Motorcycle General Discussion

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

I bought a new Greeves 197 20TA trials bike dec 1958,cost £172 It came without lights, these were an extra which I could not afford at £7 & ten shilings,I still have the original sales leaflet. For lights I bolted to my handle bars a 6v car type sealed beam headlight unit well taped up to keep the water out ,I was 17 at the time I was on £4 10shillings apprentice wages at the time plus 12 shillings for two hours work on Sundays selling /delivering sunday newspapers,that was good money .My wages were over twice what most apprentices earned in my class at technical colledge. Later on I bought a new trials 1964 Greeves 24TES mark 2 this cost £252 by this time I was running a Morris 1000 pick up to carry the bike to trials.

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Posted by Nigel McBurney 1 on 24/12/2020 15:08:59:

I bought a new Greeves 197 20TA trials bike dec 1958,cost £172 It came without lights, these were an extra which I could not afford at £7 & ten shilings,I still have the original sales leaflet. For lights I bolted to my handle bars a 6v car type sealed beam headlight unit well taped up to keep the water out ,I was 17 at the time I was on £4 10shillings apprentice wages at the time plus 12 shillings for two hours work on Sundays selling /delivering sunday newspapers,that was good money .My wages were over twice what most apprentices earned in my class at technical colledge. Later on I bought a new trials 1964 Greeves 24TES mark 2 this cost £252 by this time I was running a Morris 1000 pick up to carry the bike to trials.

My first trials bike was a bit later than yours a Sprite with 197 Villiers. That to was transported with a Morris 1000 pick up. I sold the Sprite and bought a Bultaco, much easier to ride, after a few years I switched to a "Beamish Suzuki" with the Whitlock frame because riders with them where winning most local trials. I just could not get on with the bike and gave up trials.

[Peter Jones 20Participant @peterjones20]

I had a Sprite but with a Sachs engine and a Bing carb. Impossible to start when it got too cold (snow on the ground cold)

Don't remember much about it though as I sold it couple of months after getting hold of it, was more into four stroke bikes and had several Royal Enfield 250's and saw some pictures of Enfield 250 trials ( was it Mick Andrews?)

Friend had a Suzuki RL250, sold Bultaco to get it LOL

[Cyril BonnettParticipant @cyrilbonnett24790]

Glad to see that the Norton Commando MK3 interstate is alive and kicking, I purchased one of the first one's from Ernie Page In Edinburgh, it epitomised all that was wrong with British motorcycles, they promised no more oil leaks or exhaust pipes coming loose, disc brakes, electric starter (Prestolite), cost me around £1300 and two weeks later they reduced it to £1100!

But what they didn't tell me was don't ride it!

Delivered by NVT van with two mechanics, factory prepared ready to ride. Throttle cable too short, the first left hand turn was interesting.120 miles to show 'mum' my new bike, as if she really wanted to see it but that's mums and motorbikes. The 'fixed' exhaust clamps came loose, lump of wood at side of the road tighten them, on the way back it started miss firing, Victor Devine and a new plug sorted it.  In the cold mornings the Prestolite starter was a joke it need the kick starter for assistance!  Fixed rev cable? too short and covered right boot with oil. Discs were chromed, in the wet????? but sorted themselves when the chrome started to flake. Fork lowers were porus and to cap it all the right exhaust spring took a permanent set two weeks after the 6 month warranty expired (Japanese sourced) "on ya bike" I paid for the parts and Ernie fixed it, 7 months old it was sold to Edgar Brothers, Leith walk in exchange for a Honda 750F2, Road it to Berlin three weeks later, 120,000 miles it still started like new, when sold it had no oil leaks and no problems. The other day I saw  Commando MK£ interstate  for sale nearly £13000.,

 

Edited By Cyril Bonnett on 28/12/2020 20:09:32

Edited By Cyril Bonnett on 28/12/2020 20:13:50

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Posted by Peter Jones 20 on 28/12/2020 07:45:53:

I had a Sprite but with a Sachs engine and a Bing carb. Impossible to start when it got too cold (snow on the ground cold)

Don't remember much about it though as I sold it couple of months after getting hold of it, was more into four stroke bikes and had several Royal Enfield 250's and saw some pictures of Enfield 250 trials ( was it Mick Andrews?)

