Bl**dy 'L - this seems very cheap for an RE-5?

Well if I'd have sold quarter of a million Bantams I wouldn't want to
change either.
*At their time* they made some cutting-edge stuff. RGS et al.

 

Well when you consider some of the strain and abuse a lot of engine
components go through day-in-day-out, I'm quite happy with dense metals.

Here you go:

5
2
4
8
3

 

BSA developers were probably taller though.


--
Pete M - The Corporate Penguin.
Range Rover Vogue EFI,
Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 *For Sale*
OMF#9

"This is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules"

 

Anton Gijsen came up with the following;:

Even if those people who had bought a Bantam asked for more power, better
handling, more reliabilty?

.... and had a new, competitive, supplier coming on strong?

I agree. They just didn't continue to do so through fuckwittedness of the
first order, IMHO.

 

Anton Gijsen said...

The weight of an engine is no measure of its reliability. For years the
Japanese have been making bikes lighter and more reliable. Better power
to weight ratios. Why use cast iron when aluminium will do?

A Chinese bike will probably hold out better than some piece of shit
BSA.

Japanese bikes were more expensive than their British competition. They
cornered the market because they were worth buying despite the high
price.

The British bike market was destroyed because of the closed minds of the
men who ran the companies.

But they were even worse.

 

that about sums it up. Overwhelming complacency. The likes of Honda and
other Japanese makers started off with small cheap commuter bikes which were
considered a bit of a joke by the British makers, although they were no
doubt better in some ways than the competition. Then they started making
bigger bikes which quickly became better. compare for example the early
Honda fours with the stuff that BSA, Norton etc were putting out at the
time.

The Japanese were and are obsessive about quality control, if not in the
very early days then they became so. It's been said (by those who should
know) for example that there has never been a failure of a Honda VTEC
system. dunno if it's true.

 

Oh for ****'s sake, that had me laughing out loud.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a
Every post contains nutri-cermide-R for your reading pleasure.
Folding@Home Team UKRM
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=47957

 

Fucking hell, but you talk shite. And all from the lofty wisdom of an
RXS100 (worthy bike though it is).

If ytou think weight = quality, then buy a fucking steam-powered
horseless carriage and leave us all alone.

This is true.

No, the Japs beat the crap out of the Brits because their bikes were
better conceived, better engineered, better built, better equipoped and
more reliable.

You ignorant ****. Motorcycle registrations were on an *upward* curve as
the Brit industry breathed its last. Peak year at that time was.... um,
1981 or 1982 - I'd have to look it up. Sales absolutely boomed from
about 1972 until that date. And in 1972 BSA was still in business.

 

Like I said, they were well finished. The rest was crap. OK, even good,
in the 1950s: utterly hopeless in the 1970s. Completely outclassed.
Partly because the designs, engineering and production machinery were
still the same.

 

Bloke did the RBR on one the other year - got every landmark on it,
too. 100cc thingy.

Only had to put fuel and oil in it, afaik.

 

The Older Gentleman said...

I've said this before and I'll repeat it. The only things that have
corroded on my Suzuki are British built aftermarket parts.

 

cf: Ted Simon's Triumph.

 

Ostrich engineering at its best

 

Pikey - should have coughed for the proper parts then . . . .

 

Buzby said...

They were on it when I bought it. They've since been replaced with
quality items from either Germany, the Isle of Man or Japan.

 

Not what I read a few months ago. I read 1959 was the year that more
bikes were bought than any other year in the UK.

 

At least you got one thing right.

If you ask me, it's a matter of convenience. Why bother carrying around
two-stroke oil when you can have a seperate tank and engine-driven pump?
Why rely on the feel of the gearbox to know when your bike is in neutral
when you can simply divert your attention to a big green light on the
instrument console?
Look how many people buy new cars simply for some needless feature they
don't need and don't often use?

In my mind, when it comes to things like motorbikes (and cars, for that
matter, not that I give two shits about cars), I think that simplicity
is the key, hence my liking for Bantams and my hankering for a Royal
Enfield Bullet. Like I mentioned before, the country has gotten richer.
Why bother going boggle-eyed in front of a black and white wiring
diagram in the back of an oily Haynes manual when an electrical problem
arises when you can simply drop the car off at your local garage and
come back the next day?

My, the insults are coming out in force tonight!

 

Lack of meat on the barrel probably, and lack of strength in the
crankshaft/bearings. By the time most British bike models reached the
ends of their runs, they were not just pushing the envelope for the
designs, they'd comprehensively torn it asunder - to the detriment of
customers worldwide.

Many customers never forgot the fact they were used as development
riders and never forgave the factories for that; so much so, that when
reliable Japanese designs started appearing, backed up with decent
aftersales service, they started selling like hot cross buns.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a
Every post contains nutri-cermide-R for your reading pleasure.
Folding@Home Team UKRM
http://vspx27.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=47957

 

Decent aftersales service? Like getting parts in from Japan instead of
Birmingham?
There must be a large amount of pissed off Japanese people who were used
as "development riders".

 

Oh, for ****'s sake, can't you read? Are you blind as well as thick?

I said:

"Motorcycle registrations were on an *upward* curve as the Brit industry
breathed its last. Peak year *at that time* was...."

In other words, peak year when the UK industry was up shit creek. In
1959 it was on the crest of a wave. Trouble is, it did **** all for the
next decade and a half.