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Norton is like a fish that has been caught, gaffed, hauled into the boat, bonked on the head, taken back to shore and then flops out of the ice bucket, slips off the jetty and manages to flap off before anyone can fillet it and do anything useful with it! Every time some new grifter buys the name some shitty version of what was basically a 500cc platform with a non unit gearbox is trotted out with great fanfare claiming, like Hesketh, (remember them?) that it's going to be the revival of a 'Great British Name!'. @#!#$# off with this noise! Norton is dead. It died, with the rest of the British motorcycle industry, at the beginning of the Second World War. Yes, Joe Craig continued to develop the pre war 'International' OHC motor in the race shop and it continued to be competitive, at least on the tighter circuits, as the Manx. But post war the models offered to the public were your quintessential 'Grey Porridge'. Horrid, slow, shitboxes like the 16H and later the twins in the form of the 'Atlas' and, (Smirk!) 'Dominator'. Models that were so vibratory, not to mention unreliable, that the Dominator was ruefully known as the 'Morecome Flagelator' due to its propensity for shaking loose fillings and shedding bits of itself like confetti as its owner wheezed from breakdown to breakdown! The 'Commando's' were even worse! Yes, they were pretty, yes the name has a certain, (Thouroughly undeserved) reputation for??? Well? Something good? But they weren't. They were awful. Just like everything else made by the British motorcycle industry post-war. How do I know this? Because I lived through the death thoes of the industry and it was pathetic to watch. The only thing more pathetic is seeing a seemingly inexhaustible queue of dolts with rose tinted specs queuing up fo be fleeced by whatever grifting spiv has bought the name off the last grifting spiv who is cackling into his bank account in some tax haven that doesn't have an extradition treaty to anywhere they can be taken to task. FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THINGS DECENT! LET NORTON'S ZOMBIE CORPE REST! Its a turd that keeps on giving!

I just watched the vid. Have to say that I expected way worse based on the comments, above, but I liked it. [Yes, that's damning with faint, etc. ] Dobbs seems a likable fellow and, more on point, I very much like the moto. Have always thought Nortons grand, and wished the (several) resurrection efforts well. I do wish we could see more of Monika than the one photo I found out there. Bill

True but they don't bang on about how home grown they are. There's not a lot in a Ducati that's made outside Italy come to think of it. Phil

There are so many components NO motorcycle company makes, Wheels , tires , bars , levers , cables , instruments , plastic components , switchgear , etc. That can be said about all manufacturers .

Likes to listen to himself talk. I don't. I hope the bike has reasonable success, as it is a storied name. Will cost a small fortune, but that is the cost of non-Guzzi rarity. Interesting roots. https://magazine.cycleworld.com/article/2010/10/1/the-real-commandos

I'm riding from El Paso to Fairbanks in July on the BMW... won't have much time for maintenance on the yellow missile, I guess I'll just wipe it's ass again this year lol

Four months out and still riding your @$$ about getting to SSR XX, @gstallons . . .

At least yours has been sawn properly. I just got my jacket from the alteration lady this afternoon, and the patch is slightly slanted. Of course, she may not have the eye for it. Never mind that I warned her before the job! Grrr!

Ha ha. Don't hold back now mate! Hilarious.

Thank you, again, @p6x !

No docc C3 just refers to the bearings internal clearance. The V11 wheel bearings are the classic single row deep groove ball bearing as an example. Phil

What a total wanker. The bike was rubbish years ago when it was first released and still is. As for British made wank? Well, Wheels and suspension aren't just for starters. Foot pegs and carriers that look like something I made in my workshop. Rubbish sold on "Britishness" that doesn't exist and poor quality, masquerading as rawness and simplicity. Phil

"deep groove ball bearings" . . . is that the "C3" specification?

