JAP 600cc UCZ rigid frame specials .

[john.k]

Anybody here noticed there is a craze for building home made bikes with rotary hoe motors.?.....Every Howard Gem being displayed as garden art is suddenly worth $2000 for the JAP motor....There are even races for these specials......The craze started in UK,but has spread out here too.......not that Im complaining as I have a couple of UCZ 600s in really nice condition .......I had always planned to put OHV top ends on them.......Unfortunately the days of buying anything OHV JAP on ebay for  less than weight in gold is gone.......I have another project thats more interesting ,and that is putting two of the little OHV 250 JAPs of the late 30s,on a 750cc Autotruck motor......But these 750 industrial JAPs have hit 3000 quid each in UK......So Ill give that a miss too......ive just build a nice new shed ,and now nothing to do in it.

[cardan]

Amazingly, some people think these things are real... it this case a "board track racer'.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53591907@N00/5409498093

Leon

[mini-me]

the world of old bikes has become a magnet for posturing tossers who think crap like this is something special.
I expect the owner has a man bun, a silly beard with tattoo on his neck. ....and is still  in the closet.

Which is why I no longer get involved with any of it.

today I am a bit more grumpy.
flat tracker...........huh, not even as if such a thing existed in this country back then.

[john.k]

It gets even crazier when you see the cooling cowl off a little 2hp JAP stationary motor on ebay for $500 as a Brough Superior part!

[Rex]

Now you tell me....

[mini-me]

When you don't know what its, always list it as Brough Superior.

I list a lot of Brough parts, mostly old spark plugs, suitable for flat trackers.

What I am working on is self igniting beard grease, or 'product' as they like to say.

[R]

flat tracker...........huh, not even as if such a thing existed in this country back then.

Perhaps not in that exact form.

But 'speedway'  and 'dirt track' and 'grasstrack' may be not be that far removed ...
A Rudge and a Duggie, in mortal combat

[R]

Anybody here noticed there is a craze for building home made bikes with rotary hoe motors.?.....Every Howard

Have you seen how many of those Howard rotary hoe v-twins have made their way into specials.
Those things are all iron and bronze - and heavy !
And 1300cc, so have bit of poke. As you need for a bit of cultivating ...

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/51/ba/f651ba662c2965dce43a9c684679ca69.jpg
Rather large pic.

That steering geometry looks a bit weird ?

[cardan]

In Australia, we did have one "board track" - the "Saucer Track" built at Princes Court in Melbourne, about where the National Gallery of Victoria is now. It was 8 laps to the mile, opened in Jan 1908, and Cecil De Fraga raced his motorcycle on it.

We also had "board track racers": I can think of four or five machines that were built to race on the saucer track. My favourite was a gigantic 14 hp V twin - maybe 1500cc - built by Harry Busteed in Melbourne. Not unlike a Howard Cultivator, but 40 years earlier.

What we didn't have was "board track racing". De Fraga's bike was a spidery Buchet twin - like the French racers of the day - and he did lots of solo demonstrations and record braking on the track. Eventually he lapped at about 55mph - 8 seconds per lap. But when his mates - Busteed and pioneer aviator Harry Hawker for example - brought their bigger machines to the track, they must have quickly realised that if they raced they would all die. Or maybe the track was not able to hold the big bikes without damage. A couple of times motorcycle races were advertised, but I don't think they ever happened. There are photos of bikes (other than De Fraga's) on the track, but I suspect this was when they "tried out", and then "opted out"!

Leon

[R]

'Saucer tracks' - concrete style - appeared at various places in the 1920s etc.

The Maroubra speedway (Sydney) had a bit of a reputation for bad accidents, didn't last long.
Even though it was said you couldn't walk up it, apparently it was too shallow for higher speeds.
Which didn't encourage the motorcycle brigade.

A Bugatti ...

[cardan]

In 1926 - the same year as the Bugatti photo, Harold Woods lapped Maroubra on his RA Douglas at 99 mph - faster than the cars and a lap record at that time.

The Melbourne "concrete saucer" was the Motordrome, which was bigger (at three laps to the mile) than the Saucer Track, but smaller than Maroubra, which was in turn much smaller than mighty Brooklands. On the Motordrome, speed was such an issue that the capacity limit was dropped to 350cc.

Leon