Friend had a Suzuki RL250, sold Bultaco to get it LOL

Biggest problem with my Sprite trials iron was the riders incompetence. For me I felt the steering head angle was a little to steep, great for a good rider on the tight nadgery stuff but a tendency to "Tuck under" for the less skilled.

[Peter Jones 20Participant @peterjones20]

LOL, it didn't have extra long rear shocks?

 

I used to ride mine around on rear wheel only, had much better balance those days

As for 850 COMMANDO, friend in local club had one and did ? thousands of miles on it without too much issue. Replaced gearbox bearings with the barrel type as they were standard parallel roller (even though should have been barrel shaped rollers from factory)

Used the 'race shop' trick to adjust isolastics (lay it on a wood block and beat the other side with a tree trunk, then tighten bolts)

I worked at A Honda dealers when the F2 was launched, forks were incredibly flimsy and would bend badly enough for seals to leak under heavy breaking (you could see the 'wiper' marks on rear of fork leg about 2" higher than on front)

Had to do a crankcase change on one, it fell over in car park and landed on points cover, cracked a small section from case and insurance company said change them. I was fit enough and strong enough to pick up a 212lb engine those days .

I would have helped if shop foreman had a clue what he was doing though (forgot to disconnect clutch cable and starter cable, 'my fault' for not checking his work?

Standing there with engine in arms while he 'fixed'  my problem wasn't fun but Mike had some fantastic BS..

Do you mean Honda or Norton sold for £13,000?

Neither is worth half of that so there must be some dumb people out there?

 

Edited By Peter Jones 20 on 28/12/2020 23:01:03

[Ian Johnson 1Participant @ianjohnson1]

Yep £13,000 for MK3 is believable and other 750 and 850 Commandos have been selling for stupid money in the UK, especially if they are so called 'original' but they are definitely not worth that amount of money. Put the word 'classic' on a machine and people go all dewy eyed and raid their pension pot!

I suppose I'm fortunate with my MK3 because it's ex Liverpool police and I can do what I like with it, loads of stainless fixings, alloy rims with stainless spokes, new Amal carbs etc. And I'll bin the Prestolite starter for a better unit. With all the non original bits and pieces the value won't change that much, I expect I'll get back all the thousands I've put into it over the years.

IanJ

Edit:  Oh! and I'll be putting black cap silencers on it too! (don't like the reverse cone things)

Edited By Ian Johnson 1 on 28/12/2020 23:52:03

[Peter Jones 20Participant @peterjones20]

Hi Ian,

Many years ago brother was late for work and riding a Triumph 500 when he got pulled over for speeding.

After seeing bike, traffic cop said he had enough problems and let him go with a warning. (Bridgend police still using 'Interstate, Norton Rotary, Moggy thou and Rover SD1 back then )

The 'black cap' silencers would be the ones designed by Gordon Blair in Belfast University?

I have a friend in contact with me still in Britain, told me non-stock bikes are worth far less than all original. He was looking at a almost completely stock Honda CB360. I didn't think it was worth more than £400 but seller was adamant it was worth at least £2000

Guess my 1977 CB550F1 isn't worth anything with all the work I did to it as soon as guarantee ran out in 78.

(one owner, 106,000+ miles)

[Ian Johnson 1Participant @ianjohnson1]

Hi Peter I didn't know the black caps were designed by Gordon Blair, I like them because they give a nice burbling sound to the bike and I think they look good, but the reverse cones give a more traditional rorty twin sound.

I got let off speeding when riding my MK3 doing forty something in a thirty zone, it was years ago when I had the police fairing on it, the copper must have felt sorry for me too!

106,000 miles on a CB550F and I bet the engine was in better condition than a Norton with similar mileage

IanJ

[Bill PudneyParticipant @billpudney37759]

Glad that someone likes the reverse cone silencers….I drew them!! I had them on my Honda 500/4, after all the internals had gone away it sounded gorgeous, a bit rorty but not loud. My 500/4 did over 40,000 miles in two years and was in really good nick when I sold it to my brother.

