the Game changer bikes

[Rockburner]

Another one: Aprilia Tuono.

The first proper performance naked.

If by that you mean "the first time a manufacturer did a geniunely naked sportsbike, rather than one detuned for midrange etc." surely the Speed Triple pre-empted it by a few years?

If you just mean fast naked bikes...well, they're been around for donkeys haven't they? At one point they were the norm.

I wondered if anyone would bring up something like the z1, but could it be termed naked before 'clothes' had been invented?

Never since a Vincent Black Prince? or an Arial Leader? Or a Triumph Saint? Fairings have been around for a long time.....

[bevvo]

If by that you mean "the first time a manufacturer did a geniunely naked sportsbike, rather than one detuned for midrange etc." surely the Speed Triple pre-empted it by a few years?

If you just mean fast naked bikes...well, they're been around for donkeys haven't they? At one point they were the norm.

I wondered if anyone would bring up something like the z1, but could it be termed naked before 'clothes' had been invented?

Never since a Vincent Black Prince? or an Arial Leader? Or a Triumph Saint? Fairings have been around for a long time.....

Yebbut, did the manufacturer of any of those bikes rip the fairing off and slap on some MX bars?

[Rockburner]

I wondered if anyone would bring up something like the z1, but could it be termed naked before 'clothes' had been invented?

Never since a Vincent Black Prince? or an Arial Leader? Or a Triumph Saint? Fairings have been around for a long time.....

Yebbut, did the manufacturer of any of those bikes rip the fairing off and slap on some MX bars?

I was just trying to say that 'clothes' had been invented long before the Z1, so yes, the Z1 is a naked.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Mk1 Fireblade, effectively killed the 750.

Defo a game changer. It made every other big sports bike of the time look like a tourer over night.
The R1 has been mentioned, but I reckon that was just Yamaha's response to the fireblade. A very effective response, mind you.

That's like saying the Fireblade is Honda's response to the FZR1000, which was Yamaha's response to the GSXR1100, which was Suzuki's response to the GPZ900 etc

[bevvo]

Mk1 Fireblade, effectively killed the 750.

Defo a game changer. It made every other big sports bike of the time look like a tourer over night.
The R1 has been mentioned, but I reckon that was just Yamaha's response to the fireblade. A very effective response, mind you.

That's like saying the Fireblade is Honda's response to the FZR1000, which was Yamaha's response to the GSXR1100, which was Suzuki's response to the GPZ900 etc

I don't think the fireblade was just an incemental development of the FZR1000. I think it was a new approach. I seem to remember that it started as a CBR600 frame with 750 engine which became a 900 and it all seemed pretty revolutionary at the time...

[Demannu]

The special thing about the fireblade was it was designed to be better than anything else available.
Not a bit better, a fucking whole lot better.
In the 80's, the big 4 launched a bike a month and then looked at what everyone else was doing, and tweaked theirs a bit next year. And so on. Evolution rather than revolution.
When the fireblade was released, it had 1000cc power, 600 handling and weight, ideas straight from the gp's. In 1992, that was as exciting as your first porn mag.
A quantum leap forward in bike design, which stood unchallenged for nearly 6 years whilst the other manufacturers threw away what sports designs they had and started again.
Now remind me how the 675 changed biking again?

[bevvo]

If i remember rightly, the 675 daytona was a really nice 600 class sports bike. Triumph cheated a bit by adding some ccs but it was a triple so maybe that's allowed. Anyway, Kawasaki had already done the 636?
So nothing particularly game changing there.
However, creating the street triple by ripping the fairing off and adding mx bars... erm.
It didn't change the entire biking world, but it shook up the middlewieght market. Up to then it was detuned or old stock 600s in budgety setup. Hornets, bandits, SVs. The street triple, although still good value, brought some glamour and desirability to the sector, especially in R form. Even now, any sub-1000 road bike has to compete with the street triple, albeit as 765.
So my answer is: by reigniting interest in middleweight bikes.

[Yorick]

The 675 was built coz supersport racing allowed 675 triples.
Nothing to do with marketing .

[Bigjawa]

The 675 was built coz supersport racing allowed 675 triples.
Nothing to do with marketing .

