History Channel, History of the Motorcycle

[tmckay]

Did anyone catch this last night?  It was on (in Mass. anyway) at 8pm.  Two hour show, covering everything from the turn of the century to the present.  Really interesting; I think it's available on historychannel.com

One thing that impressed me was how insane the "board track" racers were in the 1920s.  These were high speed bikes that had to be towed to start, no brakes, no throttle, just ran wide open on a wooden track like a modern velodrome.  A bunch of riders were hurt and killed, and some spectators.

I thought that late 20th century and early 21st had the corner on extreme sports, but apparently not.  

Trev

[zoltan]

i saw it, it was pretty neat. the roadog was insane though, what kind of twisted mind could concieve of something like that? for those that didn't see it, the roadogs were a pair of handbuilt "motorcycles" which were about 15 feet long, used a car engine (forget what) and weighed about 3500 pounds   . you couldn't support it so it hand hydrolic "feet" for support. apparently you couldn't really steer it either. both of the roadogs still exist today.

at the end of the show they had a thing about the segway since it has two wheels and is motorized. that bit left a bad taste in my mouth.

[tmckay]

Yeah, the roadog was truly bizarre  

I liked the story of the original Goldwing, too.  It was meant to be a naked muscle bike to compete with Harleys mostly, but it was such a good ride that buyers customized it.  After-market fairings, bolted on radios, hard bags, and tail trunks transformed the bike.  It was beefy enough to handle all the extra weight.

After several years Honda realized that their customers had redesigned their bike, and all the addons became standard around 1980 or 1981, I think.

Hmmm, maybe we can do the same thing for the GS (at least in Canada, Europe and Japan).  If we do enough fenderectomies....

Trev

[TheGoodGuy]

i loved the sound of that Y2K bike that jay rode.. mmmmmm

The roaddog was amazing.. that thing is so long .. its true its like a loch ness monster.

Lots of good information from that program.. next time they air it i am recording it.. this is teh 2nd time its aired.. i remember catching the 2nd half a long time back.

[The Antibody]

I caught that a while ago. I love the history channel.

 -Anti