Motorbike Archives

[JETZcorp]

This is pretty cool. I was looking for a cover from Dir Bike magazine circa 1981 (the one with the 490 Maico scaring the shit out of its rider out of the hole) and happened across a site called the so-called Motorbike Archives. This is essentially a big collection of stuff from around '65 to maybe '85, including original magazine tests, shootouts, covers, videos, pictures, etc. The tests are interesting to read, though many of them are really dry, saying things such as, "This year's 390OR has a new steering head which tilts the bars another half a degree to 30.5 degrees, but this unfortunately makes the forks a bit off for...." and so on for two pages. Some are pretty nice, such as the vivid description of why an '82 Husky 250CR should handle like crap, but mysteriously doesn't. Anyway, the video section might be rather interesting to you guys, 'cause it has some Wide World of Sports coverage of a few Carlsbad GP races, where some real battles broke out on that rough b****rd of a course. So, go ahead and check it out if you want.

http://motorbikearchives.com/

[jlv]

That site is great. Even has a dyno chart for a 73 cr250 elsinore.

[JETZcorp]

And it has one for a '78 Maico 450, as well as a lot of other golden-age bikes. Though I've heard it said that a modern dyno will tend to by more optimistic than they were back then, sometimes adding as much as 5hp to, say, an '83 Sand Spider. Of course, that's just hearsay, I don't have any experience with dynos (though I'd love to see my 120 give one a spin.)

[jlv]

I don't think it's new vs old. Different dynos will give different numbers for various reasons like friction from whatever drive mechanism the dyno uses or weather changing the power of the motor itself.

[JETZcorp]

That makes sense, though perhaps the old dynos were more prone to being ill-calibrated or something.

[Phathry25]

There's also different correction and smoothing factors that can be used, and can gain you up to 3HP. Whats most important is to remember the dyno is a tuning device, and to rely on the start strait, or big uphill to really see how all that tuning is working out.

[Turbine951]

Hey JETZ, Im pretty sure I just saw your collection on Racerx! Go check it out.

[JETZcorp]

Yeah, they sent me an eMail telling me it won. No big surprise, really, because every one of those bikes is a real classic.