Harley-Davidson created their Sportster partly as a result of losing sales and prestige to the quick and nimble British motorcycles being imported into the United States in the fifties as Britain’s government used an “export or perish” economic model to pay off her war debts. These bikes from the likes of Norton, Triumph, and small arms maker BSA were around 500cc capacity heading on up to 650cc. Born in an environment in Britain where racing from café to café trying to reach 100mph and not get caught by the police had become a new sport.
The Flying Merkel is a motorcycle remembered today as one of the most important engineering achievements of the formative years of motorcycle development. Designed…
The Japanese rise as a dominant force in the motorcycle industry during the seventies caught much of the established European motorcycle manufacturers off guard. The bikes from the Land of the Rising Sun had nice convenient electric starters and quickly earned themselves a reputation for dependability. The expression “boringly reliable” was quickly applied to anything made by Honda, because they were. A flat out ride on a Honda CB750cc was however anything but boring and the Kawasaki 900cc that followed it provided levels of excitement that beggared belief.
