Ozebook Classic Motorcycling Magazine #5

Classic MotorcyclingOzebook’s Online Magazine - Issue 5

The Centennial ClassicThe European Racers

Ozebook Classic Motorcycles

www.ozebook.com

Editorial

Layout and original content copyright: Murray Barnard 2012Ex Libris www.ozebook.comEmail: [email protected]

Cover Shot: : Hummel Kreidler 50cc - Photo copyright by Jan Burgers 2010

Assen!

The Centennial Classic at Assen in September 2010 must have been a feast of sightsand sounds.

Thanks to Jan Burgers we have a smorgasbord of photos of fabulous European classicracers, seen at Assen, to view in this issue of the magazine.

Why Assen? 2010 was in many ways a jubilee year as not only was the Assen TT heldfor the 80th time but it was also 35 years ago that Giacomo Agostini received his 15th andfinal World title. 35 years ago the historic race between Berry Sheene and Agostini washeld in Assen and the two opponents finished within a hundredth of a second. 2010 wasalso the year in which Suzuki has been active for 50 years in motorsport. It was also aSuzuki which triumphed with Kevin Schwantz on the TT Circuit Assen. Another milestonewas undoubtedly the Assen TT which Jack Middelburg won 30 years ago.

Well where is classic motorcycling in general heading?

Prices for machines considered rare or collectable are going through the roof and arebecoming unaffordable ensuring most of these machines are confined to museums orprivate collections. It, however, has always been so.

As the generations change, newer machines become collectable and classic in theirown right. There is no static definition of classic. Largely it is a case of whatever machinesone grew up with, will become the classics of the present. For example, the youth of theearly 70s see Kawasaki Mach IIIs and Honda Fours as classics today, while the previousgeneration of the 60s would see the Norton Atlas, Triumph Bonnevilles and BSA GoldStars as the only classics. The children of the 80s will not look much beyond the SuzukiGSXR.

The market for a new bike has never had so much choice, with every variety of enginelayout and country being there for the taking if you have enough money; but where arethe exciting bikes? Plenty of power, uncompromising riding positions and powerful brakesand compliant suspension. But where is the excitement factor?

Maybe the lack of big two strokes is the problem. Do I see some specialist small scaleoperations starting to explore the production of 500cc two strokes again. I hope so.

Murray Barnard

Kawasaki KR500Photos by Jan Burgers

The Kawasaki KR500 was a racing motorcycle built by Kawasaki from 1980 to 1982 for the 500cc GPs. The bike debuted in the world championship at GP of Nations 1980 (thecircuit Misano Adriatico) with Kork Ballington in the saddle. At the end of the season theSouth African rider finished 12th in the standings. For the 1981 season the KR500 wasimproved, a new chassis was built which was stiffer and lighter, the bike got a magnesiumcrankcase and a fork with anti-dive. The season saw the KR500 get its first podium finisheswith two third places (in Netherlands and Finland) with Ballington finishing 8th in the finalstandings of the championship. The main change before the 1982 season was switching toShowa suspensions. Kork Ballington finished 9th in the championship, the best result duringthe season was a 6th place in Misano. At the end of the season Kawasaki retired from GrandPrix motorcycle racing.

The KR500 features a stepped water-cooled square four two-stroke motor in an aluminiummoncoque frame. The front suspension featured a mechanical anti-dive arrangement.

Kawasaki KR500

Kork Ballington belowon the KR500. To the left,Kork on an earlier versionof the KR500

Classic Racing PhotogalleryPhotos by Jan Burgers

Gilera is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer founded in Arcore in 1909 by Giuseppe Gilera.

In 1935 Gilera acquired rights to the Rondine four-cylinder engine. This formed the basisfor Gileras racing machines for nearly forty years. From the mid-thirties Gilera developed arange of four-stroke engine machines.

After World War II, Gilera dominated 500 ccGrand Prix motorcycle racing, winning the 500cc road racing world championship with Masetti in 1950 and 1952 and with Geoff Duke in1953, 1954 and 1955. Libero Liberati won in 1957.

Facing a downturn in motorcycle sales due to the increase in the popularity of automobilesafter the war, Gilera made a gentleman's agreement with the other Italian motorcycle mak-ers to quit Grand Prix racing after the 1957 season as a cost-cutting measure.

Between 1953 and 1957 Geoff Duke had won 3 world championships for Gilera and like somany others had been affected by the Italian withdrawal. Since then he had made ap-proaches to Commenditorre Gilera to provide machines to at least challenge the currentMV domination. These were rejected; however in 1962 one of the 1957 bikes was madeavailable for Duke to make demonstration laps at the Bob McIntyre Memorial meeting atOulton Park.

