| Author | Message | ||
     Danger_dave |
I see online that Ariel Motorcycles are about to relaunch. I hope they get a great reception. | ||
| Britchri10 |
One of the 1st bikes I owned was a '62 Ariel Arrow. It was nothing like a more modern Japanese 2-stroke! | ||
| Trojan |
I see online that Ariel Motorcycles are about to relaunch. The guy who bought the Ariel name a few years ago has decided to build some bikes (He currently builds very expensive sports cars) and will use Honda engines. It isn't so much a relaunch as a new company once again jumping onto a very old bandwagon, just like Triumph, Norton and Indian. These will allegedly be individually hand built and cost in excess of GBP20,000+ each so i don't think Triumph will worry yet  All that has been released so far are some arty sketches with no detail, so it could be a long time off yet....... | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Ariel was not a particularly good motorcycle, even back in the day, when the bar was pretty low. Their signature product was the Ariel Square Four, which was like two parallel twins, one in back of the other. As one might imagine, the cooling of the rear pair in the air cooled engine was problematic. It was an impressive looking thing, on the rare days that it was running.  The bike featured plunger style rear suspension. It is hard to imagine that anyone who was at all familiar with these bikes, of which they made about 15,000 over the life of the company, (1931-1959), will be overjoyed at this news. Fortunately for the company, there aren't too many of us left!  | ||
| Trojan |
My Uncle had a square four fitted with a HUGE Watsonian sidecar that we used to travel around in as a family back in the ealry '60's. two adults on the bike, two adults and 4 kids in the sidecar!! The Square Four was considered to be the 'gold wing' of its day and was incredibly advanced compared to most of the twons/singles on offer at the time. Unfortunately the technology was just too far ahead of the materials available to make them  | ||
| Danger_dave |
Ariel -> great reception. Tough room. | ||
| Trojan |
Ariel -> great reception. Ahhhh, you mean Aerial....as in TV antenna? I was a bit slow on the uptake there Dave. But it is Friday afternoon Just goes to show that the digital generation are missing out on a whole load of bad jokes  | ||
| Luftkoph |
ariel? a few this past weekend at ama vintage motorcycle days  | ||
| Macbuell |
Seems like bad timing for something like this given the economy. | ||
| Reepicheep |
True, and we hope to be surprised, but we've seen this show before... | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket, Dave. It's just that when I started my two wheel adventures in the late fifties, English Iron, and Harley's were about it. The Harley's were unspeakably crude, running on tires that looked they would be right at home on an automobile, and the English bikes were better in every way for the sporting rider. The rub came in keeping the things running. I reckoned that I spent about two hours working on them for every glorious hour on the road: and that was on a brand new bike! They had a great sense of style, and they sure were fun once you got them going. I bought one of these Velocette Venom Thruxton Five Hundreds brand new. Cost me about $1,200 or one tenth of what a mint example would cost today. Starting one of these 500cc singles with a GP carb, hand spark retard, and relatively high compression, was a real art, and definitely part of the fun.  For every day operation, and touring, it was BMW all the way: they were in an entirely different class in terms of reliability in those days. Here is a shot of me taking a bit of a stroll on my highly modified R69S, circa 1962.  | ||
| Chauly |
Ariel=Little Mermaid! | ||
| 86129squids |
"...I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome, coming down from Heaven to carry me hooome!" I loves me that song... and anything Del McCoury and company do... And yes, I know Richard Thompson wrote the original...  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Cool bike, cool shot Jon! | ||
| Danger_dave |
"...I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome, coming down from Heaven to carry me hooome!" Unfortunately the head warped and we had to trailer it the rest of the waaaaaay. | ||
| Imonabuss |
Angels ride 'em because only God himself can keep 'em runnin' | ||
| 86129squids |
Oh c'mon- have you guys heard the song I'm referencing? Gets in your DNA as a motorcyclist, after one listen! | ||
| 86129squids |
Here ya go youn's... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI8uMSxnsVw | ||
| Danger_dave |
Oh yeah - know it well. Have it on the bike music playlist, http://www.youtube.com/user/dangerdavenz#grid/user /F1F1499AA161959E but much prefere the Thompson version. | ||
| Danger_dave |
'prefere" ei ei ei! | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
The smaller models like the Arrow & Leader were also pretty advanced for their day, the somewhat anaemic Villiers stroker lump was one the limiting factors. | ||
| Bgbrd |
What a perfect song! I have heard of this song but never listened to it. Both Richard Thompsons and Del Mccoury's versions put chills up my spine. Makes me think of British rocker images in black and white.And yes a redhead in black leather on any vincent would be a great color scheme. | ||
| 86129squids |
Haven't you heard? | ||
| Phelan |
Da baba bird bird bird! Da bird is da word! Da baba bird bird bird! Da bird is da word!.. | ||
| 86129squids |
OOOma mau mau OOOma mau ma mau ma mau...  | ||
| Gohot |
Yea while at 'Kneeslider' I got sidetracked with the Gunbus huge motorcycle. They were talking about a sidecar version as it weighs 3/4 of a ton...... why not just make it a Trike...... problem solved, and still fun, 500+ lbs torque....... | ||
| Fahren |
I like Gentleman Jon's atgatt-kevlar sweater on that beemer :-) | ||
| U4euh |
I must be getting up in years myself, the first thing I noticed about every single one of those pictures is how comfy those seats look. Compared to my modern day 2x6 that my rump rest on, they look like a Lazy Boy! | ||
| Danger_dave |
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| 46champ |
Dave nice pictures of the museum bikes. I have a question about the Velocette rear shocks. It looks like the upper mount is slotted. What is the purpose of that? Is it a handling thing or a load carrying thing? Did they put the shock vertical to ride 2 up? | ||
| Danger_dave |
Deus is a unique place. I was there early for a lunch hook up with my Editor so I pointed the Camera at the bikes on display till he got there. Most of them are for sale. Even our lunch table decorations. They build a heap of Custom bikes out the back too.  Don't know about the suspenders. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
46 - You are correct. The rear struts are adjustable for load and were normally set in the midway position for solo use; moving the units to the rear increases stiffness for passenger carrying. Velocettes were considered very sporty mounts in their day, (the company went out of business in 1968), having set the worlds record of over a 100mph for 24 hours. I believe Erik Buell told me that he was a Velocette owner and fan as well, if memory serves. |
