The Glory Days of British Motorbikes - BBC Timeshift Series 13 

Thank you for sharing.

I bet you two had a great life and many wonderful memories, we lived through the best era. XX

Keith Phillips A good rule, but did you ever know anyone who kept it? :) I was a London rocker. Maybe we met sometime at the Ace? Every Friday or Saturday night there were about 200 bikes parked outside. You didn't dare turn up on anything less than a 500 (or at least a 350) and when you walked in you more than likely had to duck a flying sauce bottle which was about the only thing not screwed to the floor.

Keith Phillips Don't you DARE "hang up your leathers Keith!..... I got my bike licence in 1962. I'm almost 73 now and still riding ('88 CBR600 Honda), and don't intend stopping until I just can't get my leg over the bike any more... :-) The ton is so easy these days though.... my little 600 will get to 125 breathtakingly fast, and it's 27 years old, although it does make 85hp, which is 15 more than a Black Lightning Vinnie.... Going hard through the gears, 100mph comes up in 4th with the engine pulling like a train and two gears still to go. This is no great shakes these days, with bikes like the big litre Supersports that will touch the 'double ton', and more with the artificial limiters taken off the ECU. The old British bikes do have a certain 'je ne sais quoi' though, with all their faults. I always liked the BSA A65L, but you'd have to pay a kings ransom to get one in decent running order now..... These young 'uns don't know they're born, eh?... :-)

KathrynLiz1 Good for you Kathryn I also have a Honda VFR750F it's an 91 model I bought it brand spanking new and I have done 65 000 miles. I change the oil and filter every six months and throw a set of plugs at it now and again. It goes like the clappers also but I don't ring it's neck very often. another year or two and i becomes a classic. Only seems like yesterday I bought it haha Stay upright girl and thanks for the comment.cheers

+KathrynLiz1 Your right, my generation does suck😯

Keith Phillips

Here we are 2 years later,how’s the riding brother?

Yeah, are you married yet, has the first sprog come along? next comes the car unless you’re very careful😊

i started when i was 17 now 63 have 2 bikes on the road as well as the family car lucky for me my wife used to ride her own bike biking is addictive and fun with consequences if things go wrong so be careful

I had a 69 Lightning, the fastest armchair on wheels ever. 13 miles from the picture theatre to home in under 10 minutes :-)

im 61 an stil ride a old enfiled bullet cant beat the brit singels 58 year old and i still use it every day its a way of life

Was that with the sprung-hub?

Except for constantly fixing them😅

You need someone to build you a 'combo with controls in the chair , knock back out chair fit flat board and clamps for wheelchair, and away you go ,brill.just like 'ogre 'might have spelt it wrong .

lowell mccormick Freedom from mobile phones and technology.. Good luck gettimg your phone out of your pocket to answer a call. Take the long way home from work. :-)

Freedom from wife😂. I often took mine with me as she liked it.

John Ratko Very true. To do a ton then you had to work hard just to keep the bike on the road.

Ian Hawthorn Thain It's what makes it a thrill.

Hi I remember Father Bill Shergold He confirmed my brother and me in 1955 when he was at St Georges in Hanworth then he left to London and the 59 club.

+Scott Munsey Good on ya mate! I'm an Americanophile! and also not shamed to admit it haha!

Scott Munsey brilliant documentary isn't it, if you only do it once go to the iom, magical place.

Just to let you know Scott, Honda ain't British, in fact it's anti British. Glad you like bitter. Oh, just seen your comment was 2 years ago, good luck to you Scott.

Come to England and you can ride a load of classic Brit bikes. just remember the gears are on the wrong side the Right side!

Have you thought about a Royal Enfield 650 Interceptor real value for money. Looks like the 60s bikes, change the pipes it sounds like a 60s bike and you can customise from there. A lot cheaper than a Triumph and selling like hot cakes in the UK. 👍 ride free ride safe

Mountain Meadow Mormonism born in 62 still riding. You got me by 14 good years first bike my dad gave me a ride on was a 62 greaves 250! Still remember the smell of blenzo in the garage.

