u00a0 It wasn’t the fastest motorcycle I ever owned, but it was one of the coolest (and what drove that coolness was its air-cooled straight six engine).<\/p>\n

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A Honda CBX engine photographed at the Del Mar fairgrounds near San Diego. The CBX was a motorcycle that added complexity where none was required. It was an impressive machine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Like they did with the 750 Four, Kawasaki copied the Honda six cylinder, but the Kawasaki engine was water-cooled and from an aesthetics perspective, it was just a big lump.\u00a0 The Honda was a finely-finned work of art.\u00a0 I never wanted a Kawasaki Six; I still regret selling my Honda CBX.\u00a0 The CBX was an extremely good-looking motorcycle.\u00a0 It was all engine.\u00a0 What completed the look for me were the six chrome exhaust headers emerging from in front.\u00a0 I put 20,000 miles on mine and sold it for what it cost me, and now someone else is enjoying it.\u00a0 The CBX was stunning motorcycle, but you don’t need six cylinders to make a motorcycle beautiful.\u00a0 Some companies managed to do it with just two, and some with only one.\u00a0 Consider the engines mentioned at the start of this piece (Harley, Triumph, BSA, and Norton).<\/p>\n

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I shot this photo at Hansen Dam, too. I always wanted a mid-’60s Moto Guzzi. Never scratched that itch, though. They sound amazing. Imagine a refined Harley, and you’d have this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moto Guzzi’s air-cooled V-twins are in a class by themselves.\u00a0 I love the look and the sound of an air-cooled Guzzi V-twin.\u00a0 It’s classy.\u00a0 I like it.<\/p>\n

Some motorcycle manufacturers made machines that were mesmerizing with but a single cylinder, so much so that they inspired modern reproductions, and then copies of those reproductions.\u00a0 Consider Honda’s GB500, and more than a few motorcycles from China and even here in the US that use variants of the GB500 engine.<\/p>\n

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The Honda GB500, Honda’s nod to earlier British singles. It’s another one I always wanted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The GB500 is a water cooled bike, but Sochoiro’s boys did it right.\u00a0 The engine is perfect.\u00a0 Like I said above, variants of that engine are still made in China and Italy; one of those engines powers the new Janus 450 Halcyon.<\/p>\n

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The Janus 450 Halcyon I rode in Goshen. That resulted in a feature story in Motorcycle Classics<\/a>. It’s engine is by SWM in Italy, which is a variant of the Chinese copy of the GB500 engine.\u00a0 I liked the Janus.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No discussion of mechanical magnificence would be complete without mentioning two of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made:\u00a0 The Brough Superior SS100 and the mighty Vincent.\u00a0 The Brits’ ability to design a visually arresting, aesthetically pleasing motorcycle engine must be a genetic trait.\u00a0 \u00a0 Take a look at these machines.<\/p>\n

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The Brough Superior SS100. Its engine had a constant loss lubrication system. This is the same motorcycle Lawrence of Arabia rode. One of my grandsons is named T.E. Lawrence.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The mighty Vincent. This and the Brough Superior above were both photographed at Hansen Dam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two additional bits of moto exotica are the early inline and air-cooled four-cylinder Henderson, and the Thor, one of the very first V-twin engine designs.\u00a0 Both of these boast American ancestry.<\/p>\n

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Jay Leno’s 1931 Henderson. He told me he bought it off a 92-year-old guy in Vegas who was getting a divorce and needed to raise cash, and I fell for it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Henderson you see above belongs to Jay Leno<\/a>, who let me photograph it at one of the Hansen Dam Norton gatherings.\u00a0 Incidentally, if there’s a nicer guy than Jay Leno out there, I haven’t met him.\u00a0 The man is a prince.\u00a0 He’s always gracious, and he’s never too busy to talk motorcycles, sign autographs, or pose for photos.\u00a0 You can read about some of the times I’ve bumped into Jay Leno at the Rock Store or the Hansen Dam event right here on ExNotes.<\/p>\n

