Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: JOOLZ on May 28, 2012, 07:30:25 AM
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I was talking to someone the other day, who was telling me he had a Honda with 10 gears, I must admit I was a little dubious. I had a look on the net at the bike he described and its true, sort of. The 1980 - 1982 Honda CB900 C had a ratio splitter fitted after the gearbox to give you high or low range options. Anyone else heard of this or similar unusual arrangements.
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I get confused enough when I've only got five cogs ;)
GC
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Yes,I have heard of this but not ridden one.
The CL250 from the '80s....looked like a cross between the CB250RS and XL250.
Had a Crawler gear...another lever on the clutch side,pull this in and dab the gear lever down another notch from 1st and you then had a really low gear.
Now then my old Landy has 16 forward gears and 4 reverse ;)
Jethro
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I get confused enough when I've only got five cogs ;)
GC
Five??
My most ridden bike at the moment (cue: comment of utmost obscenity from our Mark) is only a four speed.
Steffan
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I get confused enough when I've only got five cogs ;)
GC
Five??
I was talking about my van ;)
Of course my motorcycle of choice would be a single speed speedway bike with no brakes, anything else wouldn't be manly.
Seriously though, is this a 'who has the fewest gears' contest? :D :o :D
You'll be going on about electric starters being a disability aid next (chuckle).
GC
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well, as with all hype, its not quite as slick as it sounds. the old cb900custom, for that is the bike that had the sticker on it actually had a 5 speed gearbox like most bikes of the era. but it had a choice of high or low ratio box, so its not like you could select 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, you could have low box 1,2,3,4,5. or high box 1,2,3,4,5. and iirc you couldnt shift from high to low box on the move. this was all about the yanks obsession with 1/4 mile times and traffic light gp's, in reality, most got left in high box, cos its not like cb900's were slow to begin with. i remember that hondas off road 3 wheelers sold as 'atc's' at the time had a similar split ratio box. just another gimmic to draw in the gullable and easily impressed.
however, from the same era, and i never saw another, cabe the cb750 turbo, i remember seeing one in west coast salvage at southport, it was a genuine honda model judging by its appearance, and seemed to be a twin cam cb750 motor fitted with a turbo, iirc it predated the old cx turbo by a few years. i only ever saw that one and have never seen mention of them since!
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when i was an apprentice, one of the other lads in our year at college was a bike racer, named simon beck, he was later to compete in and ultimately win the senior manx gp and compete in the tt, where he was killed a few years later coming over the mountain. but he raced a 50cc kriedler that due to its tiny size and razor narrow powerband had someting like 12 or 18 gears in its box to try and keep it on the pipe!!
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Can you imagine the downshifts for Governors Bridge? ;)
Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing, Zing... Brrrrrrrrrr.
GC
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You'll be going on about electric starters being a disability aid next (chuckle).
GC
why are you in need of one?
Contest? I have no idea what you're talking about.........
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At the moment I have no need of any starting device for bikes :'(
GC
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My old Vauxhall Carlton CD2.2i automatic had only 3 gears.
My sister's Puch Maxi (?) moped had 2 gears!
Does a girl win the least number of gears competition.....
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A mate of mine once owned an 50cc Itom racer which had a 10 speed gearbox. Another mate had a strange Daf powered outfit - the 'bike' frame and 'sidecar' frame were a complete welded one piece structure and the 'bike ' rear wheel was offset to the front and the chair so it was a sort of lopsided trike. anyway this thing used not only the Daf engine, but the Daf 'Variomatic' gearbox so all it had was forward-neutral- reverse and it went as fast in reverse as forward.
Finally I remember a trike in BSH years ago which was basically a sod off great Yank V8 with a subframe supporting the steering and forks bolted to the front of the block and a Trike rear subframe bolted to the back. It didn't have a gearbox, but instead a clutch housing with a sort of PTO driven directly off the crank through a 90 degree reduction joint to a chain driven rear live axel - let the clutch out and it goes from 0-125mph just on the revs! looked bloody leathal!