This was Friday in a brief window of no rain and a decent temp. Not really my bike (though my name is on the registration) but thought I'd post about anyway it. I was upstairs on the other side of the house when I heard the unmistakable sound of the Norton start up. Hadn't heard that sound in quite a while (and I thought HH was working on the dirt bikes) and didn't want to miss anything so I tore downstairs and outside. After taking a short video I grabbed my helmet and jumped on the back for a quick spin around the block. I love the feel of this bike even if I'm just riding pillion! I felt like I wanted to ride anywhere and everywhere with HH on that bike. Sigh...but I had to get off and go pick up the daughter in our minivan...at least it has heated seats. EDIT: see below for the videos that were supposed to be attached with this description.
Sorry I meant to post that Norton bit with a couple of videos but hit post instead of upload file and have now discovered I have no idea now to post a video. Working on it...
Mr. Sandi and I went for a lunch ride with two friends, one of whom was on a non-Harley--yes, this is for YOU, @Oldskool! The bike in the foreground is a Victory "Hammer" (2008, I believe). The friend who owns this bike also has a 2008 Triumph Rocket and a 1998 Honda Valkyrie. But yes, (Oldskool), the other three bikes in this photo are Harleys. I was on my orange & dark gray Street Glide getting some miles in on my new handlebars. They are terrific and I'm glad I went for that mod. The other friend we rode with had a birthday yesterday plus became a grandpa (grandchild #2 for him) again on Friday. So we treated him to breakfast in celebration of both. We rode over Gates Pass to a restaurant I've posted about several times previously, Coyote Pause. It's one of a just couple of restaurants we usually go to these days because they are are both (1) on a really nice ride route and (2) have outdoor seating and follow good COVID mitigation protocol. This little path leads from where we park the bikes in a side parking lot back into the courtyard where we hang out, eat, and solve the world's problems. I wish. In all the many times we've been to Coyote Pause, I've never gone 'round back and seen this beautiful little Bed & Breakfast called the Cat Mountain Lodge. So I poked around and snapped a few pics then brought Mr. Sandi and our buddies back to see it before we headed off on our ride. No one was around so we went into the courtyard where the five rooms are then wandered over to the lovely outdoor seating areas and checked out the little observatory. There's a shooting range nearby and one of our friends said it would be a great place to come spend the night, get up and head to the range for an hour or two, then come back for brunch. A little "Stay-cation". I don't know when this sign was put up initially but it certainly is a sign of the times for these days we find ourselves in. Spenser's Observatory -- it's an honest-to-goodness little observatory! You can read about it in the link below if you're interested. https://www.catmountainlodge.com/index.html https://www.catmountainlodge.com/spencers_observatory.html I was thinking later during the after lunch portion of our ride that Victory and Triumph really could be considered synonyms, right? Could it be a coincidence that our buddy owns two bikes that are synonyms for each other?
It's a 750 Roadster and HH has had it for about 40 years. Neither one of us is very large and to me watching him ride it is like beautiful poetry; he's so smooth and fluid. I'll never be anywhere close to his riding skill but he's got a lot of riding years and a gazillion miles more than I ever will. Having fun though!
Another lovely little ride out in the sun..... . I am not jealous at all. I guess it wasn’t too far from home as you took the risk and rode The Hardly. And..... you had the less well refined v twin with your group as well. Very brave . I am guessing it was quite a sedate little ride...! But bloomin lovely. I jest really about the HD , if I lived in America I may consider one. And then see sense and buy a motorbike.
@Oldskool had wanted some non-Harley pics and I think it was @Joe mcdonald who'd asked for a post of the Norton sound so that post was for them both...and an opportunity to share the fun with others who can understand the love and excitement. Ride safe.
Thanks Martine. In all seriousness, I think that anyone who has a real passion for any type of bike is going to be a person I can get along with. @Sandi T. certainly has that passion and is happy to share it and I enjoy her posts with or without the Harleys... !
I completely agree about being able to get along with someone who has a real passion for any type of bike, @Oldskool! Maybe not 100% but pretty darned close. Some of my friends and acquaintances have been known to refer to my "passion" for motorcycles as an obsession. I prefer your term, thank you very much!
Agreed on all...and I share laughs with HH over the Harley ribbing from the forum since he also rides an HD (and has a brother who's all HD and runs a business based on them so we share with him also ). Was glad I had the opportunity to try to fulfill two things with one post and share the fun with the like-minded...a pleasure of the forum... Ride safe.
