Motorcycle Road and Racing Chassis
December 7th, 2007 at 11:21 am by Paul Crowe - "The Kneeslider"
If you read The Kneeslider, it’s likely you’ll recognize most or all of the companies covered in the book, but, even among the well known names, you might not know much about how they started. Did you know Bimota began with the purpose of making ducting for heating and ventilation? Guiseppe Morri and Massimo Tamburini (the “mo” and “ta” in Bimota) liked motorcycles and the company took a new direction. Lucky us!
Many of these companies started because a racer wanted to improve his own bike, and after putting together something that worked well, others began asking if they might be able to buy one for themselves, Nico Bakker is a good example of this route into business.
Many of the photos from as early as the 1960s and 70s, show bikes that look superb from today’s standards and would look good anywhere they appeared. A Rickman or Spondon chassis just looks right, even if it’s 30 or 40 years old.
Even if you know a fair amount about some of these companies, it’s likely this book will fill in a few gaps in your knowledge and the many photos will give you plenty to look at and probably generate more than a few ideas if you’re thinking about building something yourself.
If you really appreciate the hardware side of motorcycling, functional hardware that is, not the chrome and flashy paint, then this book should be on your shelf.
Posted in Motorcycle Books, Motorcycle Builders, Motorcycle Design
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5 Responses to “Motorcycle Road and Racing Chassis”
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December 7th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
I had a copy of Keith Noake’s earlier work, “Post War Independent Motorcycle Framemakers”. His books have lots of pictures and references that aren’t to be found on the internet. One company missing in his first book was Moto Martin - a favorite chassis of the custom CBX builders at one time.
Books like this tend not to stay in print for long than beome a pain to find.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Moto Martin isn’t in this one either. I’ve seen some of those Moto Martin CBXs, really sweet.
Books like this may be less likely to go completely out of print these days since Amazon sells a lot of their older books in a “Print on Demand” format. You order, they print one up, just for you. Once it’s in the computer there’s no reason it should ever again be unavailable. I’ve ordered some books like that, they’re in a trade paperback type binding and serve as well as any other book.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Rare to find a gem of a book like this, read from cover to cover without putting it down. Recommended reading to anyone wanting to see how independents pioneered the bikes we see today.
December 7th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Thanks again for posting about that book …. my Christmas present to myself!
December 8th, 2007 at 3:53 am
Geez, Defintely a labor of love from an efficianado and enthusiaste. Too bad it is impossible to include all the one-off garage-job specials that have appreared over-the-years and only occasionally got an honourable-mention at-a-boy blurb in some main-stream publication; such as Helmut Fath and the URS Projects or like this recent cool-one at => http://www.absolut.com/en/iaaw/vision/absolut-top-fuel . I liked the Idea and please encourage thim by clicking the ‘Thimbs-up’ button, if you agree too?