hi Paul i would say you are bang on, the only thing on a modern bike that is right is they have two wheels and that is it, modern bike not for me thank you.
G'day Paul, spot on that's why l love classic bikes and l have one Classic looking modern bike it's a 2021 Royal Enfield Interceptor 650cc twin in classic Red and chrome Tank, l have a 1956 BSA Road Rocket 650cc twin in Classic Red and chrome and the two look the same from a distance and both are fantastic too ride, the modern transformer looking bike's really are a poor designed machine's concept, cheers mate, Neil 🤠.
I think the Aesthetic is just as important.I like a bike I can get out of the shed and just stare at and appreciate its design and its beauty. There's a guy on youtube who has just restored a 1971 yamaha xs1/2 650 twin.I remember when this machine first came out.I was 15 and marvelled at how cool it looked and of course I wanted one! although probably a copy of the ubiquitous British 650 twin at the time,it was nevertheless and still is a beautiful machine to behold.It's the aesthetic you see and its something I feel the bike makers have lost in their continuing battle to outdo each other with flying armchairs and engine capacities big enough to power a Charabanc!
I agree with you. The British Bikes of the 60's and early 70's captured the finest look of any street ridden motorcycle. Then the chopper look appeared and man a fine bike was butchered for an outlaw look (Hells Angels) and I kinda fell into that pit for a short time in my youth. Then Japanese styling took over and since, not many new bikes have visual appeal. I loved the Norton styling and I think they peaked at the time of their demise. I love the styling of the American version Trident Hurricane with the then BSA engine. BSA Spitfires were always on my list of great looking machines. The Bonnevilles of the late 60's are wonderful to gaze upon. Are we getting old? I am old but I own a Speed Triple and it has been a good bike other than the transmission, starter sprague, and a relay. It is the most dependable motorcycle I have ever owned. I own a Trident, Bonneville, BSA 441 and a Rickman BSA 441 with the white fiberglass body parts that has a Weslake 2 valve head with the valve angle parallel with the cylinder bore. It needs a piston and the only one I found is over $400.00 U.S. and I do not even know if it is still available as it is for the CCM BSA engine and mine is a flat top piston with this Weslake kit so it sits; and has sat for years. Yes, I would sooner own an older bike than modern as I am no longer traveling far. Another giant issue is the government interference with mandates on what has to be. This goes against my grain.
The number of bikes on the market that I can actually get on reduces annually. It is not uncommon for a seat to be quoted as 820mm but they don't mention the pillion perch is very much higher. Even relatively sensible bikes such as my Moto Guzzi V7 have skimpy mudguards that do almost no guarding whatsoever leaving the front of the bike and the rear of the bike and the rider covered in wet road filth whenever it rains. Fork sliders and suspension damping rods left exposed to the weather and grit are not seeen as a must have on a motorcar so why on a bike? Motorcycle stylists must be graduates from a design school for ladies shoes. The Royal Enfield Classic 350 being an exception.
@@maskedavenger2578 My Triumph Tr-6 with a hard tail and magneto for 40 years. Cases were split to replace the camshafts worn out after 50 years. Sludge trap was almost full. Replaced with a new one. Good 👍😊 for another 50 years. I would buy the same thing if it was offered along with a belt drive. Love the bevel drive like the old Ducati.
@@frankmarkovcijr5459 Not into belt drive ,it feels like your being catapulted along bit by bit along the main drag when you change gear . I prefer chain drive . Also prefer bevel ,push rods ,or chain for cam drives ,not belts if they slip or snap they F up your engine .
@@maskedavenger2578 I prefer shaft or gear drive. Belts and chain drive snap and your engine is toast. My Sportster with gear drive has outlasted all of my Hondas put together.
great rant Paul, I would add that when I used to sketch my ideal bike in the 60's and 70's I would start with the wheels and then draw a line connecting the two spindles, then the centre of the crank and clutch would be no more than 2" above that, now try that with modern bikes, that is why they are so damn top heavy, as you say stupid design.
You are right I once had a matchless with apehanger bars on it and honda mudguards ,it looked awful .I soon changed them to h.r.d. pattern bars but never got around to replacing the guards because I swapped it for a van which turned out to be worthless best wishes from Lancashire
Off roaders are dominated by the Paris-Dakar or world tour look, which is the opposite to the trials cub, which was meant to squirt round green lanes. The worst place for weight on a bike with off road pretentions is high up, where all that weighty fuel wants to engage with gravity. I quite agree on the issue of brown saddles. Royal Enfield insist on putting them on many new bikes. That said, the RE 350 Classic is begging for a scrambler version.
