Cycle World

My most recent issue of Cycle World (May 2006) had two columns I found interesting.
The first, by the head-honcho, was apparently prompted by the staff’s being blown away by the newly reconstituted Norton Commando for 2007, being brought to market by Kenny Dreer of Oregon, a restorer of old Norton motorcycles.
The Norton is the old Commando brought up-to-date: modern brakes and suspension, and a vertical twin motor that fires every 270°, instead of the matched pistons of the old Norton, 180°; a heavy vibrator. The new motor also has a balance-shaft.
The writer decried the most recent spate of hyper-bikes, since most riding is hardly done at 150+.
He then went on to say Harley has been playing that chord for years, building bikes that rode well at normal speeds.
The second column was their regular column from their techno-geek. He was decrying the styling of recent bikes: hard-edged and overdone.
Which is partly why I bought the Banana instead of the red Double-R. The red one had pointed black graphics on it; the yellow one didn’t. The red one was overdone.
He also talked about the rear tires on custom chops; that a bike that puts about 80 horsepower to the street hardly needs a tire that could handle 1,000.
My niece’s husband’s Big Dog is an excellent example. He loudly claims 152 horsepower for the motor — I figure maybe 90. Yet the bike has a gigantic 600cc rear; cool-looking, but sheesh!
The bike that turned me around was my FZR400; light, and very easy to ride.
Before it I had the RZ350, which I made a number of mistakes on.
Light as it was, it still wasn’t a bicycle. You couldn’t pick it up.
My mistake was trying to make it a Ducati: clip-ons, rear-sets, and engine-mods (primarily resonator pipes) that killed it below 6,000.
I traded it for the FZR, and was promptly blown away.
I remember navigating a car-lot in search of Bronco IIs, and was confronted with stones. I would have never tried it on my Norton or Ducati or RZ.
But the FZR made it easy as pie. It was light and easy to maneuver. It had incredibly good balance.
Part of it was the gas-tank was centralized under your crotch. What looked like the gas-tank actually shrouded an airbox.
So to me, the Harley is a throwback. The gas-tank is still between your knees, and it’s too heavy.
And of course the seat is wrong: bolt-erect and sit-up-and-beg, which to me means hang-on-for-dear-life. The common misconception is that the racing posture (much like the 10-speed bicycle, which I am used to) is uncomfortable; that a sport-bike is a 20-minute bike.
Well I owned the mighty Cow seven years, so rode that way for a long while. The FZR400 was the same way. And I would ride that way for way more than 20 minutes. (I rode the FZR all the way to Delaware in one afternoon; mighty Cow too — plus a four-day jaunt all over Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York City, and the Jersey Turnpike.)
Seemed Jack was getting off his GeezerGlide a lot on our way to the mighty Curve. I would ride the mighty Cow for hours on end.
The only thing wrong with the FZR400 is that the motor was so tiny it wanted 8500 rpm to do 65. But the mighty Cow scotched that by wanting only 6500.
The Banana is the same, and weighs about 375. Plus it’s the size of the FZR — the mighty Cow always felt too big.
By comparison, Jack’s Harley is a tour-boat; way too big.