An old school friend 'Brenton' went for his license shortly after I got mine in 1979 (yes we are now geriatrics) anyway he passed ok but it was a manual car and in the examiner's comment box it said..." Brenton has a tendancy to jerk off at traffic lights" If only the examiner (an older gentleman) was aware of the interpretation of his comment with regards to Brenton's less than smooth clutch release skills.
Some years back, I took my brother-in-law to go for his motorcycle licence test. I followed him on my bike and he was on his little 250 with learners plates on. He rode off, followed by the examiner, and I settled down to wait for them. They returned after maybe five minutes, and I couldn't believe his test was over so quickly. I asked him what happened, and he said "I failed". Amazed, I asked how, and he said just down the road he came to a stop sign, there was no-one coming either way, so he just rolled through and kept going...he didn't seem to see anything wrong with doing this...
When I went for my motor bike license I left my side stand down (the only time I'd ever done it to) but he still tested me and passed me because I checked twice every time when performing a lane change......lucky for me, he said you only have to leave your side stand down once to break your neck....and he was right.....motor cycle manufacturers should have designed something more fail safe from day one. My friend went for his motor cycle license and lost the examiner who was following him on another bike:thumbsup:
Different in my day. I did my motorcycle licence while a student at Sydney Uni. Rocked up at the RTA (or whatever it was called then) at Roseberry. The testing officer told me where to ride and what to do, and said come inside and get him when I returned. Duly got back alive within the alloted time, and got my licence. And I'm still alive many years later.
Yeah, this was an old Honda 185 XL, my 1981 GSX 1100 Suzuki had a side stand alarm and large warning light on the dash but it stopped working, I have not been into bikes for years now but I can imagine that the bikes of these days have many safety items which the 80's Jap bikes didn't, like head lights which you can use after dark (I nearly hit a runaway horse one night) and forks and frame that will not tank slap you into an oncoming car when you ask it to corner properly, some even have ABS these days. But one thing I will never forget is how damn good the Suzuki air cooled 16 valve 1100 engine was (and still is) 83kw @ the flywheel, those engines are still used now for drags and side car racing, not as fast as the drag strip Harleys but not much is.
Right on about the old air-cooled Suzuki engines...them and Kawasaki Z1000-Z1100 engines are renowned as being absolutely bulletproof, taking all sorts of abuse and asking for more. Remember about the "dragstrip harleys' you mention...the only "Harley" part on those bikes is the badge...they have full house Nitro engines built from the ground up, and even the full on competition ones have 100 cubic inch+ S&S motors putting out 160hp+. As I said...just because a full-on drag bike has a "Harley" badge on it, that doesn't always mean you should equate them with the road bikes in any way, shape, or form...
Yeah, I just saw some 6 and 7 second drag monster Harleys on TV and the Jap bikes were more mid to high 7's, but yes I can imagine the only similarity with Harley would be the V configuration and the badge. Lets not forget, like it or not the Japanese (and the Germans) are probably the greatest engineers out there, a stock Yamaha R1 is virtually line ball with a Formula 1 (in a straight line anyway) the R1 Yamaha can only virtually match a Porsche GT3 around a circuit. And how good is a BMW M3 for a naturally aspirated engine of relatively small capacity? (Albeit for a hefty price tag)
after much careful examination ive realised that this thread is actually not funny at all ... someone tell a joke before it gets deleted!