It was replaced by a basket case Norton 650SS. A friend had rebuilt the motor and he told me it was pretty standard apart from the Dunstall racing cam. The bike went well, although I must admit to being a bit disappointed with it when it was being run in, it was as flat as a tack up to 4,500 rpm. Once the rpm "limit" went past 4,500 it changed!! Went like a rocket. In fact I got stopped for doing 126mph on the Andover by pass, yes I know it was irresponsible, illegal, dangerous etc etc, but I was 30 ish and it was 1976ish and there was no traffic about. Didn't get booked, the officers brother liked Nortons!! The 650SS was a great bike, regularly used to leave more modern bikes for dead, it's only real bad point was the front brake, which to be a genuine all round Great Bike needed to be a disc, rather than the drum brake.

Happy days!!

cheers

Bill Pudney

Edited By Bill Pudney on 29/12/2020 01:36:44

[John MCParticipant @johnmc39344]

Reading about the "black cap" silencers reminds me of having lunch with Gordon Blair when he visited my employer. We discussed motorcycle silencing and while some make a nice noise, too loud can be incredibly wearing when riding long distances. Easy to design a silencer to stifle the sound along with the performance, thats where his expertise was invaluable to the Norton engineers. The result of that lunch for me was modifying a pair of Ducati "Conti" replica silencers as Gordon suggested, much easier to live with! (That was some 35 years ago and those silencers are still on the bike!).

What "black cap" silencers are and were known as was "annular discharge" silencers, they take advantage of the boundary layer effect.

I'm thinking of something along the lines of an annular discharge silencer to subdue the (slightly) excessive noise of my Norton.

John

[Nigel McBurney 1Participant @nigelmcburney1]

After my last Greeves I bought a new 250 Trials Cheetah ,a locally built bke from Hampshire,a joint venture by Bob Golner and Mick Whitlock, Mick was an ace welder and frame builder,I did not get on with it,I think it suited a taller rider,though it was very good over rock steps,which are a bit scarce in the south, Cheetah among many other builders went under whenNorton Villiers decided to stop suppling engines to the trade and made their own trials bike,My last bike of the sixties was a 1968 five speed 250 Bultaco,nice light bike it would go up long steep hills far better than any of my previous bikes and there were a lot of them in my area, though it was not as reliable as my previous Villiers powered bikes, one instance was Bultaco fitted a sprung rear chain tensioner instead of a fixed chain guide,result was the chain kept coming off,and damaged g/box gear teeth,it took ages to get new free under guarantee gears but I missed a lot of events. I fitted a home made fixed chain guide.Eleven years of trials riding were happy days.

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

106,000 miles on a CB550F

Is a lot more than I managed on mine ! The first "big bike" I got after passing my test in '78 was a '76 CB550F1 – I wanted an RD400, but my father was rather anti-twostroke & he was guaranteeing the bank loan, so the Honda it was. £600-and-something at two years old with 10K on the odo when I bought it – my '72 CD175 was sold to a lad up the road for £120 cash IIRC (he was done ! ).

The only two Instamatic snaps I have of it – probably after being washed on the day I got rid of it. It suffered from persistant carb overflow problems + the usual early Honda four issues of loosing sparks in the wet & the regular caliper pivot seizures. It came with the Honda branded Rickman panniers & I fitted the matching fairing. Some years later I found out that the first owner was the local Star Rider Training Advanced Examiner – and he had had persistant carb overflow issues with it from new until he p/xed it at the dealer I bought it from.

A school friend had a CB500T of the same age & colour & I would have gladly done a straight swap – the late 500 twin is generally not as well regarded as the four, but I found it to be a far nicer bike to ride. Probably the first inkling that I am very much a "twins" rider – didn't gel with any of the subsequent "fours" either.

I dabbled in trials for a few years from the late '80s to mid '90s, riding mainly in Spen Vally Club trials. First bike was a Rotax engined SWM 320 twin shock, followe by a Rotax engined Armstrong 280 monoshock, a JCM 240 Europa monshock & finally a Honda TRL250 twin shock. When the Honda was stolen, I gave up.

Best I managed was 3rd place in the club "Beginners" series one year, but the step up to "Novices" was a step too far & I just ended up hurting myself and /or damaging the bike. The Honda was supposed to have been to have a try at the "Pre-65 & Twin shock" class, but it was nicked before I had chance to do a trial.

Nigel B.

