Primordial Superbike Racing.

[bdr529]

It's clear you love this bike and that's ok, a few of us on this form including myself think the bike had poor handling qualities, which you seem to disagree with, and you keep reminding us of a bike shootout from the early 70's
that's fine you are entitled to your opinion.

Me personally I'm going to believe what Kawasaki's Factory Rider Yvon Duhamel had to say to myself, my brother, and a few fellow racers back in the 80's about that bike, "il se comporte comme un morceau de merde "

And on that note Je dis ce sujet adieu

[J.A.W.]

You have a tendency to pick and chose which articles you want to believe, and they all seem to be the ones that favor your opinion.
If you don't like the analogy of the frame being better suited to a moped, and you feel Dave Gurry is full of BS,
then I suggest you write the good people at Classic Motorcycle with your complaint.

What I personally said about the bike having to much power for the frame to handle, is backed up by your link
The author Kevin Cameron called it a "negative quality".." high power is the sworn enemy of good handling"
http://www.kawtriple.com/mraxl/articles/smokin.jpg
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h217/ ... gvcc2g.jpg
My opinion of that bike having poor handling came from people "that have both owned and race the H2 triple"
One of those persons was Kawasaki Factory racer Yvon Duhamel
Here's what he said in 1975 about his Kawasaki race bike
“The way the Kawasaki frame is made,” Duhamel said, “or the way the engine is placed or something, something is wrong there. It just wants to lose traction at the rear wheel. It moves six inches and that’s it, it wants to high-side you.”
http://www.cycleworld.com/2010/08/18/fo ... good-year/
It seems even though Kawasaki made great motors they were less competent at making a good chassis

Bdr..., Kevin Cameron of course, built & raced Kaw triples, so he does have hands on experience with them.

As for Yvon Du Hamel, he was referring to the H2R G.P. racing F750 bike, which was under fairly constant development at the time, due to the concurrent issues of having to build a chassis to cope with big power, & very high speeds..
He was trapped at Daytona in `74 doing "298 Km/h", ( according to Cycle Australia magazine), with the tyres of the day - certainly at their limits too, Barry Sheene barely survived a nasty blow-out there, on his heavier Suzuki F750 machine.

Kawasaki did get their F750 racebike good enough to take the lap record at difficult tracks including the I.o.M, & Bathurst..
The H2 roadbike also won the showroom stock production class race at Bathurst.

This means that poorly thought out ideas expressed in retrospective articles by 'classic' magazines don't carry much
weight, rather they often seek to lazily trot out spurious stereotypes, instead of examining the historical record.
Those reports which do feature a current ride by the reporter, will generally tend to debunk the old 'horror'stories.

But bdr... if you choose to 'believe' - such lurid tales - over the real achievements as shown on the historical record,
then I suggest you try a Dave G move & "turn the handle bars at ~40mph" - on any bike & see what will happen..

As I previously noted, these early Nippon superbikes did not feature the fine steering/handling balance of the Norton &
Triumphs, these Brits had the benefit of decades of racing heritage.. & indeed a check of the Kawasaki H series steering specifications shows yearly alterations in the various dimensions of rake/trail/offsets etc, in a real attempt to get it sorted..

Yamaha showed the way with its sporty RD twins, which used a race-developed chassis, but Nippon built big road bikes didn't really start to show meaningful steering finesse until the end of the `70s..

However, road holding, ground clearance & braking were good enough, for the road, & race - even if you had to hold on & force 'em to follow a line.. while they wriggled a bit underneath you.. its still no big deal really.. even if evident as a "negative quality".

[J.A.W.]

It's clear you love this bike and that's ok, a few of us on this form including myself think the bike had poor handling qualities, which you seem to disagree with, and you keep reminding us of a bike shootout from the early 70's
that's fine you are entitled to your opinion.

Me personally I'm going to believe what Kawasaki's Factory Rider Yvon Duhamel had to say to myself, my brother, and a few fellow racers back in the 80's about that bike, "il se comporte comme un morceau de merde "

And on that note Je dis ce sujet adieu

Bdr... you & Strad with your "love" fixation are way out man.. this not a 'new age belief values' thread,
its a technical forum which examines results & analyses quantitative data sets.