Geoff Duke made approaches to Commenditorre Gilera to provide machines again to chal-lenge the MV domination. These were rejected; however in 1962 one of the 1957 bikeswas made available for Duke to make demonstration laps at the Bob McIntyre Memorialmeeting at Oulton Park.


Fitted with the latest in tyre technology Duke was recording his fastest-ever times atOulton Park, despite not having competed seriously since 1959.This outing convincedDuke that the Gileras would still be competitive despite a five-year lay-off. In late 1962Signor Gilera agreed to loan machines to Geoff’s private team , which comprised DerekMinter and John Hartle. Gilera gave the go-ahead to contest the 1963 season.

The team’s first outing was at Silverstone, where Minter and Hartle took 1st and 2ndplaces. Further success came at Brands Hatch which saw once again, a Minter/Hartle1st and 2nd. Following these successes the team appeared at the Imola circuit in Italywhere Minter overtook Hailwood to claim a significant victory.

Derek Minter was seriously injured in a non championship race at Brands Hatch in anincident where Dave Downer was killed. At the Dutch TT, team spirit was revived; fol-lowing Hartle’s 500 win. Hartle’s win represented the sole GP victory for the equipe. iItwas a measure of the bike's prowess however that John Hartle, Phil Read and DerekMinter brought the six year-old hardware to second place in the manufacturers' champi-onship.

Classic Racing PhotogalleryPhoto by Jan Burgers

1974 Barry Sheene portrait Imola 200

Count Vincenzo and Domenico Agusta had a passion for motorcycle rac-ing. They were determined to have the best Grand Prix motorcycle racingteam in the world and spared no expense on their passion which was re-warded by a 500cc World Championship in 1956 ridden by John Surtees.

After the 1957 season, the Italian motorcycle manufacturers Gilera, MotoGuzzi and Mondial jointly agreed to withdraw from Grand Prix competitiondue to escalating costs and diminishing sales. Count Agusta originallyagreed to withdraw, but then had second thoughts. MV Agusta went on todominate Grand Prix racing, winning 17 consecutive 500 cc world champi-onships.

Count Agusta's competitive nature usually saw him hire some of the bestriders of the time, namely Carlo Ubbiali, John Surtees, Mike Hailwood, Gi-acomo Agostini, Phil Read, among others, and having the best engineers,most notably Arturo Magni.

The three- and four-cylinder race bikes were known for their excellent roadhandling. The fire-engine red racing machines became a hallmark ofGrand Prix racing in the 1960s and early 1970s.



Giuseppe Pattoni was a keen racing motorcyclist before he joinedMondial. Pattoni proved his worth as a mechanic by tuning the vehiclethat Cecil Sandford rode to win the 1957 250-class world champion-ship.

The following year the Mondial company retired from racing, and Patto-ni set up his own race workshop. In addition to repairing vehicles, Pat-toni and Lino Tonti began to build racing motorcycles under the nameof Paton. In 1958 they produced a single-cylinder two-shaft 125 thatMike Hailwood, who was just starting out, rode to sixth place at the Isleof Man Tourist Trophy.

A few years later they produced a two-cylinder 250, which was laterturned into a 350 and then a 500 model. The Paton two-cylinder 500was opposed by factory three and four cylinder machines in it’s class.


In 1967 the first 500cc Paton arrived and the 470cc twin produced 52bhp at 9600rpm.

It won the Senior Italian championship in the hands of Angelo Bergamonti. In 1970 Pattonienlarged the motor to 484cc and was claiming up to 62bhp in the end. The main riders forthat year were Billie Nelson and Fred Stevens.

With the all winning two strokes making their mark by the early 70s Pattoni also evolvedhis 500 offering into a 4 cylinder water-cooled two stroke GP machine.

By 1975 he retired from racing his own machines after a wonderful string of successesfrom his own designed and manufactured machines. Something we may never see again.


In 1960, Benelli was forced to acknowledge that itneeded a multi-cylinder machine to remain com-petitive in Grand Prix racing's 250cc class, the Ital-ian firm was able to draw on past experience ofthis type of machine, having constructed a 'blown'quarter-liter four in 1939. The new 250 four wasset transversely in the frame and built in unit withthe six-speed gearbox, while early developmentsled to the abandonment of a separate oil tank infavor of a long, finned sump. There were twovalves per cylinder operated by twin overheadcamshafts driven from the crankshaft via a centralgear train, and in its initial form the Benelli 250four produced a claimed 40bhp at 13,000rpm.

