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Kenny ( not that Kenny ) and Barry discuss Arto ............

Fer gawd`s sake don`t give the current crop of Moto GP clowns any ideas by letting them see this ........ dragging a foot into bends is bad enough ..... crossing the finishing line sitting backwards would be just too much .............
 
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Nice colour for an early Jota .......... I thought they went green red silver gold , with maybe the odd black one thrown in , before turning orange .........

In one of the Laverda books I used to have , there was a pic of a Moto Laverda " feeler gauge " or similar , which gave an example of every colour Laverda had at their disposal to choose from when painting their bikes ........

Quite a range of twenty or so different colours ..... can`t recall offhand orange being amongst them , but it must have been surely ......... :unsure::) ...................

At a BMF Rally I remember seeing leaning against a wall a Jota where everything except the seat , tyres , and handlebar grips had been chrome plated ........ On a sunny day it would have caused permanent retina damage just glancing at it as you walked by ..............

At another BMF Rally I witnessed some chinless wonder staring at my parked Mirage , and saying to his mate ....... " A GREEN Laverda ? " ...........

Yeah , they came in all sorts of different colours mate ....... We weren`t all Piero`s " Orange People " you know ............ Prick .............



Which has put me in mind ........

When I have nothing better to do ... ( which is most of the time ) ..... I may start a thread entitled " Laverda Mirage .... 40 years of Observations and Reactions " ......

You have been warned .... be prepared to be entertained / bored to tears ...... or just make a note to completely ignore anytime soon ............
 
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rocketonarail said:
At another BMF Rally I witnessed some chinless wonder staring at my parked Mirage , and saying to his mate ....... " A GREEN Laverda ? " ...........
Yeah , they came in all sorts of different colours mate,

Which has put me in mind ........
When I have nothing better to do ... ( which is most of the time ) ..... I may start a thread entitled " Laverda Mirage .... 40 years of Observations and Reactions " ......

You have been warned .... be prepared to be entertained / bored to tears ...... or just make a note to completely ignore anytime soon ............
Click to expand...

I got tired, when mine had its original, suffix registration, of hearing the "Oh, it's a '76." delivered in that annoying know-it-all tone. So, I bought an old Raleigh moped for £20 and lifted the registration number off it.
First day out with the non-suffix reg., I stopped at a Little Chef for breakfast. There were a couple of tables' worth of 'Fizzie' kids behind me. As I tucked into my hash brown, I heard one say "Blimey! A Laverda, I didn't know they'd been making them that long!"

[Explanation, for the non-UK audience:
In '63, as a means to even out new car sales over the year, an new style of registration plate was introduced. Instead of, usually three letters, three numbers, a suffix letter 'A' appeared on vehicles registered after 31st July. Suffix 'B' from Aug '64 and so on.
A 16-year-old learner rider applying for a driving licence starting from 1st Jan, 1972, found themselves no longer licensed to ride a solo motor cycle up to 250cc or unlimited capacity with a sidecar attached, but were confined to a moped until age 17.
The most popular moped was the Yamaha FS1-E (Fizzie). They now fetch stupid money, being bought by old men who wanted one, at the time, but not hard enough.]
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£7,995, FFS!​

 
I remember motor ads around `70/`71 relating to the J and K suffix ........ " If a K is too costly , a J is just right .... " ....... Snappy eh ? ........

I`m also waiting to hear some dick looking at a Laverda saying .... " Huh , orange ...... they`re just copying KTM ..... " .............
 
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The Sock said:
Back in the early days of the Jota, a number were bought by members of The White Helmets, the British Army Motorcycle Display Team.
Several of the riders were adept at riding their Jotas sitting on the handlebars, facing backwards.
Barry Roberts (can't remember his rank), on his:
View attachment 108208
Click to expand...
He didn't just ride backwards at BAMDT events but rode backwards all round the TT course in 1977 (but I believe it was on a Triumph not the Jota).
 