Rocket III. Lucky guy!

Crazy! Fastest I ever went on a bike was 130 and it was all I could do to hold on ! Sounds like you've got a good grip and steel balls.

I had one of those. When I thought I was doing 70mph and looked down at the speedometer it was showing 110mph

I hope I’m still riding at 73 👍

I woosed out in my mid 40's... ah, this makes me reconsider my present sinful ways

Bad all the way 98 u

It's no longer British, being made in Thailand. Today's Triumph isn't the same.

+Starbar Rothschild Will never forget a mag cartoon showing a bunch of satisfied management types sitting around a boardroom table feet up, and the caption said something like," These Japanese bikes will never amount to anything." The most telling thing in the entire cartoon was a plaque on the wall inscribed, " 1936 Design Trophy."

+Starbar Rothschild It's not only the management. As far as I figured, many people in the UK suffer from this British Disease. I lived here for a while now (born and raised in another eu country) and still don't get it why the "Brits" want to waste all potential of british engineering. I'm also in engineering, and it is as impressive as it is frightening to see how effectively UK people can block off any product, idea, process, etc. Also got the impression that this took over by the 50s, when british products increasingly started to fall behind the competitors (Being to expensive for their quality/performance, less innovative etc.). I really wonder where this is coming from and why the british (even the young!) are so keen on destroying their own industry.

Yes, a conundrum... I logged 30 years in aircraft engineering.... I suspect you are spot on in your assessment.... why the crest of the wave played out I don't know. The greatest item, the Supermarine S6B Schneider Trophy winner of 1931 still sends chills down my spine. I am today, still building models of Mitchell's brilliant creation. The S6B was followed by the Spitfire which I would hope every British school child knows about to this day... and so what happened after 1945. Complacency and what. ??

So you miss the happy Margaret days and the destruction of workers unions and rights ?

It was a communist plan to move production of things to other countries, you think it's all a coincidence that politicians in western countries allowed so much industry to move to Red China?

