"Patrick Turner" wrote in message
...


Keith G wrote:

"Eiron" wrote in message
...
Patrick Turner wrote:

I did like BSA and Matchless and Norton, oh, and Vincent. They
made
music.
Especially The Vincent, and at 166MPH on Conrod Straight at
Bathurst.

The older you get the faster you were. Let's have some more
details.

Yes, I'd be interested to hear how they clocked the speed -
especially
as the standard speedos were only calibrated to 150 mph (AFAIK)....??

Speeds were recorded by the marshals on the course.


OK, I didn't realise you were talking about a *timed event*!



On the day I was there his speed was announced on the PA.
Once Eric hit Conrod straight he just rocketed away from all the
others.

The single 500 7R-AJS and Nortons were doing 125mph, maybe more, im
Ron
Toomb's case.

The Conrod Straight is 1.9km long, or 1.2 miles, and at that time was
one long straight
without the chicane put there later.

So to get an extra 41mph with 1,000cc seems about right.
The bike wasn't a stock standard Vincent.

I have no idea what had been done to it.


Blower?



Bear in mind Bert Munro's speed on a highly modified
Indian on the salt at Utah.

He still has the record for the World's Fastest Indian.


Love the film and watch it on a regular basis, that bloke is ever a hero
in my book - even if the movie fudges the facts!

When I was a schoolkid my school was two doors up from the then
recently-closed Vincent factory and opposite, over the 'bowling green',
was George Brown's motorcycle shop. I was the only snot-nosed kid he let
hang around in there, looking at his 'Neros' and asking hundreds of
stoopid questions:

http://www.motorbike-search-engine.c...uper_nero.html

(Didn't realise/know back then the orange patches on his face was early
*plastic surgery*!!)

See: "George had a secret ambition to be the first British rider to top
200mph on British soil, over a measured distance. He had already been
docked on Super Nero over a finish line at Elvington Speed Meeting at
236mph." I also harbour a secret ambition to do 200mph (just the once)
on a bike before it's too late, but not sure I'll ever get it together.
My present bike:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/mybi...%20GSX1400.jpg

....easily (and regularly) beats the above-mentioned 'AJS and Norton'
speeds (usually less than 3 minutes from me leaving my garage and after
a good warm-up, naturally!) -it's got the grunt but doesn't have the top
end....

Or a fairing....

Eiron wrote:

Patrick Turner wrote:

I did like BSA and Matchless and Norton, oh, and Vincent. They made
music.
Especially The Vincent, and at 166MPH on Conrod Straight at Bathurst.

The older you get the faster you were. Let's have some more details.

I didn't ride the Vincent at that speed at Bathurst in about 1965.

But Eric Debenham did.

He was a privateer motorcyclist who at that time owned a stable
of single and twin Vincents.

And he rarely ever bothered finishing a race on the twin, after setting
the lap record several times
with the twin much modded Rapide, and leaving everyone else on crap like
hotted up road bikes by Triumph and Matchless far behind.
He'd claim mechanical problems, and sometimes they were genuine claims,
as occasioanally things did prevent such blistering speed.
He held the outright lap record at Bathurst for years; none of the cars
were faster
until they began to use downforce contouring.

Just outside the NSW town of Bathurst is the Mt Panorama course which is
up around the mountain
and along beside some cow paddocks. Its been used for motor racing for
many years.
http://www.bathurst-nsw.com/MtPanorama.html
In 1966 the main straight was a mile or more long, but because of the
absurd
speeds people began to clock, and a number of horrendous accidents, they
whacked a chicane
in the middle of the straight, so high speeds will ever be seen again.

I saw another great guy, Ron Toombs killed on a Yamaha 350 about that
time, when it seized up
coming down the twisty hill bends before the straight.
He slid along the arm-co fence, and hit a tree headfirst at about 80mph,
and wouldn't have felt nuffink.
Ron also rode what was known as the Henderson Matchless, a modified
derivation of 7R-AJS,
but his had a shorter stroke and 4 valves in the head, OHC, and it
really flew, for a 500, thanks to Hendo's tuning abilities.
But then the japanese bikes were just starting to eclipse the
four strokes and the Yammy 350cc 2 stroke was about as quick as the 500
single.

Bathurst used to be the scene of wild riots and very extreme behaviour
when the bikes raced there. The police often lost.

Hundreds of bikies raged up/down the main street of town,
lotsa argy bargy.

In 1966, when I first went to Bathurst on my Matcho 500 single, and went
for a hamburger in town,
a pale blue Ford Customline pulled up and a big fat cop
asked me to leave town pronto.
"You're makin the town look untidy son.." he drawled.

He wasn't the type who'd smile if I'd replied with
"Well I forgot my tuxedo, and the Rolls is being repaired.."

I could have had a field day in a court, because my dad was a Mayor of
Ku-ringai at the time,
and well connected to good lawyers. But I just left, after buying ther
burger off the
nervous greeks in the milkbar.

I was unaware of the history then, but a few years later on another
visit,
the Hell's angels had a field day win when they had police huddled in
fear of their lives for
what was a "colourful night's activities on the mountain". Sticks of
dynamite
and molotov cocktails were used, and part of the police mountain
compound was torched.

Boys will be boys.

The car racing ppl were all nice and tame....

Patrick Turner.








--
Eiron.