[Cyril BonnettParticipant @cyrilbonnett24790]

The Honda 750F2 that replaced the commando which no one in Edinburgh or Glasgow wanted took me to West Berlin in the winter of 1975 travelling through East Germany, other UK personal were forced to use the train to take their bikes. West Berlin was an amazing 'bikers' world, big Germans on small 50cc Italian motorbikes were a sight to seen.

The Honda was driven all year round and went on to do 120,000 with only tyres, oil filters and plugs replaced, I must admit that one thing did go wrong, the gear indication switch that screwed into bottom of the gear box needed to be replaced, cost about £10 and one socket and no more neutrals at 100 down the autobahn. It ended up with a Rickman full fairing and a set of their panniers.

One night in Richmond we went through a rotten farm gate into a very boggy field, hit a pheasant at 70+mph and it still started first thing in the winter after standing outside all night.

Edgar Brothers sold me a 'topper' which took me thousands of happy miles the Honda was sold and I started long association with shaft drive Yamaha's, even their 650 Turbo that used to take us to the Alps from Scotland.

Age catches up and todays traffic could ruin a life long love of motorbike so I gave them up.

I once drove over Blackmount on my XS850 on a freezing January morning, coming towards me the police 4×4 waved so waved back, later I was asked why I didn't stop! would you stop on rutted Frozen snow.

5 Yamaha and the only fault with any of them was the bolt on the end of the gearbox main shaft, it sheared on the way to a 24 hour meeting in the South of France, I discovered that leaning the bike to the right the bolt head and washer moved out of the way of the gear selector, it took us back home over two Alpine passes and Yamaha UK gave me a new bolt a workshop manual and wished me the best of luck fixing it, the broke piece of the bolt screwed out by finger, new bolt installed and bike back on the road in less than two hours. Fault Japanese, No, fault NVT certainly, a name doesn't mean the goods are superior in anyway, 45 years on and with modern material the Norton Commando MK3 Interstate would be an amazing bike, the acceleration was amazing, it handled really well, it was nice to ride, but the taxi driver sitting along side me at the traffic lights on Lothian road couldn't stop laughing, pointing at the engine he waved his hand up and down. I got off the Honda and walked across to a motor cycle police rider to ask him about his Norton rotary, "what's the Norton like?" with a growl he told me to * off. Says it all.

[Ian Johnson 1Participant @ianjohnson1]

Finally managed to upload a couple of photos of my MK3 Commando, Then realised the photos were over forty years apart!!! Time flies!

This is how I bought it around 1978-79ish. I put the air horns and dayglo stripe on the fairing, caught many a speeder with that haha!

And forty years later in 2020 having its third attempt at restoration. I'm determined to put a bit more effort into doing it up this time and actually getting it on the road. Need to spend at least a couple of thousand quid on it yet!

IanJ

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

Big miles on Japanese bikes are not unusual, my Yamaha Diversion owned for 25+ years has 132,000 miles on it. It broke a starter gear at 12,000 miles which meant engine out and split the crankcases. All back together with silicone sealant as I could not afford a gasket set and not touched since. I commuted 200 miles a week plus a 90 mile round trip at the weekend to visit my Mother. I have never had an unreliable bike including all the old British stuff before the Yamaha, all were good.

[Jeff Austin 1Participant @jeffaustin1]

Peter Jones,

I worked at A Honda dealers when the F2 was launched, forks were incredibly flimsy and would bend badly enough for seals to leak under heavy breaking (you could see the 'wiper' marks on rear of fork leg about 2" higher than on front)

Well forty years ish have passed since I told friends (probably while having a coffe and a pasty at Squires) that if you cornered reasonably hard (after changing the tyres for Pirelli phantoms) on my Suzuki GT750J that you could actually feel the forks flexing and even on the odd occasion see the flex and having them all sceptical I now have confirmation that the forks on those early jap bikes were so thin and flimsy and that I wasn't making it up !