Yup, and there was a 599cc ZX6 with flatslides for supersport racing too.

[Horse]

Yebbut, did the manufacturer of any of those bikes rip the fairing off and slap on some MX bars?

Do you mean ' ... and sell to the public'?

Dual-sport bikes are hardly new. By some accounts, BSA launched the category in 1965 with its offroad-styled 500cc A50 BSA Wasp and 650cc A65 BSA Hornet. Three years later, the company introduced the BSA Firebird Scrambler, its latest — and arguably best — variation on the theme.

https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/clas ... scrambler/

[img]https://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.motorcycleclassics.com/images/2009/07/11080849/4559-558x840.jpg[/img]

[Demannu]

,.......waffle,.....,..waffle........

Trying to see it fro your point of view

8c9433a25f75075ba3506ab1475cb414f60168ba64960c734a6f38b14d5cf5cd.jpg (20.32 KiB) Viewed 763 times

Nope, still no idea what you're on about

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

1885 Benz Reitwagen

[bevvo]

,.......waffle,.....,..waffle........

Trying to see it fro your point of view
8c9433a25f75075ba3506ab1475cb414f60168ba64960c734a6f38b14d5cf5cd.jpg
Nope, still no idea what you're on about

No, you are.

[Supermofo]

The special thing about the fireblade was it was designed to be better than anything else available.
Not a bit better, a fucking whole lot better.
In the 80's, the big 4 launched a bike a month and then looked at what everyone else was doing, and tweaked theirs a bit next year. And so on. Evolution rather than revolution.
When the fireblade was released, it had 1000cc power, 600 handling and weight, ideas straight from the gp's. In 1992, that was as exciting as your first porn mag.
A quantum leap forward in bike design, which stood unchallenged for nearly 6 years whilst the other manufacturers threw away what sports designs they had and started again.
Now remind me how the 675 changed biking again?

I'd agree with that. The R1 was a direct result of the Blade, they didn't come up with the idea themselves they responded to what Honda had done. Hence game changer. The Blade wasn't a direct result of a GSXR750 or EXUP it did something new and nobody had anything to respond with

[bevvo]

Yebbut, did the manufacturer of any of those bikes rip the fairing off and slap on some MX bars?

Do you mean ' ... and sell to the public'?

Dual-sport bikes are hardly new. By some accounts, BSA launched the category in 1965 with its offroad-styled 500cc A50 BSA Wasp and 650cc A65 BSA Hornet. Three years later, the company introduced the BSA Firebird Scrambler, its latest — and arguably best — variation on the theme.

https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/clas ... scrambler/

[img]https://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.motorcycleclassics.com/images/2009/07/11080849/4559-558x840.jpg[/img]

Dual-sport bikes are a different matter. I was thinking about 'performance naked' bikes. Which is just a handy term referring to bikes which are essentially sports bikes - high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons. I reckon, the mk1 tuono was the first one of those, and it was a game changer because it kick started that genre. Although I concede that the speed triple may have a case...

[Rockburner]

Yebbut, did the manufacturer of any of those bikes rip the fairing off and slap on some MX bars?

Do you mean ' ... and sell to the public'?

Dual-sport bikes are hardly new. By some accounts, BSA launched the category in 1965 with its offroad-styled 500cc A50 BSA Wasp and 650cc A65 BSA Hornet. Three years later, the company introduced the BSA Firebird Scrambler, its latest — and arguably best — variation on the theme.

https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/clas ... scrambler/

[img]https://ogden_images.s3.amazonaws.com/www.motorcycleclassics.com/images/2009/07/11080849/4559-558x840.jpg[/img]

Dual-sport bikes are a different matter. I was thinking about 'performance naked' bikes. Which is just a handy term referring to bikes which are essentially sports bikes - high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons. I reckon, the mk1 tuono was the first one of those, and it was a game changer because it kick started that genre. Although I concede that the speed triple may have a case...

But again, you're forgetting that "...high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons...." is essentially what a 'sports' bike WAS until the mid-70s or so.

Take the bike that won (or did well) on Sunday, stick on some flats and a comfier saddle and sell it to Joe Public on Monday. That's how Norton, Velocette, Triumph, BSA, Arial etc etc did business.