The Sock said:
I got tired, when mine had its original, suffix registration, of hearing the "Oh, it's a '76." delivered in that annoying know-it-all tone. So, I bought an old Raleigh moped for £20 and lifted the registration number off it.
First day out with the non-suffix reg., I stopped at a Little Chef for breakfast. There were a couple of tables' worth of 'Fizzie' kids behind me. As I tucked into my hash brown, I heard one say "Blimey! A Laverda, I didn't know they'd been making them that long!"

[Explanation, for the non-UK audience:
In '63, as a means to even out new car sales over the year, an new style of registration plate was introduced. Instead of, usually three letters, three numbers, a suffix letter 'A' appeared on vehicles registered after 31st July. Suffix 'B' from Aug '64 and so on.
A 16-year-old learner rider applying for a driving licence starting from 1st Jan, 1972, found themselves no longer licensed to ride a solo motor cycle up to 250cc or unlimited capacity with a sidecar attached, but were confined to a moped until age 17.
The most popular moped was the Yamaha FS1-E (Fizzie). They now fetch stupid money, being bought by old men who wanted one, at the time, but not hard enough.]
View attachment 108210

£7,995, FFS!​

Click to expand...
Should have kept mine!
 

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The Sock said:
Back in the early days of the Jota, a number were bought by members of The White Helmets, the British Army Motorcycle Display Team.
Several of the riders were adept at riding their Jotas sitting on the handlebars, facing backwards.
Barry Roberts (can't remember his rank), on his:
View attachment 108208
Click to expand...
I was in a beer tent at the Dorset Steam fair wearing a Triumph tee shirt when a lady asked me if I had one, she then told me she was the booking agent for the White helmets. She got me a pass to go to the last ever display at Blandford barracks .Straight after the show had finished the team had to ride out and the bikes were to be put in a container awaiting auction. They all rode out of the parade square pulling endless wheelies- you could then hear them all racing around the barracks for the last time…all very moving.
 
Dave Taylor was another stunt rider during the `seventies / ` eighties ......... I think he wheelied all the way round the TT course if I remember correctly ........


Bike magazine used to do a " quote of the month " at the time ........

Once it was a quote from Dave Taylor which went along the lines of .... " I`m glad my sons are into motorcycles ........ It stops me worrying that they may become involved in the youth culture of drink , drugs and other illegal behaviour ... " ............

Bike responded with ............ s``funny , we thought those were the reasons that people got into bikes in the first place ...............
 
piranha-bro2 said:
Someone stole your down tubes!! Unless the red one above had them added for looks :cool:
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They did, they were called DX bars, fitted to the Fs1-E DX. The times people told me my frame was missing! My Fizz had RD mag wheels, which back in the day was something else. I used to ride mine to my first job at Misdemeaner motorcycles, a chopper building outfit in Ealing.
Next door was Show & Go American cars run by Snob & his Hells Angel chums. I can remember them asking for a go on my fizz, only to come back 5 minutes later to tell me it did 46 mph!
 
Ah, Fantic Motor!!! Mate and I came upon a guy trying to ride their 125 chopper from Perth over the Nullarbor (about 4,000km) - he'd only made it about 200km and was having serious difficulty. We just had to tell him we really couldn't help him out. Can't even begin to think what he thought as we fired up the SFs and disappeared east - poor bastard.
 
Frantic Cabellero had 6 gears!! Fast until they went bang, which was quite often. Fizz would go on forever, I commuted on mine, never let me down..I used to come home 8 o clock in the dark with the 6v “dying glow worm” for a headlamp. They were 10 years old when we had them!
 
Actually it`s not too bad compared to some ........... It sounds like some old gent who`s usually to be found sat at home in his slippers puffing away at a pipe ..........


There`s a French bike reviewer called Lunaris who tries out quite an interesting selection of oldish and newish bikes ...... usually with his normal French voice as a soundtrack ...... But now and again he uses some sort of English auto-translate which can sound really weird at times ........

It sounds like someone who`s slightly high on E , interspersed with little fits of giggles and yelps between sentences ( or sometimes half way through ) , as though there`s someone tickling his nether regions with a feather .........

If this is AI generated English , I think I`d rather stick with French ...........
 
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