Lots of coincidences here, I have had lots of bikes including some of the same ones, I now have a Honda CB550K3 with carb issues although hopefully I have addressed the issues this winter,

I have ridden trials myself on lots of different bikes, rode as a junior and then a roughly forty year gap before riding again, cannot remember who posted it but I have also ridden a fair number of Spen valley trials plus Bradford, Horsforth, West Leeds, Ripon, Wetherby, Richmond etc etc and one or two centre trials and the odd national including the Manx trial several times, still have a trials bike which is a genuine Majesty Yamaha 200 built form a new frame up and will hopefully be out riding again in 2021 once the current Covid situation has improved enough to resume normal activities,

Nice to now there are plenty of bikers here, they are the love of my life plus of course family and good friends.

Jeff

Ozzysbikes

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

I now have confirmation that the forks on those early jap bikes were so thin and flimsy

And not just the early ones – I sold a late '90s Honda Transalp mainly because of fork flex.

The riding style I have developed over many years relies on pretty aggresive counter-steering to change direction. On the Transalp – with the combination of wide bars & long travel, skinny forks – I could feel the forks twisting with handlebar input during "spirited" back roads riding.The lack of front end grip from the equally skinny 90/90-21 front tyre was less than confidence inspiring as well.

Nice engine & comfortable, but the early (one of the first in the UK) Deauville that replaced it was a much better handling bike.

Nigel B.

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

It always surprised me how tolerant the major motorcycle makers were of front fork flex. Especially on later designs.

Most of the earlier breeds had hefty front mudguards with equally hefty support brackets holding things straight but over the years things got slimmed down to the point of inadequacy. I guess riders of a "certain age", like myself, have distinct memories of the various machined alloy aftermarket fork braces sold in an attempt to alleviate the problems with large Japanese machines through the 1980's and on to the mid 1990's or so. Generally made to looks with no proper engineering input and, predictably, of little effect. It should have been obvious that clamping on the outside of where the top fork seal goes won't do much unless its so tight that the seal distorts and jams.

Design horrors like the Yamaha house style things fitted to the XJ900 et al with loose bottom bushes, tiny top bushes and serious clearance between the legs and slider didn't help. Those seem to have been designed on the assumption that twist was a good thing. I was somewhat surprised that the glass fibre front mudguard used with the Norton Commander fitment was considerably stiffer than the apparently quite solid metal brace used in Yamaha factory applications. Still twisted, but not as much. Tore up the "not sold as a separate part" bottom bushes quite effectively tho'.

The bushless, slider running directly on the leg, forks used by BSA/Triumph on the conical hub machines were probably the ultimate in optimism tho'. The mudguard being flexibly mounted on rubber bushes and thin wire stays specifically so as not to stiffen things in twist. Presumably to ensure things couldn't be assembled out of line causing the sliders to jam. Tolerances get pretty tight when you effectively have a sliding bush approaching two feet long. Substantial though they looked the four bolt end caps holding the spindle were never enough to stop the forks twisting sufficiently under breaking to earn the conical hub brakes a considerable reputation for inadequacy.

I had a one of the very rare Small Heath built five speed T150 Tridents with the full size exhaust port on the centre cylinder and, allegedly, certain other internal engine changes that never made it to the proper Meridian built production ones. Whatever it went "rather well" and definitely needed more stopping power up front. I obtained a double sided four leading shoe drum brake front wheel allegedly off an early TZ750 figuring that with suitably re-lined shoes it would be up to the job. As I needed to fit torque arm retainers I made a decent fork brace using a pair of old style Bonneville tubular top mudguard mounts cut and welded into a single unit picking up on the original mudguard bolts, One in front of the forks and one behind.

Test rides showed a great improvement in brake performance. I found that on a good dry surface it was possible to lock the front brake at about 110 mph. I figured that was good enough and sold the 4 LS unit at 200% profit.

Proving, I guess, that flex is a bad thing.

Clive

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

Design horrors like the Yamaha house style things fitted to the XJ900

I don't recall anything particularly "horrific" about the XJ900 I had ?

I don't seem to have many pictures of it, though it only hung around for less than a year & did one European tour. This picture was taken at the finish point of the Stella Alpina Rally in '94 – I seemed to have had hair then (I'm wearing the BMW Club Tee shirt). Don't know who the Kawaski belonged to, it wasn't with us (Mrs B is behind the camera & seems to have parked her R65LS elsewhere).