An old riding buddy, who passed away in 2017, had numerous Nortons in his younger days before "adopting" Jap tech and still had a non runner tucked away in the back of his garage when he left us. I'm not that clued up on old Nortons but I remember him talking about Dominators and Atlas's. One of his many funny stories was when he was on one of his Nortons, equipped with an Amal carb and was "giving it a handful". Unbeknown to him, the vibration had unscrewed the top of the carb so when he came to roll off the throttle, instead of the throttle closing, the carb top just lifted up with zero effect! I guess this must have been in pre-kill switch day's 'cos he instinctively reached down and pulled off the plug lead! We both used to have a good laugh about this every time he recounted it but he assured me that, at the time it wasn't funny at all! I miss him and wish he was still here. RIP Bryan.
It was a beautiful ride out in the sun yesterday! And my Harley made the 60 mile trip just fine. I didn't even need to bring a drip pan for oil leaks to put under my bike while we ate our lunch. Of the three Harleys in the photo, the blue one is the more, well, "old school" model, @Oldskool, with Harley's Twin Cam engine. My 2020 Street Glide (in orange) and Mr. Sandi's 2017 Street Glide (in matte black) both have Harley's new(er) Milwaukee 8 engine in them. Mine has the 114ci (which equates to 1870 cc's). I upgraded with what Harley calls a Stage 2 Torque Kit. That upgrades includes new full exhaust (I chose one from Rinehart Racing), hi-flow air cleaner and tuner (H-D), and a torque cam. Corrected rear wheel torque and hp are right around 120 and 100 respectively. So when the ride is sedate, it's on me and not my bike. Harley makes a Stage II Power Kit also which includes a power cam instead of a torque cam. But I'm a low end power fan myself. Plus we don't have an autobahn in the U.S so the torque cam was an easy choice for me. Hey, if you ever make it to the U.S., please come visit Mr. Sandi and me in Arizona, Oldskool. I'll take you to visit my buddies at our local H-D dealership. I might even let you ride one of my Harleys! Well, on second thought.....
It's great having you on board as a member, @Martine! I really enjoy your posts and your forum presence. It definitely is fun to share the fun with the like-minded on this forum. I also appreciate that you went the extra mile to figure out how to post those Norton videos! I've not yet gotten to that level of techie-ness. How did you go about it it? What H-D does HH ride? And what sort of H-D-related business does your brother-in-law have? I'm just curious and if you prefer not to share, no worries. My handsome husband says I sometimes ask too many questions.
Thanks for sharing that Norton story. Sometimes it's only in hindsight that some things become funny! Sounds like he was a good friend with many neat stories. I'm sorry for your loss.
Thanks, Sandi T. I've enjoyed the forum so far though I may have spent way too much time reading the joke thread when I should have been doing other things . And you know I've enjoyed your great posts about sunny AZ. HH rides an '06 Softail Deluxe. When I met him he had his Norton and a Honda Sabre V45, which is the bike I first learned to ride (I have no hope of being able to ride the Norton). His '76 Bonneville had taken a hiatus but came back to him later and happily recently welcomed my 2020 T100 to the garage. Like others have said, nice to have a choice of riding styles. My BIL installs lighting (anything electric really, but mainly lighting) on HDs in WA and travels to shows and does it on the road, too. He also cuts them to pieces and rebuilds them to suit himself for fun. Last time we saw him in GA he was towing a new camp trailer from WA by way of NH with a highly modified Heritage. Will post a pic later of one of his builds with a suicide clutch. I searched the forum for how to post a video after getting error messages of the files I was trying to upload being too large even after I'd compressed them. Yea forum! I found "Possible To Post A Video Segment? Discussion in 'Triumph General Discussion' started by Thripster, Sep 18, 2020." It says to post it to YouTube first...which was another first for me! Like I've told you before, I don't do any other social media (gasp!) so this has been a bit of an adventure learning some terminology and techniques (like PM, uploading, etc.). Glad I found the best forum out there!
Wow, that’s some cc’s to make 100HP....... I understand why you went down the Torque route with your mods. You have invested a lot of time and money to make your bike “ your” bike. I get that. And they do look right for where you live with your speed limits and road types. Over here we have different road set ups and my favourite roads go way out into the countryside. I think you would be amazed at the widths of country lanes and the style of riding that goes on. ..... Some good and some outright heart stoppingly mad. We are lucky where we live as the roads are not heavily policed. The police forces tend to rely on speed cameras rather than patrols. But that does lull you into a false sense of security...As for riding one in Tucson, we are lucky if we ever get out of the village .....! But if we ever get out of this place who knows..!
