Mmmmmmm, yummy..........

[oldfart]

Bike  cool  ? ,  why run pipe's so you can't read LHS numbers 

[VMX247]

Bike  cool  ? ,  why run pipe's so you can't read LHS numbers 

they change em for race days     
cheers

[Marc.com]

Just bought a set like that for my Rickman. 

[firko]

 The following two Cheneys ring my bell. The top B44 engined version was recently for sale in Queensland and the bottom New Zealand B50 BSA powered bike is reputedly an absolute rocketship. What a pity Simon Cheney's such a shocker to deal with.                         
                             
                             

[Marc.com]

like the bottom one Firko, good ole Kiwi build quality. I have similar bike under way.

[dave]

Yeah OK I agree they do look real nice (kinda like awesome converted road bikes in my humble opinion hehehe). Tell me if I'm wrong, but when mass produced motocross bikes became available to the average bloke the sport exploded and legends emerged from all countries not just England or Europe. My youth was spent reading and dreaming about riders like Bob Hannah, Mark Barnett, Hekki Mikkola, Hakan Carlquist, Roger De Coster, Gerrit Wolsink, Brad Lackey, Joel Robert, Adolf Weil, Guennnady Moisseev, Gaston Rahier, Marty Smith, Eric Geboers, Kent Howerton, Chuck Sun, Goat Breker, Magoo, ohh and so many more! Hey my uncles rode those Brit sleds and they still do. I didn't say they weren't cool.

[EML]

I must be in that parallel universe because I dreamt of Wasps and EMLs (virtually the same as Cheney et al except in sidecar versions) and the likes of Robert Grogg(only sidecar xers can have a name like that as a champion) and Bolholder and Bachtold each multi winners of the world title.

[Marc.com]

when mass produced motocross bikes became available

thats it see mass produced....... recently had an opportunity to check out a G85 Rickman, it had trial AJ front hub, 600cc on alchohol, custom tank by local artist.....just years of love sitting in one bike. You probably only get that feeling with works bikes and specials. Buying a mass produced bike is a trite forgettable affair, like buying a Hyundai.

[firko]

Yeah OK I agree they do look real nice (kinda like awesome converted road bikes in my humble opinion hehehe). Tell me if I'm wrong, but when mass produced motocross bikes became available to the average bloke the sport exploded and legends emerged from all countries not just England or Europe. My youth was spent reading and dreaming about riders like Bob Hannah, Mark Barnett, Hekki Mikkola, Hakan Carlquist, Roger De Coster, Gerrit Wolsink, Brad Lackey, Joel Robert, Adolf Weil, Guennnady Moisseev, Gaston Rahier, Marty Smith, Eric Geboers, Kent Howerton, Chuck Sun, Goat Breker, Magoo, ohh and so many more! Hey my uncles rode those Brit sleds and they still do. I didn't say they weren't cool.

Dave, you're not wrong, just from a different era. I also idolised the very same riders you mention but because I'm probably a wee bit older to you can add guys like Derek and Don Rickman, Jeff Smith, Roy East, Paul Friedrichs, Sten Lundin, Torsten Hallman and many more.

Real motorcross bikes didn't exist until the Japanese entered the market!!! Well for a young 40 year old they didn't.

The whole problem with that opinion is that 'real' motocross bikes existed way before the Japanese 'explosion' and in fact the first Japanese bikes were based on road bikes way more than the British or European bikes that they were trying to take on. The Rickmans and Cheneys of the mid sixties were the first bikes designed purely for motocross and not adapted from a road going bike. The Euro bikes from that era created the 'motocross explosion' of the late sixties that prompted the Japanese to enter the market. The motocross boom had been well underway for at least five years before the Japanese released their first serious motocross bike for the masses that hadn't evolved from a road registerable bike, the Honda Elsinore, of 1973. It was only then that the motocross market realised that the Japanese were serious contenders.

It's my theory that the motocross boom took off not because of any particular brand of bike or the emergence of the Japanese into the market but by the publishing of Dirt Bike Magazine in 1971. That magazine did more to make motocross cool to the masses of coming of age baby boomers than any other single factor.

[dave]

Ok fella's could you please tell me when a wide variety of affordable mini-motocrossers 50cc to 80cc became available outside of Japan? I clearly remember standing with both feet on top of my uncle's 500 Matchless kick starter and it wouldn't move with them laughing and saying to me that "if you can kick it over you can have a drive" at my Opa's (Dutch for grandpa) farm just down the road from Amaroo park. I do concede there were some "real" motocross bike before the Japanese invasion but they were really out of reach for the average bloke let alone a young kid with a paper run. The manufacturers didn't really consider the mini-motocrosser make prior to that. That's when motocross really took off.

[firko]

You're really drawing a long bow now....The Euros were doing the  80-100cc thing in the fifties and they were everywhere.......way, way before the Japs. It may pay to read a few history books Dave, especially "The Big Leap" by Frank Melling which explains the Japanese influence on the motocross world. The books conclusions are a lot way different from yours.
Just to adjust your perception that motocrosses wide acceptence started with the Japanese involvement from the early 70's, here's a couple of shots from the late 50s showing 120 000 screaming fans at a stadium motocross in Prague Czechoslovakia.
                     
                     

[dave]

Hey Wasp not many Euro mini's were under kids bums to ride that's for certain! And Firko they're spectators not participants. I just typed in RM 80 into Goggle = 1,660,000!! hits, XR 75 = 96,200, YZ 80 = 4,350,000!! Zuendapps* = 1750, Kreidlers*  = 925,000 *all models including road bikes (the majority built). You can't tell me that the Japanese didn't bring motocross riding to the masses! If they didn't I would have given up trying to kick that Matchless beast over and would be a surfer now 


This article below refers to the US, but you can't say our market didn't follow suit.

http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/exhibits/mx/history6.asp

It's not just my opinion. Is it?

[EML]

I still like the way they used to buy one model of bike-no matter what make and then decide to either road race, scramble or trial it just by changing the bars, tyres and gearing-that to me is real racing.
Just think about going into a shop today to buy a new 250-they only have a twin commuter to sell you but you want to do a scramble on sunday-so you pull the front guard off, change the tyres and line up on sunday morning-along with your mates on similar bikes.

[albrid-3]

This is a nice bike, l don`t know who built it, but l admire him for it he did a very nice job.

[albrid-3]

This was my Wasp Metisse. Loved this bike.