Having previously had a BMW K100RT, I felt that the Yamaha was the better bike in pretty well all regards – certainly no handling issues that I recall. It was my last "four", as the penny finally dropped that it wasn't any particular "four" that I didn't get along with, it was the format. I have mainly stuck to twins since & been (largely) the happier for it ! The Yamaha was a pretty bike, though.

Nigel B

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Way back in the 1980s I went to a talk by a chap (who I think was called Rose) from Manchester University who had been working on motorcycle front fork problems brought about by some police riders having nasty experiences with big BMW flat twins. He advocated using leading link forks, and Gus Kuhn made some racing Beemers which did quite well. All this resulted in the BMW telelever, which is a sort of cross between teles and the old girder forks. Vincents stuck with Girder type until the end.

This is all based on 30+ year old memory, I suspect that a trawl through the IMechE archive might produce more information

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

My Norton Commanders would trash the XJ900 forks in about 50,000 miles. The inevitably loose fit of the split bush at the bottom of the leg letting things work around enough that the dry bearing coating was soon worn through leading to the metal backing wearing away the inside of the leg. I'm told by an inspector meticulous type that he found the slider bores weren't accurate enough as made to take a proper solid bush. He rebored them true and re-worked the end of the legs to take solid bronze bushes. Claimed a great improvement. But, after all that work, he would say that wouldn't he.

I suspect my habit swopping the standard twin piston brake callipers for XJ1200 four pot units didn't help prolong fork life. The extra front weight and non-existent engine braking of the big rotary decisively shifted the barely adequate in emergency performance on the XJ900 to scary inadequate when an "I'm sorry I didn't see you" moment looms. That was in brand new condition too before the seemingly endemic corrosion behind the seals issue rears its ugly head after a year or so. I've cleaned out the corrosion and fixed a fair few siezed and near sized ones over the years for folk. Who seemed more than happy with the results.

Unlike the morons who "fixed" the brakes on my official unofficial kid sisters XJ600 by discarding the rear seals leaving room for the corrosion to build up! Fortunately her brakes locked just at the end of my drive so retrieval was easy. Equally fortunately I had an ex Commander set properly refurbished before being put away with only 1,000 miles on them to swop in. But 10.30 pm on Sunday night is not a good time for major brake system work.

Your Stella Alpina picture reminds me that for my first run abroad included taking a K100RS up to the top and collecting a Tee shirt. Not an ideal venue, or bike, for first time off road.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 17/01/2021 19:53:44

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Duncan

I suspect your talk would have been given by Dr(?) Gordon Roe. Probably related to this paper published in SAE Transactions of 1984 **LINK**.

As I recall it he subsequently attempted to patent his version of the leading link design claiming that any safe version had to have the same stiffness characteristics of his as derived by Finite Element Analyisis. Something that sound like nonsense. Certainly Tony Foale, who actually built a fair number of leading link systems for solo motorcyles, strongly disagreed. One day I'll track down a copy to verify the maths myself.

The issue with leading links has generally been the difficulty in affordably arranging an effective front brake without a relatively expensive to engineer parallelogram torque reaction system if its not to stand on tiptoe when braking. The pendulum effects of the asymmetric masses offset from the steering axis need to be considered too. Most noticeable with the full swinging arm Earls system, as anyone with experience of BMW or MZ so fitted knows, but less extreme variants suffer too. Allegedly the Ariel Leader /Arrow was given trailing links for this reason. The ent offset being much smaller. For production machines a tele fork was always said to be much cheaper than a well engineered leading link. Neater looking too.

Clive

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

I think Clive has hit the nail on the head there, the tele fork is cheaper to make than alternatives and looks OK, while the alternatives are more expensive to make.

Back in the day, a friend had a Yamaha TX500, and turned up at my place complaining that the steering was pulling to one side when braking at high speeds. (By which he meant at around the ton.) Sounded a bit weird to me, so we started investigating. Turned out the brake had a piston on each side of the disk, and one was completely rusted solid in the caliper. So when he heaved on the brake, the working one would push on the disk, then the forks would distort until it had pushed the disk over against the other pad. No wonder it felt a bit funny!

John

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

I ran an R50S BMW with the Earls style forks. Smooth and reliable bike but I just did not gel with it. I went back to my preferred Norton's and bought an SS650, I still judge handling by the Norton standard.

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