I don’t mind modern bikes as long as they don’t look like mechanical insects ,a stuffed with crap like ,slipper ,blipper , fly by wire throttles , riding modes ,stupid upside down forks ,& blue tooth compatible tat . I just want a motorcycle with normal front & back disc or drum brakes , a clutch ,gears , speedo & Rev counter if required , proper mudguards front & back fit for purpose ,head light ,rear light & indicators , handle bars throttle ,clutch & front brake lever ,centre stand & side stand & decent comfortable flat dual seat . The way I see it ,the less unnecessary tech & idiot gadgets the less to go wrong & create issues ,in the arse end of nowhere on a dark rainy cold night . That’s my little rant over 👍
After 50 years of motorcycling I rarely go into a dealer but when I do I can’t tell one marque from another, and they all look like insects ….. praying mantis, I think. I have stopped buying and stick with a '16 Moto Guzzi v7, an '02 Dyna (with carb), '77 T140 Bonnie & a '74 TR7RV. What more could I want? Bikes nowadays are far too powerful for roads, seriously nearly 200bhp??? I've had fireblades, ZZRs and RSVs but with what I’ve got I can still pass any car and every one of them has character in spades. I test Road a Suzuki litre bike last year and it was powerful but I HATED the twistgrip/throttle feel and response (fly-by-wire) and the whole thing felt neutral and simply boring. 160bhp and no fun to ride! It is obvious why retro bikes like RE and the like are so popular …… including the price. They look like real bikes. My middle-aged female neighbour knows nothing about bikes but even she remarked “now that looks like a real bike” when I rolled out the Bonnie. Must tell you something eh?
Ahh. A 250cc air cooled single with kick start no abs, analog clocks with a disk up front and a drum at the back and light? Dreaming of my long lost 1982 Honda RSA 250 again 😂
Yes, modern bikes are all an eyesore... Not easy to find a beautiful one, and if there is, there always are some small or larger points which are ugly. Only thing good is I don't have to watch it while I ride. Anyhow, the eye gets used to almost anything!
The 1982 Honda CB650 SC was the pinnacle of motorcycle design and aesthetics in my opinion. It follows all the points you mention with perfect decal design. Non of the retro or classic reincarnations come close.
Have to agree, Paul. one of the things I hate about my Yamaha Tracer 900 is the headlight treatment. Juvenile, just plain juvenile. Probably should've bought an XSR900, or better still, a 700. (900 is a good bike once rolling. Even though it's not heavy, it is nevertheless high. Too high for an old, fat fart!). It has enormous performance that I can't use, except for excellent real-world brakes. In the last 3.5 years, I've ridden it less than about 10,000km. In the same period, my A50 has done 30,000km. Was the A50 ever a better bike? No chance (a CB450 was/is far better, and at least its equal aesthetically). Is it more fun than the 900? Absolutely yes. Handle better? Definitely. Look better? Of course. But we are old, and what looks good to us is just ancient crap to the majority of the modern generation.
I do not get the flat boring looking brown seats either the amount of bikes you see with those on & some of them they call cafe racers, the only other colour i like apart from black is the grey topped seat as fitted to some Triumph models the proper Triumphs that is.
food for thought - slipstreaming saves fuel i suppose but yes modern designs do look insect like, preditor, transformer like - are there any modern bikes you could live with i wonder, what about the relatively recent SUZUKI GSX-S1000GT? i thought that looked ok despite low headlamps etc.
Happy new year Paul. The only manufacturer who builds real bikes now is kiwi Indian. Other old name manufacturers could learn a lot from them. Worth a look.
Paul , I would have thought the current Triumph Bonneville range and Royal Enfields would meet your criteria as far as appearance , and design is concerned ........ although the Triumphs are pricey new , despite being made abroad . Most important than styling , I would suggest , is that the machine is constructed in such as way that it is comfortable to ride ....... I`m not entirely sure that machines from the `fifties and `sixties were " designed" as such , when it came to riding position , for example ....... My T140V had footrests which were positioned a good 2-3 inches too far forward , same applies to the T160V ....... the reason being that they could not be sited any further back as the kickstart was in the way ........ If you were happy with the riding position , it was more by luck than design ..... Something like the recently discontinued Kawasaki W650/800 might be suitable , with the added bonus they are more attractively styled than either of the modern Triumphs and Enfields ( in my opinion ...... ) ...... Harley Davidsons , Indians and so on , even something like the Honda Rebel range , could , at a pinch , meet your criteria ............. but the styling probably errs too much toward the " cruiser " image ................. Somehow I can`t quite see you sat on a Fat Bob ( but then I could be wrong ... ) ....... Don`t for heavens sake start looking at " adventure bikes" please , whatever you do ........ As for fuel injection , anything new from 125cc upwards is going to be so equipped , along with the now mandatory ABS , to meet Euro standard emission and " safety" standards ........ there is no escaping it .......... Of course you could always side step fuel injection by going electric ..... as we all will be doing soon anyway ........... ...... As for modern sportsbikes , they are now so track orientated ............( as that`s where most of them will spend a lot of their time ) , they need electronic aids , as without them , the combination of very high power , very light weight , and short wheelbases , means they would be inherently un stable without them ...... Instability is designed in , then tamed by electronics ....... in order to safely provide the instant responses and agility that is required ...... The price of progress ........ One step forward , two steps back , maybe ...... Actually , I think the Ducati Panigale V4S looks very nice ...........
