Like a continuation of the observation that Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic, the Wall Street Crash and the first talkie were closer to when I, and many forum members, were born, than is Apollo 11 landing on the moon, and Woodstock are to today: I built, maintained, and rode, '50s and '60s Triumphs and BSAs, exclusively, from the late mid-70s. We called them Classic - though that was a bit presumptuous for some of them - and Vintage (but most definitely not Veteran). The oldest I worked on and rode was a '55 Triumph Trophy. In '53 they still had rigid frames! But not a single one was as old as my 999 and SSie are now. It's probably hard to grasp because all the '50s bikes were older than I was; and all the '60s ones were from before my bollocks dropped (I think. I don't recall noticing). In the '80s I branched out and worked on a no. of Jap bikes - plus one 850 Guzzi, and one Laverda 750SF; though it wasn't until I built the CB550 in '88/'89 that I owned, and extensively rode, something non-British. The Honda was 10 years old; and mid-'89 I acquired the Jota, also 10 years old. And both those seemed older than my Ducatis do! By then I was approaching 30 - though it seems beyond doubt that our brains don't stop developing until the end of our 3rd decade. Maybe that explains it, at least in part. Makes me wonder about the '27 club'. That Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Jones, Cobain, Winehouse, etc, were still, in a way, children. Never actually reached adulthood in the physiological sense. Presumably rumination is chewing the cud. Moo.
You can see it in their eyes. Except perhaps the bearded guy, who might have a groovy kind of paranoia.
Not me personally but I was watching Prof Brian Cox last night. He says that the father of one of the last men to walk on the moon actually watched the Wright Bros first flight. So in the space of 60 years he saw man fly for the first time to seeing his son fly to the moon. Amazing.
Allan ‘Gut’ Terk. Lived outside the law as a Hells Angel, heroin addict, motorcycle builder, artist, author and died of cancer in 2018 aged 78