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A Thor V-twin photographed at the Franklin Auto Museum in Tucson, Arizona. You almost need a four-year mechanical engineering degree to start one of these. Thor made the first engines for Indian.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Very early vintage motorcycles’ mechanical complexity is almost puzzle-like…they are the Gordian knots of motorcycle mechanical engineering design.\u00a0 I photographed a 1913 Thor for Motorcycle Classics<\/em> (that story is here<\/a>), and as I was optimizing the photos I found myself wondering how guys back in the 1910s started the things.\u00a0 I was able to crack the code, but I had to concentrate so hard it reminded me of dear departed mentor Bob Haskell talking about the Ph.Ds and other wizards in the advanced design group when I worked in the bomb business: “Sometimes those guys think so hard they can’t think for months afterward,” Bob told me (both Bob and I thought the wizards had confused their compensation with their capability).<\/p>\n

There’s no question in my mind that water cooling a motorcycle engine is a better way to go from an engineering perspective.\u00a0 Water cooling adds weight, cost, and complexity, but the fuel efficiency and power advantages of water cooling just can’t be ignored.\u00a0 I don’t like when manufacturers attempt to make a water-cooled engine look like an air-cooled engine with the addition of fake fins (it somehow conveys design dishonesty).\u00a0 But some marques make water cooled engines look good (Virgil Elings’ comments notwithstanding).\u00a0 My Triumph Speed Triple had a water-cooled engine.\u00a0 I think the Brits got it right on that one.<\/p>\n

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My 2007 Triumph Speed Triple. Good buddy Marty told me some folks called these the Speed Cripple. In my case, that turned out to be true, but that’s another story for another blog.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My 2015 CSC RX3. Before you go all nuts on me and start whining about Chinese motorcycle quality, I need to tell you I rode these across China, through the Andes Mountains in Colombia, up and down Baja a bunch of times, and all over the American west (you can read about those adventures here<\/a>). It was one of the best and most comfortable bikes I ever owned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zongshen is another company that makes water-cooled engines look right.\u00a0 I thought my RX3 had a beautiful engine and I really loved that motorcycle.\u00a0 I sold it because I wasn’t riding it too much, but the tiny bump in my bank account that resulted from the sale, in retrospect, wasn’t worth it.\u00a0 I should have kept the RX3.\u00a0 When The Big Book Of Best Motorcycles In The History Of The World<\/em> is written, I’m convinced there will be a chapter on the RX3.<\/p>\n

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The future of “motor” cycling? This is the CSC RX1E. I rode it and liked it. The silence takes some getting used to.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the advent of electric motorcycles, I’ve ridden a few and they are okay, but I can’t see myself ever buying one.\u00a0 That’s because as I said at the beginning of this blog, for me a motorcycle is all about the motor.\u00a0 I realize that’s kind of weird, because on an electric motorcycle the power plant actually is a motor, not an internal combustion engine (like all the machines described above).\u00a0 What you mostly see on an electric motorcycle is the battery, which is the large featureless chingadera<\/em> beneath the gas tank (which, now that I’m writing about it, isn’t a gas tank at all).\u00a0 \u00a0I don’t like the silence of an electric motorcycle.\u00a0 \u00a0They can be fast (the Zero I rode a few years ago accelerated so aggressively it scared the hell out of me), but I need some noise, I need to feel the power pulses and engine vibration, and I want other people to hear me.\u00a0 The other thing I don’t care for is that on an electric motorcycle, the power curve is upside down.\u00a0 They accelerate hardest off a dead stop and fade as the motor’s rpm increases; a motorcycle with an internal combustion engine accelerates harder as the revs come up.<\/p>\n

Wow, this blog went on for longer than I thought it would.\u00a0 I had fun writing it and I had fun going through my photo library for the pics you see here.\u00a0 I hope you had fun reading it.<\/p>\n

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Never miss an ExNotes blog:<\/p>\n

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