Thanks for your input, but there really is nothing new that turns my head - the newer Triumph Bonnevilles are too big and blobby and look all out of proportion to me, the new RE twins engines have a huge, bulky looking bottom end with a CB400T look alike top end and the 270 degree cranks in both are another turn off, giving a sound like a vee twin. Then, the electronics, ABS, fuel injection etc - all get a no thanks from me. I enjoy my old bikes and I am glad I have them, I will ride them for as long as I can and then that will be the end, but at least I will have my videos with me riding lots of great bikes to enjoy until my own demise.
Come on Paul, modern bikes are designed by graphic design degree holders, that probably have never ridden a bike but they are great using CadCam software, and then the machining centre spit out their designs without anyone testing to see if the bloody thing is useful or usable.
I've disliked the 'arse in the air' look of the new styling from when it first appeared, 1971 Suzuki dirt bike models. I owned two TS250s from that year and considered that style to be insulting to anyone following. Not sure what their motive was but these newer machines generally are insulting to my eyes - extremely cluttered and difficult to keep clean. I'm put off by all but the retro styles which do maintain a congruity for style that has timeless appeal.
Hi Paul, i have been watching your videos trying to get clues on removing a engine from a 1959 RE fury , is it best to remove as a unit with head and transmission attached or is it even possible to remove the head while engine is still in frame ?
It makes me laugh when l see the "adventure " bikes. Any serious off road rides will result in, at best getting bogged down, or having to get assistance to lift the thing to assess the damage to the plastic styling!😂😂😢
What's a pencil then butt? Love it - I think my New Year's resolution has to be trying to be the subject of one of Paul's rants - or at least triggering one! 😜 Have you seen the new KTM Superduke? right up your street, can't see why your next video isn't titled - look at my new bike - a KTM!
…I sat here laughing my arse off at the color of the tires….BROWN and someone “nickin your idea”….but don’t say that too loud…you don’t know these modern advertisers here across the pond in the states…they’ll have black, brown, chartreuse and rainbow (for the lgbtq+ rider) colored tires…… mums the word!….
@bazxl57 in 2014 I rode it from my home in West Wales to the toe of Italy and it never missed a beat, pausing only in Naples for an oil change over a drain. Sadly arthritis meant that I could no longer kick it over so it went to a new home.
@@PatrickWhitaker-ls2cs What memories you must have of that time, always fancied a spoke wheel model in the red & black & all the other Italian style touches they put on them.
@bazxl57 mine was indeed the 1978 red and black version, but with mag wheels, I built the rearsets myself and it had stainless exhausts from Armours in Portsmouth.
I do feel this video is very much one of "one mans opinion" as regards styling. While you, Paul, may have a vision of what a certain kind of machine should look like, there are many and varied opinions of this same thing and no one's right, no one's wrong! People like what they like and have their own vision of what should be and not everyone has to agree. The designers of mordern machines, even the so called classics, Royal Enfield, BSA, Triumph, et al, all have their vision for their products and the customer will choose what they like, or not!. There are no rules where design is concerned and I'm sure there was no set formula between all the British manufacturers as to what any particular design had to conform to, just as there is now between all the makers out there of whatever they produce. As long as it has a wheel at each end and an engine somewhere in the middle it will be a bike. All the rest is detail. There are so many combinations of components which can, or not, be fitted to any given machine that you can make changes to almost anything you like changing the lines of your machine to whatever you like and no one can tell you its wrong because its what you like! Providing you don't do anything to make the machine dangerous there are really no limits even if no one else likes it or thinks its wrong. As long as no one claims their "custom" machine is Original, whats the problem? Myself, I'm not realy into custom machines or chopped frames, I prefer bikes to be as original as possible, New or old, given the components available, and thats OK, The next person may well see my my bikes and think, "that'll look really good as a streetfigher, junk all that plastic". or think, "that would look real cute in pink". and thats OK too but not my style at all. All I'm saying is live and let live but don't always think that someone elses pride and joy is wrong no matter how it may look to you, Its not all about you.
@@paulhenshaw4514 I would say its not all about them either! Everyone has their own tastes and the individual has the right to theirs. Just because one person does not agree with everyone else doesnt mean they're wrong. history has shown this to be true more than once...
I recently bought a 2014 Yamaha SR400. Almost identical to the SR Models of 1976. I just couldn't justify parting with money for a "modern" ugly as sin, bike.
Modern bikes remind me of the crap that we saw in 80’s sci phy movies. Build it on a budget and make it look different , the public will be fooled and will eat it up.
Slightly patronising my friend. I have motorcycles starting at 1973 to 2014.... The only ones that really cause any issues are the pre 90's models. I would never choose an older model if I had a choice for a long journey. Modern bikes are far more reliable..
I have no interest in the modern stuff with the exception of 2 stroke off roaders. The grandchildren need to be thought to race on something. A 30 or 40 year old MX bike is a good place to start. First lesson is you can't see yourself on it.