You need to try & understand the difference between the subjective feel of fine steering/handling & the actual
effect on road-holding, whether or not it is going to be an issue bad enough to seriously impair ( "death trap"!) control,
or have to be ridden too slowly around corners to win races/championships

Opinion does not really come into it.. actual lap times & race results clearly trump belief in 'horror' stories.

The Nippon approach of adding more power did not win Honda a 500 G.P. title in the `60s even with Mike Hailwood
aboard their ill-handling machine, & more recently even Valentino Rossi was unable to get a win on the very fast Moto G.P.
Ducati due to its recalcitrant steering "negative qualities"..

However, back in the day, those H2 Superbikes did win championships, so they simply cannot have been all that bad..

[J.A.W.]

It's clear you love this bike and that's ok, a few of us on this form including myself think the bike had poor handling qualities, which you seem to disagree with, and you keep reminding us of a bike shootout from the early 70's
that's fine you are entitled to your opinion.

Me personally I'm going to believe what Kawasaki's Factory Rider Yvon Duhamel had to say to myself, my brother, and a few fellow racers back in the 80's about that bike, "il se comporte comme un morceau de merde "

And on that note Je dis ce sujet adieu

Bit of sour grapes from ol' Yvon there - perhaps?

Since Gary Nixon riding a similar factory Kawasaki tuned by Erv Kanemoto won the `76 F 750 World Championship,
- only to be robbed of it by dirty tricks via the FIM.. c'est la vie..

Meanwhile, in France proper - no worries about "poor handling" - they got on with racing 'em, & winning.. tres bon..
http://www.kawi2strokes.com/forum/viewt ... =22&t=1350

[J.A.W.]

Kiwi racer Graeme Crosby got the Bathurst lap record on a Team Kawasaki Australia F 750 race bike,
( & he fanged it around the Mt Panorama circuit - as seen in the youtube Group A Jag V12 Q-lap, but ~5secs quicker).

G.C. got his start riding the H2 road bike in production events in NZ, his memory is that they "wobbled" a bit..
..but certainly not badly enough to be a "death trap".. http://www.graemecrosby.com/history-the-early-days.php

G.C. is a pretty good rider, he won the AMCO NZ G.P. on that H2 - at the newly opened Manfield circuit riding in
"blizzard" conditions which slowed the pukka G.P. bikes down enough for him to take the chequered flag in 1st position.

He later also won the Imola 200 race ( also on a TKA F 750 triple), the Daytona 200 & Superbike races plus the I.oM. TT..

[J.A.W.]

While 'super' bikes were part of every era of motorcycling,..
..such as the pre-WW1 Indian & post WW1 Brough Superior 1000cc V-twins,

& the like H-D 'Knucklehead' & even more advanced Crocker, & Vincent HRD - from the late `30s/pre WW2..
..in the period from the mid `50s to the late `60s, tuned Triumph twins were popular, even in H-D territory..

In fact not only were Triumph twins popular bikes for Hollywood action movies, they were raced hard too.

See the efforts put into racing Triumphs by Big D Cycle in Texas, right up to entering a 750 Bonneville 'Superbike' at Daytona..

https://www.bigdcycle.com/racing/


Although, even if a tuned Triumph twin fitted to a Manx Norton G.P. chassis as a 'Triton' - could give a pukka Manx
'a run for its money' - it wasn't until the end of the `60s & the advent of what were deemed 'superbikes', the stock road
machines boasting ~60hp or so, ( & capable of 80+ in race tune) were regular showroom production machines really
able to be a potential threat to the best dedicated G.P. race bikes - for lap speed..

[strad]

This means that poorly thought out ideas expressed in retrospective articles by 'classic' magazines don't carry much
weight, rather they often seek to lazily trot out spurious stereotypes, instead of examining the historical record.
Those reports which do feature a current ride by the reporter, will generally tend to debunk the old 'horror'stories.

Translation: You want to pick and chose which articles you want to believe.
Why don't you just drop it? I know I'm going to.
Anyone who worked on and rode them knows the truth.

[Tommy Cookers]

..in the period from the mid `50s to the late `60s, tuned Triumph twins were popular, even in H-D territory..
In fact not only were Triumph twins popular bikes for Hollywood action movies, they were raced hard too.

