Jake,
I recall reading some of your thoughts in an earlier thread, and that was a while ago.
You might like to read this book:-
Quartered Safe Out Here - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Dave

The thread continues to have a good mix of why we bought bikes in the past with why we buy bikes today.


What happened is that the Japanese are very, very good at copying ideas.
I am pretty sure that they got the management principles from USA-based academic research and papers published on the subject of Quality Assurance (QA).
In contrast, the UK was much slower to take up the concepts of QA which in themselves have developed enormously since the 1970s (for all I know such concepts will be ongoing).
Along the way, these principles dealt with the metallurgy issues that are mentioned in other posts.

So, a Brit bike and an Indian manufactured bike with a Brit badge.
That's a nice mix.

[QUOTE=Jake;493947]
Anyway give me a bike designed and built in a European factory
[/QUOTE
These days, it is very difficult to achieve this; probably impossible. My 1990s TTR600 was badged as a Yamaha and assembled in Italy (the "Belgado" bike).

Triumph have a very large proportion of their manufacturing in Thailand.

On the car front, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, to name just 3 big Jap outfits, employ 1000s of UK workers and 1000s more across other countries.

Oh yes, the Chinese are coming; this was very noticeable at the NEC show last November.
I also noticed it during a visit to the French national air show in 1997.

The list is endless, and the reason is that business has no boundaries - it is totally international: where the profits go and the overall "morality" of this (the ethics) is a whole different ball game.

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Dave

John 933 - The break through for Honda was the Dream bike.

My first road bike was a honda sl 125, the second a Honda Dream - (Not the super dream the one with the bubble tank).

Chocolate cams etc - i agree the Japs either fixed the faults or scrapped whole designs and runs of bikes and started again. Mr Honda was a brilliant engineer and designer - more so he knew when to admit he got it wrong and go back to the drawing board - something Europeans did not learn to do so well.

As people say the Japanese learnt to copy, then add quality and eventually design to an now excellent standard.

Just because they manufactured in large numbers back in the 70's / 80's did not make them good - they were simply affordable - European bikes were often more than double the price. (then again what were the japanese workers being paid ?.

The Japs got there in the end and now build excellent budget, mid range and top end machines - I still wouldn't not really chose one over a European made and designed bike. Simply i like to support western markets and also like the history behind the manufacturing of some of the old marques from Europe. (that apart from my views of putting money into eastern markets).


I would never try to compare the British bike industry to the Japanese as its already been said - that was largely a historic and failed industry.

At that time early 80's the Europeans - Laverda, Ducati etc were still way ahead of the game. I tried a Honda cx - got rid it was a pig and bought a Laverda alpina 500s as my every day bike, simply better in every way very reliable, easy, light fast and it handled. You just needed to look outside the box and the Magazines to find the bikes made in europe were light years ahead of the masses being chucked out of Japan at the time. even the likes of BMW's flat twins were better built, more reliable and many are still on the road unlike the rust buckets from japan from that era that are not around or stand in private restored collectors halls.

Eventually the Europeans also lost the way they tried to take on the jap's on price then struggled to maintain momentum, quality, race wins or anything else - The japs had come to stay and were winning.

Europe has fought back and is now back in the game with some excellent products and a different approach to quality the stuff people don't notice amongst the bling. That's where the Europeans are making a comeback. Excellent and top components along with quality and attention to small details.

Walkabout thanks for the link to the book - I will look it up and read it - loks interesting. Cheers Jake.

Farqhuar you said - Reverse is true for me. There have been massive improvements in technology over the last couple of decades - let's face it, most road bikes were dangerously unsafe when cornering until the mid-late eighties when radial tyres for bikes, and proper frames started being built.

Again you are looking at the Japanes market, European bikes did handle, brake and go fast doing it all very well.
I have to agree with OLD BMW that older bikes are for me better. Modern bikes by comparison are often lardy, carry to many gadgets and now with all the safety rules ABS, traction control etc added take away from the rider a massive amount of rider skill, input and feel for the machine.

Technology means the machines are becoming far more complex and rely on dealers to sort out even minor problems. They may be faster but its simply not needed - if the Machines were lighter and less powerful - just more usable. A ducati or Laverda road bike from the 70's put out 70 / 80hp and did 140 top end on a good day (120/130 in real rideability terms). Do we really need 150hp on an off road bike weighing more than a Laverda Jota. ?

Many of the bikes you mentioned are about a decade after I started biking and the Euro / Jap contrast at that point couldn't be greater. Friends in London who couldn't get to Southend (about 30 miles) on their C15s and Bantams or the south coast on their A65s (about 60 miles) without breaking down while we went to Morocco and Greece on Jap stuff- 250 Yamaha / 300cc Honda - without any real problems. 650 and 750 Triumphs that couldn't do a long trip (Greece / Black sea / Italy) without having to be rebuilt or recovered while a 650 Yamaha / 550 Honda had only minor issues or no problems at all. Even towards the end of the 70's when BMWs were starting to be widely used they'd need more attention that our Jap stuff (earlyGold Wings by then).

I agree that the quality of the materials probably wasn't as good as the British or Euro stuff but to be honest I didn't care then and I don't care now. What mattered to me was the design, how reliable they were and "image". Value for money was probably in there somewhere but not that high on the list.

Mollydog's memory that BSA and Triumph (forget about Harley!) were THE bikes to own on the West coast around 1970 is a strange inversion of what my London based opinion was at the time. BSA et al were just oil covered greasy throwbacks with downmarket working class connotations and had lack of imagination failure written all over them. Can't afford a car or not able to pass your test - ride a BSA with a stick for a sidecar on L plates.