Patrick Turner wrote:

Eiron wrote:
Patrick Turner wrote:

I did like BSA and Matchless and Norton, oh, and Vincent. They made
music.
Especially The Vincent, and at 166MPH on Conrod Straight at Bathurst.
The older you get the faster you were. Let's have some more details.

I didn't ride the Vincent at that speed at Bathurst in about 1965.

But Eric Debenham did.

He was a privateer motorcyclist who at that time owned a stable
of single and twin Vincents.

Thanks. I just looked him up on the interweb thingy.
That Norvin wasn't quite a standard Vincent!

While we are on the subject did you know that Jack Findlay died recently?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../04/db0401.xml

--
Eiron.

On 8/22/07 6:01 AM, in article , "Patrick
Turner" wrote:

I found the folk music of the 60s to be far more entrancing than the
silly muck of the mainstream pop.
AFAIWC, anyone singing something better sing something meaningful,
original, and intelligent, or shut up. I quite enjoyed Dylan.

Dylan got tired of the "folk" scene rather quickly. Did you freak out when
he went "electric"?

John Stone said:

Dylan got tired of the "folk" scene rather quickly. Did you freak out when
he went "electric"?

Dylan switching to an electric guitar didn't help. You could still hear
his voice.

John Stone wrote:

On 8/22/07 6:01 AM, in article , "Patrick
Turner" wrote:

I found the folk music of the 60s to be far more entrancing than the
silly muck of the mainstream pop.
AFAIWC, anyone singing something better sing something meaningful,
original, and intelligent, or shut up. I quite enjoyed Dylan.

Dylan got tired of the "folk" scene rather quickly. Did you freak out when
he went "electric"?

He just gave us a message, then moved to entertainment.

His Masters of War resonated with me at the time.

When Dylan was protesting, 1/2 Oz were against the Vietnam war, and 1/2
wondered
why the west didn't just nuke Hanoi, and be done with it.

Robert McNamara later said oh what a stoopid thing that war all was.

But my 1/2 of the people already knew before it started in earnest.
We all remember the lies and BS that our Govt spewed out to us.
Oh, and in Vietanm, there were no weapons of mass destruction,
but there were a lot of angry ants in black pyjamas who didn't like our
interference.
We were told we had to got to Vietnam to stop the yellow peril movin
south.
What absolute **** twitery!

1/2 the people now wanna nuke Iraq and Iran while they are at it.

But they won't, I don't think, ever, because there is too much oil
sloshing about.

But there hasn't been much of a protest over Iraq because not enough
bodies have arrived back in Oz or the US.

And when the US are forced to get out of Iraq,
and while complaining that the local Iraqi Govt was dysfunctional,
perhaps a little bit more good old fashioned bloodletting will
happen, as it has over the last 10,000 years,
and it will all sort itself out.

Eventually, maybe the oil will be sold in the usual way and without
having to steal a whole country, and as usual a few will get
stoinkingly rich while most Iraquis live on in abject povety.

As usual, in 30 years 1/2 the ppl will say the US could have won in
Iraq,
and if only Congress had allowed enough troops, and been allowed to
simply shoot all male
Iraqis, until an unconditioal surrender was begged for by the last six
guys left.
And they'll say what a shame people voted
the Repubs down, and how they should have spent a couple
of trillion bucks more on the war.
Yeah, sure.
Its human nature to muddle through things, and for populations to be
divided on issues.

Anyway, expect your gas prices to rise....

Patrick Turner.

Patrick Turner said:

When Dylan was protesting, 1/2 Oz were against the Vietnam war, and 1/2
wondered why the west didn't just nuke Hanoi, and be done with it.

That's the kind of thinking you get from people who adopt an all-beer
diet.

"George M. Middius" wrote:

Patrick Turner said:

When Dylan was protesting, 1/2 Oz were against the Vietnam war, and 1/2
wondered why the west didn't just nuke Hanoi, and be done with it.

That's the kind of thinking you get from people who adopt an all-beer
diet.

Budwieser?

Patrick Turner.

George M. Middius wrote:


Patrick Turner said:


When Dylan was protesting, 1/2 Oz were against the Vietnam war, and 1/2
wondered why the west didn't just nuke Hanoi, and be done with it.


That's the kind of thinking you get from people who adopt an all-beer
diet.



That, and that the USSR was backing Hanoi, which would make dropping
nukes a little bit risky. Besides, dropping nukes makes for bad press...

In article .com,
Andre Jute wrote:
British Beat before the Beatles, organized by years, 1956 to 1962
inclusive, EMI compilation issued 1993. My God, there was some raw
talent back then! Alma Cogan, Frankie Vaughan, The Southlanders,
Lonnie Donegan, Humphry Lyttleton, all just off the 1956 disc. The
Beatles, by comparison, are homogenized, sanitized; in retrospect they
remind me of nothing so much as Euro-vegetables: universal, bland, pre-
pureed, the perfect chinese taste (right after you finish listening
you want real music).

Perhaps the main difference you're hearing was in recording techniques.
There was a big difference in those few years - multi-tracks appeared. And
a good all in one performance will always beat a more sanitised but
possibly technically more 'perfect' multi-track one. IMHO.

But it's down to personal taste - like all music. I like all the artists
mentioned including the Beatles. And heard them all first time round. I
oft wonder where Alma Cogan may have ended up had she not died so young -
she improved so dramatically throughout her short career.

--
*The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required on it *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.