- it wasn't until the end of the `60s & the advent of what were deemed 'superbikes', the stock road
machines boasting ~60hp or so, ( & capable of 80+ in race tune) were regular showroom production machines really
able to be a potential threat to the best dedicated G.P. race bikes - for lap speed..

production machine racing (in the UK) remerged in 1955 (after Vincent had closed)
BSA Gold Stars (500cc singles) won every race (against 650cc twins etc) till the first 650cc Triumph win in 1958 (Shorey & teenage Hailwood)
(and Dick Mann and others won in the USA on the BSA)

because, like Norton's, the BSA race-type duplex frame design was about 10x stiffer torsionally than many, especially Triumph's
stiffer because the swinging arm spindle connected to 2 points about 9" apart, ie not to 1 point on the weedy seat tube

yes, by the 60s Triumph had developed the 650 engine and frame
though the F750 race 3 cylinder BSA/Triumphs were the real thrill (as being equal to GP machines) c 1971

in 1974 I rode imo the first H2 in the UK - from this thread I now know why it pulled like a freight train and had mega ignition stuff

[bdr529]

production machine racing (in the UK) remerged in 1955 (after Vincent had closed)
BSA Gold Stars (500cc singles) won every race (against 650cc twins etc) till the first 650cc Triumph win in 1958 (Shorey & teenage Hailwood)
(and Dick Mann and others won in the USA on the BSA)

because, like Norton's , the BSA race-type duplex frame design was about 10x stiffer torsionally than many, especially Triumph
stiffer because the swinging arm spindle connected to 2 points about 9" apart, ie not to 1 point on the weedy seat tube

yes, by the 60s Triumph had developed the 650 engine and frame
though the F750 race 3 cylinder BSA/Triumphs were the real thrill (as being equal to GP machines) c 1970

That is quite the coincidence that you posted that Tom. My brother just emailed me this yesterday
reminding me of our time back at Daytona for bike week 1989, when our good friend won the vintage 750GP race

[J.A.W.]

..in the period from the mid `50s to the late `60s, tuned Triumph twins were popular, even in H-D territory..
In fact not only were Triumph twins popular bikes for Hollywood action movies, they were raced hard too.

- it wasn't until the end of the `60s & the advent of what were deemed 'superbikes', the stock road
machines boasting ~60hp or so, ( & capable of 80+ in race tune) were regular showroom production machines really
able to be a potential threat to the best dedicated G.P. race bikes - for lap speed..

production machine racing (in the UK) remerged in 1955 (after Vincent had closed)
BSA Gold Stars (500cc singles) won every race (against 650cc twins etc) till the first 650cc Triumph win in 1958 (Shorey & teenage Hailwood)
(and Dick Mann and others won in the USA on the BSA)

because, like Norton's, the BSA race-type duplex frame design was about 10x stiffer torsionally than many, especially Triumph's
stiffer because the swinging arm spindle connected to 2 points about 9" apart, ie not to 1 point on the weedy seat tube

yes, by the 60s Triumph had developed the 650 engine and frame
though the F750 race 3 cylinder BSA/Triumphs were the real thrill (as being equal to GP machines) c 1971

in 1974 I rode imo the first H2 in the UK - from this thread I now know why it pulled like a freight train and had mega ignition stuff

For sure T-C, engineer Doug Hele used his race experience with BSA Gold-Stars & Norton Dominators to improve the
flimsy Turner Triumph chassis, & like-wise improved the Turner econo-unit Triumph 500 well enough to win Daytona,
& even defeat the obsolescent British G.P. singles such as the Manx & G50 in G.P. trim.

He transfered the engine tech over to the 'new' 750 BSA/Triumph triples, along with a version of the chassis he'd designed
for an abortive 250 BSA G.P. bike, while also incorporating the lessons learned in BSA's World Championship winning
MX program, including judicious use of Ti components.. & gave the British Factory effort a good final racing flourish.

Ironically, just as in MX, it was the concurrent advent of powerful & reliable 2-strokes, even small capacity machines,
such as the Yamaha 350, which proved fast enough to beat the big 4-strokes at the prestige Daytona & Imola 200 races,
& which then went on to dominate G.P. racing - until banned, for commercial, not technical reasons..

[strad]

Good Times eh?