I don't back them off docc, too much chance of introducing freeplay. All single/double groove ball bearings will accept a decent amount of axial load and commonly do in practice. It's when it becomes excessive it's an issue such as when the wheel bearing spacer is too short and the amount of torque applied by the axle nut has to be tolerated. Remember even in that case the wheel bearings still last quite a while. In the case of the massive double row ball bearings at the pivot a small amount of preload is preferable to zero or clearance. When I say small I mean "nipped up" to coin an Aussie phrase. Maybe 1 foot pound or so. Think about ball races in a car gearbox main shaft and layshaft for example restraining the lateral force imposed by helical cut gears and 5 or 6 hundred foot pounds of torque generated by the engine. The Koyo bearing catalogue also backs this up for deep groove ball bearings and advises if axial loads are large to increase the shoulder radial depth in the housing. So they accept that significant axial loads will sometimes occur. Phil

No, not quite. The only way to not have wind noise is to effectively protect the microphone from the wind. It doesn't matter if the mic is built in to the camera, a seperate mic connected to the camera with a cable, or a mic connected to a seperate recorder. You have to isolate it from the wind. That isn't even all that hard. A couple of layers of rubber foam taped over the built-in mic on a camera should do it. If you want to really pay attention to sound quality, the foam or whatever can get expensive, but if you are using something with a built-in mic, don't worry about it. As I said, it isn't all that difficult, actually. All it takes is a bit of common sense, a few minutes of thinking sensibly about the problem, and the awareness that one has to stop wind getting in without damping the pressure waves (sound waves) too much in the process. The wind protectors that look like a fluffy gerbil work quite well, incidently. As far as the camera person goes, towards the end where the bloke is talking after his ride: 1) the camera follows him to the bike where he talks for a minute or two, and the bike's mirror is in front of his face most of the time. 2) he sits at the table and talks for several minutes. During that time the bike in the background is in focus. Ok. But he is not. Not OK. Just to mention a couple of points.... Yes, I'm picky, and nit-picking is easy. But getting it right isn't that difficult either.

@audiomick The changes will only be required in 2027! they have two years to get it right. I don't know what to think about the reduced engine capacity, but they had to find a way to reduce power. I remember the 800cc fiasco of 2007. This time, it is 850cc, and 20 years later. Possibly the same issues are going to pop up, engines will need to rev higher to compensate for the loss of torque. The 800cc were more prone to high side, but 20 years after, the electronics have evolved too. We will see if they get it right this time. I found this article about the 800cc...https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2016/may/mcn-plus---rip-800s-sport/

I am guessing it is his girlfriend. I am going to give some points for not mounting the camera on his head, so the viewer don't have to witness each and every jerking moves, especially while riding in the city. To me, helmet mounted cameras means an early exit and a thumbs down. About wind noise, the only way to not have any, is to have a separate recorder. I have a Zoom H1n which I put inside the tool's compartment of my V11. It works wonders. Only I have no video to speak off, because my DGI Pocket 2 can't handle any wind. As soon as I put it on the chest strap, the gimbal motors are not powerful enough to fight the wind. I am waiting to get a new camera to go back to making some videos of the V11.

Personally I consider the 'New Commando' a near-miss at best. They really didn't capture any of the proportion or style of the original, and the engine just isn't knobby enough while still appearing dated. Meh.

At least we woud be prepeared to handle the ign lock, looks familiar to me. And the music , hearing the bike, much better. Cool bike, hope they succede. To many has been burned before, paying big down p, thats it, no bike. Cheers Tom.

Make sure you get everything as clos to 90degree angles and the same angle to get the best shift possible. A VERY old crane mechanic stressed the importance of this to me and I do it as much as possible.

I just had a wee look but not enough time to watch all of it... Think you might be right about the public school twat ha ha . Anyways I don't think they ( Norton ) got it right with the standard Commando,To me the pipes are wrong and the tail lights embedded in the rear cowling look ah crap. Having said this, I think they got it absolutely spot on with the Dominator version, but this was under the previous management. (or lack thereof). That version is one of the best looking bikes I've seen. Cheers Ps I also prefer v twins though.

I read they are restricting aero to some degree or at least setting parameters based on the max width allowed for the front of the bike.

Well, the bike is pretty. The film is mediocre. The camera person is an amateur, and they don't really have the audio sorted. Wind noise should not ever happen. And the bloke corresponds almost perfectly to the classic stereotype of a public school twat. Ok, that is not really fair, and perhaps says something about my personal predjudices, but still... But the bike really is pretty. Pity I don't like parallel twins.