W/NW : Motorcycles

I accidentally came across this ‘definitive’ list while perusing the web. Have a look at what’s #3 — of course I always knew my SuperHawk was great, but never considered it to be the third most iconic motorcycle ever!

www.gearpatrol.com

The 51 Most Iconic Motorcycles of All Time | Gear Patrol

Meet the most iconic motorcycles ever to grace the roads of planet Earth. History starts this way.
www.gearpatrol.com www.gearpatrol.com
And you know if Gear Patrol says it, well it just has to be true :)
 
Vince Lupo said:
I accidentally came across this ‘definitive’ list while perusing the web. Have a look at what’s #3 — of course I always knew my SuperHawk was great, but never considered it to be the third most iconic motorcycle ever!

www.gearpatrol.com

The 51 Most Iconic Motorcycles of All Time | Gear Patrol

Meet the most iconic motorcycles ever to grace the roads of planet Earth. History starts this way.
www.gearpatrol.com www.gearpatrol.com
And you know if Gear Patrol says it, well it just has to be true :)
Click to expand...
While I agree with their choices they are showing some very poor examples in my opinion. 😶
 
The Honda SuperHawk, the CB 77, sometimes called the first super bike. When the World's Fair was in Flushing, NY, I went to the Honda display and sat on the Honda SuperHawk they had there, an all-white one. A few years later I bought that same SuperHawk, the first one ever in the US. The dealer, Eastern Speed in Port Chester, NY, had bought the floor display when the World's Fair closed and had the white one for sale. I think I paid something like $650 for it. I later sold it to a collector in Palo Alto, California, who restored it. He was happy that I could provide the provenance for it.

I had bought a '67 R69S after I bought the SuperHawk. I rode this beast, sn 662191, from CT to CA and can recommend a cross country motorcycle ride to anyone as a very good idea. Five days from Rochester, NY, to Mountain View, CA. And after spending most of the day at 100MPH, 60MPH seems slow enough that you can get off and walk. The Beemer never missed a beat.

The CB 77 in the article is non-stock for sure, fork damper?? I never saw one on a CB 77 before and those mufflers are not stock, either. The CB 77 was a great bike and changed the motorcycle world forever ending the Brit dominance.
 
boojum said:
The Honda SuperHawk, the CB 77, sometimes called the first super bike. When the World's Fair was in Flushing, NY, I went to the Honda display and sat on the Honda SuperHawk they had there, an all-white one. A few years later I bought that same SuperHawk, the first one ever in the US. The dealer, Eastern Speed in Port Chester, NY, had bought the floor display when the World's Fair closed and had the white one for sale. I think I paid something like $650 for it. I later sold it to a collector in Palo Alto, California, who restored it. He was happy that I could provide the provenance for it.

I had bought a '67 R69S after I bought the SuperHawk. I rode this beast, sn 662191, from CT to CA and can recommend a cross country motorcycle ride to anyone as a very good idea. Five days from Rochester, NY, to Mountain View, CA. And after spending most of the day at 100MPH, 60MPH seems slow enough that you can get off and walk. The Beemer never missed a beat.

The CB 77 in the article is non-stock for sure, fork damper?? I never saw one on a CB 77 before and those mufflers are not stock, either. The CB 77 was a great bike and changed the motorcycle world forever ending the Brit dominance.
Click to expand...
That's actually my bike on the Gear Patrol page -- I had it for about 14 years and slowly but surely did all the modifications from a stock bike. If you click on the photo below it will take you to the Flickr page that details all the horrifying things I did to it. BTW the fork damper is from a CYB77, which was the 'racing' version of the SuperHawk. The mufflers are Norman Hyde Gold Star 'Toga' mufflers. I never believed in keeping anything stock, much to the dismay of the Honda purists. A collector in Pennsylvania now has it.


1966 Honda CB77 SuperHawk by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
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Vince Lupo said:
That's actually my bike on the Gear Patrol page -- I had it for about 14 years and slowly but surely did all the modifications from a stock bike. If you click on the photo below it will take you to the Flickr page that details all the horrifying things I did to it. BTW the fork damper is from a CYB77, which was the 'racing' version of the SuperHawk. The mufflers are Norman Hyde Gold Star 'Toga' mufflers. I never believed in keeping anything stock, much to the dismay of the Honda purists. A collector in Pennsylvania now has it.


1966 Honda CB77 SuperHawk by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
Click to expand...
It appears to have Amal Concentrics on it?
 
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A nice clean HD machine​
DSCF9425.JPG

Fujifilm X-H1 camera
Fujinon XF 33mm f1.4 lens
November 2023 - Yokohama, Japan​
 
Vince Lupo said:
I accidentally came across this ‘definitive’ list while perusing the web. Have a look at what’s #3 — of course I always knew my SuperHawk was great, but never considered it to be the third most iconic motorcycle ever!

And you know if Gear Patrol says it, well it just has to be true :)
Click to expand...
To be fair, that Gear Patrol article did not seem to list their choices by rank. While Honda's CB750 would likely be my own top pick, no motorcycle will likely ever be more iconic than their Super Cub as it is the highest selling motor vehicle of all time. But speaking of the Super Hawk, the other thing that model has going for it is that it was the bike ridden by Robert Persing, as detailed in his loosely autobiographical book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", now found at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
 
Here's one for BMW fans in particular. Back in 2018, the Portland Art Museum put together an exhibit titled "The Shape of Speed". Though it primarily featured automobiles, this exhibit also contained a couple of motorcycles including this 1934 R7 Concept. It was designed by Alfred Böning (who was 27 at the time). This was the only one ever made as this design would have been too expensive to produce. It was shown a few times and then stored in a crate where it was forgotten for nearly seven decades. When discovered, BMW then restored it.

1934BMWr7Concept.jpg
 
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