the Game changer bikes

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah absolutely part of it too.

BMW wouldn't make a electric luxury saloon cause they (or rather their customers) are too conservative. Not for 10 years anyway. Tesla come along and upset the apple cart, forcing everyone else to react. They changed the game.

[mangocrazy]

I think that what this thread has shown is that were actually vanishingkly few real game-changing bikes. There were no end of evolutionary improvements, a few large ones, but most quite small. Each of us thinks of standout bikes in our motorcycling lives and those bikes were game-changing for us, but not for motorcycling in general. Most of what we have perceived as game changers were actually incremental engineering improvements, often allied to a change in fashion (which is by its nature cyclical and feeds on past fashions).

The only real game changer that I've seen in 8 pages of thread was, as Demographic said, the Honda Super Cub (C50/C70/C90). That brought personal mobiolity to huge chunks of the world that had never previously experienced it and the basic design was so right that it hardly changed throughout its extended lifespan.

[Horse]

The only real game changer that I've seen in 8 pages of thread was, as Demographic said, the Honda Super Cub (C50/C70/C90).

Ahem, page 1.

How about the Honda C90 et al?

[The Spin Doctor]

The GS is a good call, of course it could just be called a sports tourer but the reality is it was the first adventure bike made for the road with proper handling and performance so yeah a game changer

If you're talking about the R80G/S, it was hardly a performance bike. 50-odd hp. And I'd say it was really a road bike with a modicum of off-road ability.

[The Spin Doctor]

monoshock suspension (everything prior to that had been twin shocks),

The "unitrack" suspension was created in the 30s by Vincent.
(yes it used 2 shock units, but the basic idea was the same.)

The LC isn't even the first Yamaha with monoshock, the DT175MX is earlier than the LC, and there are at least 3 years worth of competition off road bikes with Monocross before the LC.

And I think the first bike with rising rate monoshock suspension was...

TA-DA!

...Kawaksaki's AR50 / 80. I had an 80 as a London nip-about and it was a lovely little machine. Spent half the time on the back wheel and the rest on the front. Amazing how much fun you can have with 10hp.

[Yorick]

The "unitrack" suspension was created in the 30s by Vincent.
(yes it used 2 shock units, but the basic idea was the same.)

The LC isn't even the first Yamaha with monoshock, the DT175MX is earlier than the LC, and there are at least 3 years worth of competition off road bikes with Monocross before the LC.

And I think the first bike with rising rate monoshock suspension was...

TA-DA!

...Kawaksaki's AR50 / 80. I had an 80 as a London nip-about and it was a lovely little machine. Spent half the time on the back wheel and the rest on the front. Amazing how much fun you can have with 10hp.

Bloody hooligans.