RCU Forums - View Single Post - Four Stroke Valve Train Lubrication
View Single Post
Old 03-30-2014, 04:58 AM
  #56  
earlwb
 
earlwb's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Grapevine, TX
Posts: 5,993
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes on 3 Posts
Default

Yeah I love motorcycles too. I currently have a 1992 Sportster XLH 1200cc bike.

But many many years ago when I was in the USMC, I used to love the ride through Joshua Tree National Park near TwentyNine Palms California, when I was stationed there. It had something like 200 turns and switchbacks to ride through. But if you went to fast in a turn, you were in a heap of trouble when you left the road. The terrain was bad, but fortunately, no cliffs though.

Also back then Highway 62 to Parker was great as the police were rarely out on that road and it had some awesome long straight runs where you could really wind up a motorcycle. At the time I was riding a Norton Commando 750 with a Dunstall 810 kit. I also had the British electric underwear that I could plug into the bike for those long rides home to Arizona on the holidays.

Before I had hopped up the Norton, I used to run it at the Arizona Drag Strip in the "run what you ride" types of events. There was a guy who rode a Kawasaki Mach III who used to hate me, as he couldn't beat me down the strip. The Norton you see handles great, no bad tendencies, squirrelly behavior. etc. But the Mach III had problems with the frame and how it handled, so it would be all over the track as the owner tried to keep it straight. So I would beat him all the time, and it drove him pretty nuts in frustration. The Mach III should have had more than enough power to beat the Norton, but the frame was bad and flexed too much. The main thing I liked about the Norton which was something shared by most of the British bikes of the time was their great handling and cornering ablility in the turns. Which was why I loved to blast through Joshua Tree National Park with all of those turns to ride through.