[Arizoni]

A video with Jay Leno's 1925 Brough Superior SS 100.

Ahh.  The smell of burning castor oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA1iV0Dbn-0&feature=youtu.be

[ace.cafe]

Great video of a great bike.

I couldn't help thinking how today's modern riders would be complaining about how it "isn't a Honda" or "has vibrations", or "you have to add oil to it regularly", and "you have to touch it to make routine adjustments", or whatever they seem to like to complain about.
It just seems that today, people like to moan about what something "isn't", instead of seeing the value of what it "is".

[High On Octane]

I thought I posted on this the other night......

Really cool bike for sure!  Leno seems like such an awesome guy, I'd really love to meet him and get a personal tour of his collection. 

[tooseevee]

A video with Jay Leno's 1925 Brough Superior SS 100.
Ahh.  The smell of burning castor oil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA1iV0Dbn-0&feature=youtu.be

            What an amazing motorcycle & another accurate commentary on the "actual" history of motorcycles & motorcycling from Leno. So many young people nowadays are sadly lacking in knowledge of history overall let alone motorcycle history. They totally discount bikes they totally have no knowledge or understanding of & make stupid, misinformed remarks about bikes simply because they don't happen to be the one they just bought on their credit card or with the Daddy Finance Company. Some don't even know the history or evolution of the bike they ride. 
         It's lucky there ARE people like Leno, & others like him, around who have the resources, energy & DESIRE to save the history of motorcycles AND cars. I've made it a point my whole life to study the history & evolution of the various types of motorcycles over the past 115 years rather than just say "Oh, that bike's no good" as is so prevalent today. Just because you RIDE a certain bike doesn't make it the best. Sorry to rant, but there's an awful lot of motorcycle bigotry & hypocrisy going on out there today that helps the government & the nannies in their attempts to do away with motorcycles AND vintage cars (& many other types of vehicles the government & the nannies see as "dangerous") completely.   

[tooseevee]

Great video of a great bike.

I couldn't help thinking how today's modern riders would be complaining about how it "isn't a Honda" or "has vibrations", or "you have to add oil to it regularly", and "you have to touch it to make routine adjustments", or whatever they seem to like to complain about.
It just seems that today, people like to moan about what something "isn't", instead of seeing the value of what it "is".

             Leno's video sparked a question for me:

                What blows the horn on that bike when it's not running?

[ace.cafe]

             Leno's video sparked a question for me:

                What blows the horn on that bike when it's not running?

I think it's the rider.
It seemed like a manual rubber bulb horn to me.

[tooseevee]

I think it's the rider.
It seemed like a manual rubber bulb horn to me.

          Duh!  You're right.

           I wasn't watching his hand closely enough when I first watched it. I must have been looking at some other detail (there are thousands) on the bike, heard the horn & thought he pushed a button.

            Did you notice he killed the engine with the exhaust valve lever just as we all should do with the Enfields to prevent running backwards?

[ace.cafe]

          Duh!  You're right.

           I wasn't watching his hand closely enough when I first watched it. I must have been looking at some other detail (there are thousands) on the bike, heard the horn & thought he pushed a button.

            Did you notice he killed the engine with the exhaust valve lever just as we all should do with the Enfields to prevent running backwards?

Yes, I did notice that, and the SS100 didn't even have a sprag to worry about!
 

[tooseevee]

Yes, I did notice that, and the SS100 didn't even have a sprag to worry about!
 

          Yes, it's an amazing bike with an incredibly interesting history & kick only with no useless sprag or any other useless machinery to get it started - just your foot  And so interesting looking I could just stare at it for hours. In fact that's exactly what I used to do in the '40s & '50s when at 11, 12, 13 years old I was ordering any brochure I could find in Pop Mech & Mech Illus. I had the brochures of ALL the bikes of those days well into the '60s; Foreign & domestic.

           And just to keep the history straight & be fair to everybody, both harley & Indian also had 100mph bikes in 1921 

[Arizoni]

Speaking of history, most of the modern people seem to think the idea of having 4 valve cylinder heads, supercharging, double overhead cams, fuel injection and disk brakes are all new ideas.

They are not.

All of them were being used in gasoline engines by 1925 and some of them were used before 1915. 

Disk brakes were being used as early as 1902.

Gottlieb Daimler patented a supercharged engine in 1885 and Renault offered a supercharged engine in 1902.

Electric powered cars were being sold with the Studebaker Electric on the road in 1902.

The board track motorcycle racers were breaking the ton on a regular basis before WW I.

Getting back to the Brough-Superior, it was the totally hand build "Rolls Royce" of motorcycles costing far more than most of the motor cars on the road when it was in production.

[mattsz]

Sorry to rant, but there's an awful lot of motorcycle bigotry & hypocrisy going on out there today

Not just "out there"... I come across a fair bit of it "in here", too...