Motor-sickle

Once upon a time when I lived in Texas I had a motorcycle, a Triumph Bonneville. It was put together by a fanatic down in Houston. Ultralight weight, extra powerful motor. By the time I got it, the big motor had been replaced by a standard one, but it still had the lightweight chassis. I think it weighed less than 300 pounds as I was able to pick it up. Not far, mind you, but I was able to lift it off the ground an inch or two. I remember it had a special four-leading-shoe front brake (off of an Italian bike, I believe). Very cool. Disk brakes had just started to make an appearance, they had not yet become ubiquitous. It also had two-into-one header, which is why there is no exhaust pipe visible on the left side (above). I bought it from a friend in Houston and took it with me when I moved to Austin to go to school. I rode it to school daily for a couple of years. I eventually sold it to another friend, name of Grainger. I recently got in touch with him again on Facebook. He posted these of pictures of it.

This is Grainger junior after his dad repainted the tank and seat.

Looking for the history of disk brakes, I came across this line in Wikipedia:

Since (compared to cars) motorcycles have a higher centre of gravity:wheelbase ratio, they experience more weight transference when braking.

It is obvious that the motorcycles nose dives under braking, but I had never considered that it would be any worse for a bike than a car. Though I did come up with an idea for an anti-dive brake link for bikes. Have to tell you about that one of these days.