May a stiff upper lip have missed that I was joking about "my" old British motorcycle in the 60's that leaked oil with a comment to try to invent a smile on a face somewhere in the world watching a motorcycle video? I also had problems with keeping it running, while later my BSA did quite poorly in the hill climbs at the Billings motorcycle club climbing against Harley's built in the USA. Poor quality control and production problems on the BSA assembly line with later models led to oil leaks and rusting parts which damaged the reputation of BSA. They say an Englishman laughs three times at a joke. The first time when everybody gets it, the second a week later when he thinks he gets it, the third time a month later when somebody explains it to him. " One" of the biggest elephant in the computer topic, Alan Turing invented the fundamental concept of computing and artificial intelligence..."Computers" have been around for a very, very long time. But the definition of what makes something a computer has changed a great deal. And the progress made on developing computers was made by many many people, not just one "inventor". There are many people out there who would say that the first "computer" was the abacus, invented in Asia about 5000 years ago. As time went on, there were a number of special devices invented to help with things like tax collecting, taking the census, etc. At first, these were purely mechanical, but by the start of the twentieth century, they were run by steam. The first of the "modern" computers was invented during World War II, in 1941 by a German engineer named Konrad Zuse. The computer was called the Z3 and was used to help design German airplanes and missiles. A couple years later, in 1943, the Allied forces developed a computer called Colossus to help decode German messages. But since the Z3 was developed by the side that lost the war and Colossus stayed a military secret for many years, these computers didn't contribute much to the ones that came next. Independent of the Colossus project, the next computer was the Mark I, designed by Howard H. Aiken, an engineer working with Harvard and IBM. The Mark I was positively huge, taking up half of a football field, but it helped to create ballistic charts for the US Navy during the war. Shortly after this, though, came the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), developed by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, working with the government and the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC was a lot like the Mark I, except that it ran about 1000 times faster. Moving along, there were other computers like EDVAC (1945), UNIVAC I (1951), etc. But all these computers had something in common with the older computers - they were designed for a specific purpose and couldn't really be used for anything else. They also all worked by using vacuum tubes, which is what made them take up so much space. The invention of the transistor in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs made the big difference from here. Using transistors, computers came around that could store memory and even run programs. Soon they even had computer languages so that people could change the programs run by the computer when they wanted to. After a while, the focus on computer research came to be on making them smaller, giving us the kinds of computers that we have todayThe first of the "modern" computers was invented during World War II, in 1941 by a German engineer named Konrad Zuse. The computer was called the Z3 and was used to help design German airplanes and missiles. A couple years later, in 1943, the Allied forces developed a computer called Colossus to help decode German messages. But since the Z3 was developed by the side that lost the war and Colossus stayed a military secret for many years, these computers didn't contribute much to the ones that came next. Independent of the Colossus project, the next computer was the Mark I, designed by Howard H. Aiken, an engineer working with Harvard and IBM. The Mark I was positively huge, taking up half of a football field, but it helped to create ballistic charts for the US Navy during the war. Shortly after this, though, came the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), developed by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, working with the government and the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC was a lot like the Mark I, except that it ran about 1000 times faster. Moving along, there were other computers like EDVAC (1945), UNIVAC I (1951), etc. But all these computers had something in common with the older computers - they were designed for a specific purpose and couldn't really be used for anything else. They also all worked by using vacuum tubes, which is what made them take up so much space. The invention of the transistor in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs made the big difference from here. Using transistors, computers came around that could store memory and even run programs. Soon they even had computer languages so that people could change the programs run by the computer when they wanted to. After a while, the focus on computer research came to be on making them smaller, giving us the kinds of computers that we have today

***** You forgot to say that they stuffed us with a bill that took sixty years to pay off.

Yeh we are the meanest toughest bastards on the planet bar none.

Well go fix Mohammed iron man !

truthhunter46 Yep. A good Bonnie with twin Amal carbs, E3134 cams, high compression pistons, and a 10mm spark plug fitted in the centre of the head between the valves would do 0-60 in a smidgeon over 4 seconds. And that was half a century ago!

You appear to be slightly confused.

And John Surtees. ONLY man to win world championships on two & four wheels BUT they won't give him a knighthood because he was a bikie first.

Hi I had a Bantam for a very short while couldn,t lean into a corner with out scrapping the foot rest Bloody Dangerous Got rid of it

I have a Norton Commando that belonged to my late husband . My father used to ride a Bantam.

+anna jeannette Dixon Flying Freddie was your great uncle? For a moment i felt greatness brushing past my shoulder. I am in Hyderabad, India and am recovering from a little fall on my Harley-Davidson. Of course we know Freddie, which motorcyclist doesnt?

+guitarslinger48 Totally agree and the 1963 Triumph's Trophy and Bonneville, looks the best of all, which is possibly why the new 2016 Bonny's styling reflect that...

HARLEY DAVIDSON is # 1

+Mark Holm Mark, no one is disputing that Harley Davidson turn out a good product. It all comes down to preferences and what your first bike meant, which in my case was a 1959 Triumph Thunderbird and together we racked up over 50,000 trouble free miles, with only a minimum of maintenance required at periodic intervals. The thing I do admire about a Harley though, is that down through the years, they've remained true to their heritage. They are still immediately recognisable as a Harley. Others like Suzuki, Yamaha, etc., all look like they only belong on a racing circuit. While this will appeal to those owners, to me, they are all too much alike and have no personality, if indeed you can apply that description here. Cheers...