The Japanese stuff otoh were high tech, brightly coloured and forward looking. Modern cutting edge designs that worked and kept on working. These were leisure bikes rather than ride to work plodders and as such represented our London vision of what California was like - bright metallic paint and chrome glinting in the sunshine. A lifestyle. All I needed was a blonde girlfriend to finish the illusion!

In addition, because they were dismissed as here today gone tomorrow (how can anything rev that high and not fall to bits) Jap cr@p, it annoyed all of the ageing 60's rockers when we turned up anywhere on them.

In general I didn't (and still don't) pay much attention to magazine tests when it comes to choosing what to buy. All the Brit bike fanaticism and ride the flag marketing that filled the pages of mags back then put me off. I could see with my own eyes piles of broken Triumph parts littering the sides of roads yet year after year the new, improved, better than ever road tests were extolling their virtues. I nearly got caught by the long range Norton Combat Commando and how it could effortlessly drone on for hundreds of miles on a tankful of fuel but fortunately came to my senses in time.

There was one article however that did it for me. An oddball article, it compared two bikes - a 500cc Velocette and the then new Kawasaki H1. The Velo represented to me everything that was wrong with Brit bikes - an old design, an old image, an old mindset, whereas the H1 was cutting edge (it was 1970!) That article did it for me. I couldn't afford one then (although I came very close to blowing my student grant on one a couple of years later) but as soon as I could I bought one - and I still have it now.

However - that was then and then is now a different country. I look at what the Chinese are turning out and wonder when they'll come up with something that'll make the Japanese offerings look old and tired. History won't repeat itself but there is a lot of corporate complacency in the Japanese factories in recent years. That it's possible to compete with them now is evidenced by Triumph, BMW, Harley et al but they all have the drawback of only producing relatively small numbers of big bikes. The Chinese seem to be doing what the Japanese did back then - starting from the bottom up and producing in volume. At the moment it seems more like the 1950's with a huge range of never heard of them manufacturers but I suspect things will change.

Possibly even the "Belgarda" Dave?

Mezo.

All good input that adds to our "corporate" memories of the good old days, while relating to the present day conditions.
There are about a dozen of us rather than the half dozen that I thought earlier - so, in truth, we are not a massively significant sample for the statisticians purposes.

As for Triumph, I believe that they are well aware of the need for smaller products - I seem to recall that there have been items about a new 250cc in the fairly recent past; even that is a big bike for some markets.
Aren't they aiming to enter the bike market in India??
KTM ditto.

I also remember Yamaha announcements of the past few years:-
One related to their need to get into 3 cyl bikes for the "western " market; that was a while ago and they are now doing exactly that.

The second was more interesting, and it was about where the company profits arise:-
Yamaha profits are predominantly from marketing 125cc bikes for the far east. Period.
The "western" market, including all the stuff about GP racing, Rossi et al I assume is merely a sideshow in terms of the company trade; it provides them with "facetime" on the world media.
When folks write on here about how certain manufacturers need to produce the "perfect" bike for adventuring/travelling/whatever I truly believe that they do not realise what a minority they are in this world - even some of those who do acknowledge the point tend to then dismiss it.

Anyone for a Hero Honda?

Oops, it's had a makeover:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_MotoCorp
But it remains the largest bike manufacturer in the world.

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Dave

That will do!
I think we sunk the other one back in 1982.

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Dave

Mezo.

Never considered it. Just didn't float my boat. Personal choice.

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Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Once upon a time (quite a few years ago) a "wise old man" aka a bike mechanic who was on the verge of retiring, told me never to buy anything built before approximately the mid-1960s. This was in the days when you could walk into the workshop in a dealership and actually talk with the guys working on the bikes.
When I asked the rather obvious question, he went on to say that the developments that took place in materials technology/metallurgy during world war 2 did not filter into mainstream manufacturing until that time.
In essence, his view was that most things made before, say, 1965 were based on the standards used when road vehicles were first developed.

This all rang true to me: why should the UK factories update their supply chain, increase their own raw material costs, retool or whatever else would be necessary when everything they were making was flying out of the showrooms?

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Dave

[QUOTE=Mezo;494090]

Mezo.[/QUOTE

An extract from the link below:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.


People | Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

but it is sunday morning!

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Dave

Not here mate

Mezo.

All times are GMT +1. The time now is 10:36
-- from the bottom of the page.

And the year is 1436 in some parts of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar

__________________
Dave

Try telling that to someone kicking frantically at an xt 500 on a cold damp January morning in the peeing rain or riding a Honda cb 550 in the rain on two - no three - no one - ooops none cylinders Hic Hic blat phart. cough vrooom vrroooom back to one cylinder. - me thinks there are some rosy specs being worn here. Jake. It wasnt always the europeans that led the dance of death.

OT (mostly)


An American called Demming from 1945. Came up with the notion that quality stems not from black art skills or inspection with an iron rod, but from making things easy to do. This was not acceptable to either European "craftsmen" who made money out of doing things the hard way or America bosses who made their money forcing others to do things the hard way and as quickly as possible. Demming went to work in Japan and by integrating production engineering from paper to product (another European problem where the designer ruled and mere foremen had to sort the rest*) made Japanese products what they were by 1975. Modern techniques just amplify the basics.


* I'm afraid one of the great engineering heroes gave us the worst example. One Dr. B.N. Wallis designed the Vickers Windsor bomber in 1943. Every component from wing root to tip was a different thickness to give optimum weight and you had to use a tuning fork to get the tension right. They built three then scrapped the whole project.


This is now such a well known system any company can adopt it, hence a Chinese bike company with the right managers could out produce Honda. Honda have the advantage of years of training but each year the advantage gets slimmer.


Andy