Re: Norton
Heather wrote:
> He was half asleep when I asked him your question and he laughed and
> said he did miss it.....lol. Haven't a clue what you two are talking
> about!!
>
Being kicked up the arse by God!
Or. Supposing we're talking about an engine of sufficient 'bang', which is a
combination of cylinder capacity and piston compression ration: a four
cylinder (or more) layout such as the modern car has, and most modern bikes
have, divides said bang into smaller, more rapidly delivered thumps than you
get from the single cylinder layout.
A fairly high compression twin cylinder engine - such as in the rock'n'roll
era Triumphs, Nortons and BSAs, to name just most of them, still packs a
punch but is perhaps the perfect compromise between what can become
uncomfortable after a while and what can seem so sanitised as to put one to
sleep. Of course, a 750cc Triumph (or a 1000cc triple or 1200 four) is like
having two or more 350cc single cylinder engines beneath one - but the thump
is delivered in more rapid succession than on a single, and that effects how
one 'feels' about the ride.
Kind of funny to think about it, as we have long talked of the old
(pre-Japanese) machines having 'soul', when actually I suppose it is we who
have it, just the bike brings it out! Like an elation bubbling up as you
realize - or remember - there is a valuable facet of being, normally absent
in everyday life. Helps you experience life in the Now, I suppose, to wake
from your somnambulist existence. What motorcycling is about.
I think a 350 is about the lowest capacity single you can have without
raising the compression ration that triggers this bang-induced paradigm
shift, while a high compression 250 is too raw, the thump being so jarring
as to be distracting. A big twin or multi delivers a different stimulus (you
appreciate I'm wildly hypothesizing here!), but it seems to me that this is
something to do with frequency, as in the number of bangs within a timeframe
having the potential to alter consciousness (perhaps as a form of
autosuggestion, though that is more likely in a car
); you know, because
a twin of twice the capacity and the same compression at the same rpm
delivers two thumps to the single's one and the only difference is they're
closer together in time and somehow that makes them more bearable?
Maybe that is what to be concious is: to be propelled from one degree of
altered state to another and that at any given moment we are not precisely
who we were just before. Anyway, there is nothing quite like riding a 350 or
500cc old Brit single cylinder motorcycle, and that part, at least, is not
raving!
Shane
> Figgs
>
> "Shane" <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:ubmv8diNJHA.1228@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Does he miss the single cylinder thump? I know I do!
>>
>> Shane
>>
>> Heather wrote:
>>> "Shane" <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:uH75JMbNJHA.4116@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>> Heather wrote:
>>>>> LOL!! I have goofed on this one before and I will ask him when he
>>>>> gets back. The Loon knows which one it is....being a *bike
>>>>> freak*. The word Aerial comes to mind as well.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There were no shortage of Ariels. I would guess a Hunter of some
>>>> sort
>>>> (350 and 500 singles):
>>>
>>> Good man!! He is standing behind me and says it was an "Ariel 500
>>> Single" and he bought it here in Canada and it was a 1951 model.
>>> Looks like that picture you posted the link for.
>>>
>>> He almost ran into the back of a car and scared himself
>>> ****less....so
>>> he sold it. (G)
>>>
>>> Heather & the Old Guy
>>>> http://www.barkshire.co.uk/bikes/images/ArielNH_1937/ArielNH_1937_Jan8_2006 008.jpg
>>>> but there were the square fours:
>>>> http://www.britishclassicmotorcycles.co.uk/communities/4/004/005/355/724/images/4522327139.jpg
>>>> another of those old Brit designs that the Japanese emulated
>>>> decades later and most people thought was new and daring. Not to
>>>> take anything away from the Japs though!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> No, his name is *Renaldo y Jose y Maria y Smith*.....grin.
>>>>
>>>> He must have been before his time in so many ways!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Shane
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "Shane" <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:OR2xEHLNJHA.740@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>>>> I'd guess an ES2 then. Can't imagine an Inter on Jamaica somehow.
>>>>>> Last time
>>>>>> I saw one of those was at Bracknell Motorcycle Auction in about
>>>>>> '76. Or
>>>>>> rather parked outside. I went up on the back of a mate's 350
>>>>>> Matchless. Very
>>>>>> pretty in the stately silver way Nortons of the pre-rocker era
>>>>>> usually were!
>>>>>> And the guy who took me to that auction is the only one besides
>>>>>> myself I
>>>>>> knew from the old days who still rode a Bonnie in the 21st
>>>>>> Century.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, do ask him what it was.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sure his name isn't really Ernesto?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Shane
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Heather" <figgyd@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>>>>>> news:uIwtuWKNJHA.1160@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>>>>>> I think Ron had a Norton bike in Jamaica......I will have to ask
>>>>>>> him. Whatever he had, he messed up and never rode one again.
>>>>>>> Wussie!! (G)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Figgs (and we are talking *OLD* here.....this would have been
>>>>>>> late
>>>>>>> '40's)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "Shane" <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>> news:eg6eufJNJHA.4456@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>>>>>> No Joan, unfortunately not. And they don't even make the
>>>>>>>> rotary-engined
>>>>>>>> Command-er that did so very well in the road racing not so long
>>>>>>>> ago!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Even when we can *still* make something really well the
>>>>>>>> powers-that-be
>>>>>>>> allow
>>>>>>>> it to fail.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Shane
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Joan Archer" <joanarcher@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>>> news:Oh0tvrINJHA.4716@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>>>>>>> Do they still make them ?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>> Joan Archer
>>>>>>>>> http://www.freewebs.com/crossstitcher
>>>>>>>>> http://lachsoft.com/photogallery
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> <shanebeatson@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>> news:f7a00dce-cb0f-4d3d-9066-bcd58c4e0d69@q35g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>>>>>> On Oct 22, 3:32 pm, "Heirloom" <nobodyh...@noplacelike.hom>
>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> "Norton for Dummies"............what's wrong with that???
>>>>>>>>>>> Who else
>>>>>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>>>>>> anything Norton be for?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Norton for Commandos?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Now that is a bike!
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Shane