Pictured here is a 16 valve, 350 four cylinderBenelli from 1969

Although it was first seen in 1960, the 250 Benelli four did not race competitively until April1962, when Silvio Grassetti debuted the bike at Imola. Although eliminated by a bentvalve in that first race, Grassetti stunned the racing world a week later at Cesenatico,beating the seemingly invincible works Hondas of Jim Redman and Tom Phillis. The greatTarquinio Provini was signed for 1964, but even with a seven-speed gearbox and morepower, Benelli found it impossible to win Grands Prix. Development continued into 1965,an eight-speed gearbox being new for that season, but by now Honda were fielding a six-cylinder 250 ridden by the best rider in the world – Mike Hailwood. Spreading its limitedresources even more thinly, Benelli pressed ahead with developing a 16-valve 350 and a500.

With Provini forced into premature retirement through injury, Benelli signed Renzo Paso-lini who promptly rewarded his new employers' faith by winning the 250 and 350 ItalianChampionships in 1968. In 1969 he reaffirmed the 350's competitiveness by beating MV-mounted reigning World Champion Giacomo Agostini six times out of seven in the ItalianChampionship. By this time the last of the Japanese manufacturers had pulled out of theWorld Championships, clearing the way for the Benelli fours to grab a slice of Grand Prixglory. Agostini and MV Agusta remained unassailable in the 350 and 500 classes at Worldlevel, but in the 250 category Benelli eventually got the better of Kent Andersson's Yama-ha and Santiago Herrero's Ossa, Australian Kel Carruthers bringing the Championshipback to Pesaro. There were sporadic appearances by the 350 and 500 fours over the nextfew years (four-cylinder 250s having been banned) but that glorious 1969 season effec-tively marked the end of Benelli's Grand Prix campaign.

Kreidler was a German manufacturer of small motorcycles and mopeds, based inKornwestheim, between Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart. The company was founded in1903 as "Kreidlers Metall- und Drahtwerke" (Kreidlers metal and wire factory) by An-ton Kreidler and started to build motorcycles in 1951. In 1959 one third of all Ger-man motorcycles were Kreidler. In the '70s Kreidler had very great success inmotorsport. Especially in the Netherlands the riders Jan de Vries and Henk van Kes-sel were very successful.

The company went out of business in 1982.


Carlo Ubbiali (born September 22, 1929) is an Italian nine-time World Champion motorcycleroad racer. In the 1950s, he was a dominant force in the smaller classes of Grand Prix mo-torcycle racing. Ubbiali was born in Bergamo, Lombardy. In 1949, the first year of Grand Prixmotorcycle racing, he finished in fourth place in the 125cc class riding an MV Agusta. Thatyear, he also won a gold medal in the International Six Days Trial.He switched to Mondial forthe 1950 season.

Ubbiali won his first World Championship for Mondial in 1951. After losing his crown to CecilSandford in 1952, he signed with MV Agusta. He went on to become their top rider, winningsix 125cc titles and three 250cc crowns and scoring double championships in 1956, 1959and 1960. Ubbiali was also a five-time winner at the prestigious Isle of Man TT. He rarely puta wheel wrong as evidenced by the fact that he never suffered a serious crash during his 12year Grand Prix career. Ubbiali retired at the age of 30 while still in his prime. Until GiacomoAgostini came along, he was considered Italy's greatest motorcycle racer. His nine WorldChampionships tie him with Mike Hailwood and Valentino Rossi for third place on the cham-pionship win list behind only Giacomo Agostini and Ángel Nieto.


MZ Motorrad- und Zweiradwerk GmbH was a motorcycle manufacturer located in Zscho-pau, Germany.

Renowned for ground breaking two-stroke racing design the company suffered from alack of support by the communist East German government and poor access to qualitymaterials and machinery. Despite this the factory produced competitive machinery butwas hampered by restrictions in travel to the West and a lack of money to finance a fullon race team.

The MZ two-stroke engines, developed by engineer Walter Kaaden, have influenced mo-torcycle racing for decades. His 1961 125 cc race engine design was the first to achievean output of 200 bhp (150 kW) per litre.

His revolutionary two-stroke system was copied widely in the 1960s by Japanese manu-facturers. Suzuki two-stroke engines became competitive in motor sport only after theygained possession of Kaaden's MZ design secrets from racer Ernst Degner after his de-fection from East Germany in.

MZs were ridden to 13 GP victories and 105 rostrum places between 1955 and 1976.

Above: Moto Guzzi 500Below: Jawa 500cc v4

Continued fromIssue 4

Martin Krause from Berlin has sharedwith us some pictures of his nicely re-stored and customised Suzuki GT750J.

The GT750 is a super smooth, torquey750cc water cooled two stroke, first pro-duced in 1972.

Suzuki GT750

Brough Superior

Simon Horder’s prize winning Suzuki GT750J

Classic MotorcyclingOzebook’s Online Magazine - Issue 5

www.ozebook.com2012

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Ozebook Classic Motorcycling Magazine #5