The Commando returns? really?

[p6x]

The Norton Commando has been trying to resurrect from its ashes several times now...

Let's hope this time it will be real!

I really like its looks and how it sounds.

 

[audiomick]

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.

[guzzler]

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.

[Tomchri]

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.

[Pressureangle]

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.

[p6x]

2 hours ago, audiomick said:

The camera person is an amateur

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.

[audiomick]

25 minutes ago, p6x said:

About wind noise, the only way to not have any, is to have a separate recorder.

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.

[Lucky 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

[guzzler]

Ha ha.

Don't hold back now mate!

Hilarious.

 

[po18guy]

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

[gstallons]

9 hours ago, Lucky Phil said:

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

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 . 

[Lucky Phil]

1 hour ago, gstallons said:

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 . 

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

[Bill Hagan]

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

[pete roper]

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!

[Pressureangle]

At least the Hesketh had sex appeal. I wanted one in the worst way, even stopping by the importer's house in California, or Colorado...Brian something maybe? 
*edit* Roger Slater. It wasn't easy to find his residence in 1979.
Probably best it didn't happen.