Which one....
Some sort of vintage bike thing going on in Fredericksburg.
Saw a pair of Norton Commando 961...
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I've got one. After replacing the muffler, modifying the air intake and adding a Power Commander it runs OK. I enjoy it, but you have to keep in mind it's a thumper. I also have new cams, valves and valve springs for it. Now that I'm getting my XS2 wrapped up I may start playing with the Enfield.Maybe it`s just me but the GT535 doesn`t seem to have much throttle response?? Kind of a slug. (or not).
I like the way you think.There is a thought the 535 will become a classic especially now it has been discontinued..........
-But of course.......... They have a heritage to uphold.A guy in my club has a 961 and it has been incredibly troublesome. In fact Norton actually shipped him a brand new engine for it last summer. That, plus the electrical issues have made that beautiful bike a total nightmare to own.
Mid Life Cycles have bought this bike to life................Just beat the class land speed record on the salt flats, Lake Gairdner, South Australia.
https://royalenfield.com.au/news-announcements/royal-enfield-smashes-land-speed-record/
The old record of 119.961 MPH was set at Lake Gairdner in 2016. Charlie Hallam broke the record on Day One of Speed Week (Monday 8 March 2021), with his first run at 121.782 MPH. He backed that up with a 123.601 MPH pass, for a provisional record of 122.691 MPH.
On the morning of Day Two, Charlie and the Interceptor 650 ran 128.935 MPH and 130.204 MPH for a new provisional record of 129.570 MPH. The Geelong-based HRA team, headed by experienced salt racers Andrew and Kate Hallam, thought this was an extraordinary result for a 650cc single-cam, air-cooled Twin, but Charlie believed there was a little more to come.
That afternoon, the Interceptor ran 130.370 MPH and was then impounded overnight until it could do a back-up run the next morning. This run, under increasingly stormy skies, saw a stunning 133.779 MPH top speed, for a new record of 132.050 MPH.
850 kits for these bikes as well now.
Sad....but true. The utter inability of British industry (car or motorcycle) to adapt and innovate was truly a startling come-down for a national industrial community that had the world by the tail only 20-50 years earlier. Just think of:
...and yet, somehow they were totally stuck in the past by the late 1960's and got blown right off the road by the very nations they had defeated with those products.
- HMS Turbinia (the world's first steam turbine driven ship);
- HMS Dreadnought (the first all-big-gun battleship (which also had steam turbine engines for much greater speed and fuel economy);
- the Sopwith Camel and SE5a (two of the best fighters of WW-I);
- The Rolls-Royce Phantom - one of the finest cars ever made;
- the Rolls-Royce Merlin (the best inline a/c engine of WW-II);
- the Whittle jet engine (the first practical gas turbine to power an aircraft);