+guitarslinger48 I own both. :)

+guitarslinger48 My first road LEGAL bike was a Triumph Thunderbird 650 with the bathtub rear end. Before that i had BSA's, Norton's, Triumph's, AJS, Matchless, Ariel, etc with no licence, tax, mot. I sold the Thunderbird for a good profit, (someone made me an offer i could not refuse). I was riding up and down Southend on Sea, Seafront, (England) and a guy i had seen watching me stepped into the road and stopped me. He pulled out a large bundle of cash and said "How much for the bike". I jokingly named a high figure, and to my surprize he said "OK let's get the documents that go with the bike". He sat on the back of me 25 miles home to my house, picked up the Logbook and MOT certificate, and before riding off with a big smile on his face said he would have paid more. I thought to myself "He's Fing mad, he's just paid double what the bike is worth, and he says he would have paid more" NUTTER. So i got myself a Triumph Trident 750 out of the windfall, and had some money left over. Rode that bike for a lot of years before reluctantly selling it (again for more than i paid for it), then had an Armstrong MT 500 for three years, sold that as i am getting too old for a big thumper, and got what i think is the best bike i have had in my life. The one pictured at the side. Triumph Thunderbird 900 that i am still riding today. Ride safe.

A proper look would need several episodes. That said a mate of mine owned a Bullet, one proper bike. I note the mark is now being built in India which is neat alongside the others like Mohindra. Ride to live

Royal enfield were famous for grass track and trails, they werent considered a racing bike or road bike. but no matter because Royal enfield invented the swinging arm suspension and won loads of trail events and championships :)

+Kelly Cox The 10 hp refers to a old R.A.C. rating used for road taxation calculations, similarly unlikely R.A.C. ratings were applied to bikes, cars and commercials. This calculation did not take the engine's stroke or combustion efficiency or volumetric efficiency into account and assumed a mean engine speed of 1000 rpm. Hence the 16H and CS1 Nortons would have the same R.A.C. ratings although the CS1, because of its exotic O.H.C. design, produced much more power and revs than the humble 16H sidevalve which was much more suited to utility uses.

That's the old Brit 'tax horsepower' rating, not bhp. It was calculated on the diameter of the piston, not engine output.

Chris Moon I fell off many, many times, but only once had to write-off the bike (a BSA A5 when its crakkcase drain plug fell out in front of a lorry I had just overtaken on the Rochetster by-pass). Every other time I just bent things straight again and carried on.

He does say it took years...

@@paulieplayspoorly "as a direct result of that,quite a long time later,helmets did become compulsory."Quite a long time later indeed.

+R C Nelson You mean the very same motorcycle that my 1976 Triumph T140V 750 Bonneville beat in a back road race? Why yes you do, so then that makes the T140V above it. No worries, as my Bonneville beat every street bike on the roads of Long Island NY (think Isle of Man TT roads) for 10 consecutive years. I still have my Bonneville and she sits less than 20 feet from me as I type this. Took her out in 1992 (my Bonneville was 16 years old then) and raced cafe style and beat every new bike including the Kawasaki Ninja 1100cc fuel injected and the Honda V4 Interceptor 1000cc bike. I do say the Norton 850 Commando was a great bike. But my Triumph T140V 750 Bonneville beat it. Best years of my life. I like the 2016 Nortons and Triumphs too. But I'm turning 66 next month so these days I ride a 2015 Harley-Davidson FLHP Road KIng Police. Peter E. Nelson

just sold my 74 commando this past summer, bored out to a true 900 cc lycoming pistons digital ignition radial tires mikuni carbs it ran like raped ape. seems to have handled bit slicker than my Triumph Trident on roads on the twisty's it seemed better balanced, nimbler and lighter and faster

@@PeterDad60 Jesus you are not comparing Long Island to the Isle of Mann are you?

We used to drool over a Bonny in the 60's, only one guy had one at 'The Le Vanto' cafe in B'Ham, he was considered a 'rich kid', I had a very second, third, fourth hand BSA Road Rocket, great days tho.