Monte Markham's 289 MGB

[pspeaks]

In our day we were hated by our own country and spit on, I'm glad our young men and women don't have to come home to that.  My first bike was a 1939 Indian basket case; back then there were a few still around and not worth much.  No matter what anybody says I think they were awkward to ride and I never liked a foot clutch.  If you didn't get the spark set just right before you kicked it you were in for a treat, still, I kind of wish I had it back

[ex-tyke]

...I can't get that WWII movie out of my head where that guy (Newman maybe?) tried to jump all the barbed wire in a POW escape attempt.

.

That would be Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape".

[B-Fast B-Strong]

They were all true hero's , and I hope we never have another World War but sometimes I wonder! Thank God for all our troops that put it on the line for all of us !

[DiDueColpi]

Don't mean to intrude on the conversation but, Jim, my first street bike was a water buffalo as well. I bought it used with a stuck motor. Rebuilt it and couldn't resist trying to port it. What a handfull to ride. Hit the throttle and wait.......and wait. Somewhere around 7500 rpm the motor decides to wake up and it's like being shot out of a cannon. Then you get to use the fadetron 5000 drum brakes and pray. Prior to that I raced motocross. Started with a yammy 100mx and ended with the 400. The 400 had a shaved flywheel and would launch you off the bike if you weren't fully commited to your starting kick. It also ran just fine backwards. Handle bars to the crotch suck on the start bar. Been through CBRs (turbo'd), Kawy 900s (punched out to 1308) Can Am's and an old Bultaco. I still have the water buffalo somewhere in Dads barn but it's got 30 odd years of dust on it. These days I ride my 57 Lambretta LD150 and am having a blast. It also keeps the lovely Lynne from fainting everytime an ambulance goes by. (She's seen the Odesy with the Vmax on it but so far she thinks it's "cute")
Cheers
Fred

[pspeaks]

Fred, you're not intruding, this is not a private conversion; we're still just setting around waiting for Monte.

"P"

[BlownMGB-V8]

X2
That's wild Fred. I went conservative on the porting, sounds like a good thing I did. Basically just a clean-up job and sharpened the divider to a razor's edge, pretty much the same on the transfer ports, and blended in the port openings. It was enough to wake it up. I made the mistake once of winging the throttle and dropping the clutch as it went past about 5 grand and it da*ned near broke my wrists and threw me off the back. Mine was a '74 so it had the dual discs which really hauled it down. I put solid bushings in the swing arm, reversed the fork legs, drilled the rotors and put 4.10 x 18 tires on both ends and that made it fast enough in the corners to be really dangerous. Back in W.Va. with it I soon found out how dangerous it could be, and the next day it went up for sale. (The problem was that the acceleration was just overwhelmingly addictive and I knew I'd never be able to stay away from the edge. That was what nearly put me in the creek.) I ran the freeway test loop with a customer bike he'd loaded up with bags and a windshield and at 100 it got into a bad speed wobble (same bike but not mine) that nearly had the bars slapping the tank. That was a scary moment. It had a penchant for breaking the gear indicator switch but otherwise was a decent bike, but riding any 2 stroke is purely an exercise in throttle and brakes, and a big 2 stroke is no different. Was your 400 a mono-shock? I think the motocross bikes were, and the enduros were tube shock. But the one that was the very worst for launching me over the handlebars was an old 45 flathead trike with manual advance. If that thing wasn't just right it didn't matter how committed you were, Ka-POWW!! You were on crutches for a week.

I'm done with bikes that have bad manners. I like enough torque to lift the front wheel, can't climb without that, and enough power to handle the city freeway, but I'm thinking something like that 4 stroke yama 600 enduro is going to be the hot lick. Should have pretty good gears too I'd think. Wonder if they've come down enough for me to do a straight trade?

JB

[DiDueColpi]

Yep, it was a 75 mx 400 mono shock. Heavily modified to get a whopping 8 inches of travel!
I agree with the bad manners. Who needs that in this day and age? The power thing is a problem too. I rode a buddy's R6 a while back because he insisted that it was a great bike. This was after a long discussion on how, back in the day, a 600 was a girls bike. I came back from launching the thing in the air over a hump in the road and crossing two lanes of traffic, to tell him that I'm not old enough to ride that bike yet. Fantastic bike, not enough brains.
I haven't kept up with bikes for years. Is the 600 enduro a single? I rode a yamy xt500 for a while back in the 80's. Huge torque but a little heavy.

Fred