The Tuono (or anything similar age and style) was just a throwback to the past in some ways.

[bevvo]

But again, you're forgetting that "...high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons...." is essentially what a 'sports' bike WAS until the mid-70s or so.

Take the bike that won (or did well) on Sunday, stick on some flats and a comfier saddle and sell it to Joe Public on Monday. That's how Norton, Velocette, Triumph, BSA, Arial etc etc did business.

The Tuono (or anything similar age and style) was just a throwback to the past in some ways.

Fair enough. My biking memory doesn't go back that far.
I'm not sure that's what Aprilia were thinking when they made the Tuono, though. They were already selling the Mille as a road-legal racer.

[Rockburner]

But again, you're forgetting that "...high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons...." is essentially what a 'sports' bike WAS until the mid-70s or so.

Take the bike that won (or did well) on Sunday, stick on some flats and a comfier saddle and sell it to Joe Public on Monday. That's how Norton, Velocette, Triumph, BSA, Arial etc etc did business.

The Tuono (or anything similar age and style) was just a throwback to the past in some ways.

Fair enough. My biking memory doesn't go back that far.
I'm not sure that's what Aprilia were thinking when they made the Tuono, though. They were already selling the Mille as a road-legal racer.

The Tuono was a 'factory-made street-fighter', just following the trend of owners rebuilding a crashed fully-faired super-sports bike (fireblade etc) with moto-x bars and no fairing with bodged on lights: street-fighters.

[Rockburner]

But again, you're forgetting that "...high performance engine, sharp handling, decent suspension, powerful brakes - but without a full fairing and with more upright riding position, usually facilitated by using handlebars rather than clip-ons...." is essentially what a 'sports' bike WAS until the mid-70s or so.

Take the bike that won (or did well) on Sunday, stick on some flats and a comfier saddle and sell it to Joe Public on Monday. That's how Norton, Velocette, Triumph, BSA, Arial etc etc did business.

The Tuono (or anything similar age and style) was just a throwback to the past in some ways.

Fair enough. My biking memory doesn't go back that far.
I'm not sure that's what Aprilia were thinking when they made the Tuono, though. They were already selling the Mille as a road-legal racer.

The Tuono was a 'factory-made street-fighter', just following the trend of owners rebuilding a crashed fully-faired super-sports bike (fireblade etc) with moto-x bars and no fairing with bodged on lights: street-fighters.

Actually - thinking about it, the Honda Hornet was probably more of a 'game-changer' because it was more than just an unfaired CBR600, it was a whole new frame incorporating a detuned CBR600 engine, and revitalised the 'middle-weight' market because it was as reliable and torquey as the super-sports bike it was based on (CBR600R), but easier to manage and own for those who didn't want a sports bike. The incumbents in the "middle-weight road bike" market were all 'commuter' bikes: basic, simple suspension, unexciting (think CB500, ZR550Zephyr, XJ650 etc), the Hornet was sold, and was, an exciting bike to ride that handled well, but not 'race/sports' oriented. Without the Hornet you might not have got the unfaired Triumph 675 (Street-Triple? I can't remember Triumph's naming convention).

[bevvo]

Actually - thinking about it, the Honda Hornet was probably more of a 'game-changer' because it was more than just an unfaired CBR600, it was a whole new frame incorporating a detuned CBR600 engine, and revitalised the 'middle-weight' market because it was as reliable and torquey as the super-sports bike it was based on (CBR600R), but easier to manage and own for those who didn't want a sports bike. The incumbents in the "middle-weight road bike" market were all 'commuter' bikes: basic, simple suspension, unexciting (think CB500, ZR550Zephyr, XJ650 etc), the Hornet was sold, and was, an exciting bike to ride that handled well, but not 'race/sports' oriented. Without the Hornet you might not have got the unfaired Triumph 675 (Street-Triple? I can't remember Triumph's naming convention).

I would tend to dispute that the hornet as torquey. I Only rode one once but I found it peaky. It did handle nicely although the suspension was budget.
The street triple had much better mid-range but I take your point - maybe the hornet did revive the middle-weight market and pave the way for triumph's attempt...