Jota speed testing/Practical Sportsbikes

R

rucksack

New member
Location
UK
Hello,

Me again, with another request on behalf of the day job.

I've organised an afternoon on a runway in order to chart the performance development of key sportsbikes from the 1970s to more recent times, with a defining bike from each decade. Initially I'd planned to use a GS1000, but after the example we'd been offered fell through, I had a brain wave: a Jota is clearly a better (faster...) candidate anyway...

So here's the invite: Kendrew Barracks, Monday 21st March. I need a Jota in stock condition, to gather a variety of straight line performance figures, and ideally the owner to be part of the photoshoot (for the feature, and the front cover) and take their bike up the 1.8 mile strip themselves too, if they so wish. The rider gathering the date will be Bruce Dunn, who has several decades experience in such testing, and is well qualified to get the best from the bikes, but is also mechanically sensitive/responsible so won't mistreat them, or ask more than is reasonable of a 40 year old bike. We're fully insured for anything we do, though we've not put a claim in for a long time, and I don't wish to start now...

Some ask, I know, and not for everyone. But if you have a Jota in great working order and are happy for it to be used as intended I'd love to hear from you.

Contact details: chris.newbigging@pspb.co.uk or 01733 468084 (9-5.30, ish)

Thanks
 
This is bloody interesting, the other side of the planet for me. Come on blokes big bragging rights happening here. Not too sure about some slim-hipped racer doing my job though. We have this Salt Lake in western South Oz that is begging for a Laverda visit one day. Bit too much water at the moment.

Domain Parked With VentraIP Australia

www.dlra.org.au www.dlra.org.au
 
Bloody hell, I'd love to see my Jota given a good airing (or do so myself), but I'll be driving back from Northumberland to Wiltshire on 21st March, so sadly no can do.
It's the same bike (now in even better fettle) that Alan Seeley tested for PS back in 2015.
 
a14rgs said:
Bloody hell, I'd love to see my Jota given a good airing (or do so myself), but I'll be driving back from Northumberland to Wiltshire on 21st March, so sadly no can do.
It's the same bike (now in even better fettle) that Alan Seeley tested for PS back in 2015.
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Change your schedule, you know you want to.
 
I would have thought there would be a few triples about faster than a Jota, time moves on. Even if they all look the same in bed at midnight. It's what's under the covers that does the work.
 
Vince said:
I would have thought there would be a few triples about faster than a Jota, time moves on.
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Depends what year you're talking about Vince. When the Jota first appeared in the UK (1976?? I guess the one they designate the 3CE) it would have eaten anything else on the market alive in top speed and probably 1/4 mile times. But if you take an '81 Jota and put it up against whatever the top line Japanese offering was at the time it might not be a win.
 
Ho
Vince said:
I remember this happening in Performance bike once, the Laverda just nudged 150mph.
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How did they manage that? IIRC the Jota was famous because it would do around 140mph - it takes a hell of a lot more power to propel a barge like the Jota that extra 16kph (10mph).
 
The Magazine was Performance Bike, they didnt do stock, this was a highly modified 120. There were 2 bikes tested, a 120 and a 180 owned by a couple of brothers, at Buntinthorp I think the place was called. The faster of the 2 blew a cloud of smoke crossing the timing beam, blown rocker gasket revealed later. This is a blurred from memory quote, from sometime in the 80s or 90s when hotted up Fireblades were producing well over 150hp and Laverdas were Dionsores. BTW John Roberson was the editor and by far the best technical bike writer ever. Loved that mag. They would real-world test stuff like brake fluid, using all sorts of gadgets to reveal that handler high temps the best etc.
 
Vince said:
The Magazine was Performance Bike, they didnt do stock, this was a highly modified 120. There were 2 bikes tested, a 120 and a 180 owned by a couple of brothers, at Buntinthorp I think the place was called. The faster of the 2 blew a cloud of smoke crossing the timing beam, blown rocker gasket revealed later. This is a blurred from memory quote, from sometime in the 80s or 90s when hotted up Fireblades were producing well over 150hp and Laverdas were Dionsores. BTW John Roberson was the editor and by far the best technical bike writer ever. Loved that mag. They would real-world test stuff like brake fluid, using all sorts of gadgets to reveal that handler high temps the best etc.
Click to expand...
Funny enough those bikes are still around in the same hands and have been developed further. We're due to be getting them along for a rematch another time, but it's a regular Slater Jota we'd like to represent the pinnacle of 1970s road going sportsbikes.

JR was at the top of his game alright. He laid the foundations for many of the principles and methods we still follow today: many of my contributors worked with him and counted him as a friend and mentor early in their careers. He was never PB's editor, though he held a few different senior positions under whoever was in charge at the time. He's greatly missed. PS at least still likes to objectively measure things in scepticism of what is claimed. We're still putting the calibrated bike scales purchased at his behest sometime in the 1990s to good use now.
 
If this happens let us know, and defiantly let us know about that rematch. Cause they still own them, who ever sells a Laverda/
 
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