I should think it's pretty safe to say that 'the forum' is glad that you found it! @Martine, can I ask you, please, a (kind of) personal question regarding a statement in your post above? You say, quote, "I have no hope of being able to ride the Norton". This really intrigues me as it immediately begs the obvious question - "WHY?" You're clearly VERY capable of riding a motorcycle - though I can't, at present, recall exactly which Triumph you own - so, fundamentally and self-evidently, you have the ability to ride the Commando ........ you can read that as either a statement or a question, I suppose. So, is the 'no hope' that you express self-imposed; a constraint imposed by HH; a condition in the wedding vows - Commando chastity, perhaps? Seriously, I'd guess either HH says 'no' or you say 'no thanks'. Now, IF it's the latter, I'd wager you're "afraid you'll damage the motorcycle-love-of-his-life" or maybe it's "too big/heavy/powerfu/tall for me" which would be interesting as it's lighter and MUCH less powerful than the Sabre you used as a learner bike! Granted, the 1970/71 Commando is going to have a noticeably higher seat height and will carry its weight appreciably higher than the V45 ... OH, and it'll have the shifter on the "wrong" side! ....but, as a riding machine it will handle much better, respond to steering input more easily and be an INFINITELY more engaging experience (trust me on this!) than, arguably, ANY bike you've ridden to date!! So I implore you - nay, urge you - go speak to HH and ask if he'll teach you to ride the Commando. Once you've tried and mastered a proper, old fashioned Brit. twin - especially the Commando - you'll have passed a milestone of understanding of where 'modern' bikes came from and why 'old and British' is an accolade not an admonition; a compliment not a curse and an achievement not an ambition! 'Just do it' might be an appropriate injunction?
Thanks, @Adie P, those are some seriously encouraging words and I love how you explained the possibilities. Everything you said about "old and British" is what HH schooled me on from the beginning and is surely what's behind his love of that bike. He's offered every bike to me so it's definitely not that he won't share! But a couple of months ago I'd explained to @joe mc donald in my newbie thread: "That's my husband's Norton which I've ridden only two-up with him. Not that he wouldn't share but first I've no chance at all of kick starting it, and even if he started it for me I couldn't pull the clutch lever, and if I managed to overcome that somehow, I'd have to learn to shift with my right foot." Not that I couldn't learn the shifting but the bike is tall and I'm not an agile enough rider to overcome that and pulling that clutch is a humdinger (maybe it's adjustable but never explored that). I'm thrilled to be on my T100 and when I'm not riding I love reading about the bikes...like this article which has great Triumph mentions and made me want to try them all: https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/motorcycles/g2309/best-motorcycle-buys/ That Sabre was a super comfortable bike and easy to ride, but then what did I know since it was the only one I'd tried at the time? I rode it only enough to know that I wanted/needed to get my own bike. I've not ridden his HD because I find it to be just too big for my comfort. I know that deftness on a bike isn't necessarily size dependent given we watched the eye-wateringly talented, small-statured Hardly Angels years ago ride huge HDs in astonishingly slow, tight dance moves; and my BIL is three inches shorter than me (I'm 5-feet 5-inches) yet more than manages any HD. HH and BIL started riding when they were 7 and 9, so their bike experience and mileage are crazy, and I'm sure that describes many people on this forum from the sounds of it. I guess the bottom line is that the "no hope" is, as you suggested, "self-imposed" after all. The next new thing for me will be dirt bike riding. Who knows, maybe that will lead to a Scrambler... Ride safe.
I certainly know what you mean about spending too much time reading the joke forum, Martine. I find I spend a lot of time on the forum in general! Glad to know you enjoy my AZ posts. I'm enjoying your posts, too. I've always liked the Softail Deluxe model. There's something so iconic about its retro vibe. I was really surprised to learn that Harley pulled it from their model offerings as of this year. I'm hopeful that it will be back again at some point. I've never owned that particular Harley model but test rode a 2018 when the demo truck came through Tucson and I really enjoyed riding it. If you're BIL has ever been a vendor at the Laughlin River Run I'm sure I've seen him. That's a rally that my husband and I attended every year from 2012 until they cancelled it in 2020. The primary lighting vendor I always remember seeing because we stayed at the hotel where it was based was by the Golden Nugget. Wouldn't it be a small world if that was your BIL?! I look forward to seeing some photos of his builds, particularly the one with the suicide shifter that you mentioned. I don't do any other social media besides this forum, either, so have learned a lot of new things by being on here. As I think you've found, folks are happy to help and offer advice not only about bikes but about things that are forum and tech related. I'll have to get on YouTube and find out how to post a video on YouTube. I'm sure there are lots of YouTube videos on how to do that! As Adie P mentioned in another post, the forum is glad that you've found it...and us!
