They are pleasant conversations: stupid old doors about old motorcycles. About classics. Even about recent 'retro bikes' from very old and very new brands. The new retrobikes are the pleasant result of the lack of imagination and the insight that 200 horsepower motorcycles with up to 20 electronic measuring and control cousins are actually meaningless. That things thereby resemble machines from manga strips is then only a bizarre side effect. Motorcycles must resemble motorcycles as we remember. They should not be wet design dreams of young people behind screens. Because marketers and engineers have in the last few years gone wild to come up with motorcycles for target groups that do not exist.
Retro is nice, but not classic
Motors like the Mash, Brixton, the RE 650: Very retro. Very nice. The Japanese and British retro bikes? Often a bit over the top. Bonnevilles were once slender dancers. Now they are boulemic mastodons. Very practical with starter motors. And injection, disc brakes and, if possible, ABS, the only sensible electronic addition ever. But they are also simply 'new'. Maybe nice to have with you.
And then in terms of classics you can also fall over the usual approach: "25 + is classic", something that is legally true for motorcycles, but certainly not for people. Well for us classic lovers, because our age is usually 2 x 25 +. And that makes a 'classic' motorcycle from 1990 in our eyes a modern thing. And many motorcycles between the 25-30 years old are still seen as the cheapest way to drive a motorcycle. Nothing wrong with it.
Classic is a feeling and a year of construction
It is often in the (dream) motorcycles from your youth. And few motorcycles can make the gap between actually 'recent' and classic effortless. We found such a machine at Gallery Aaldering in Brummen: a Gilera Nuovo Bialbero 500 'Saturno'. With only 80 kilometers on the clock. These beautiful Gileras are made between 1988-1991. They were the perfect blend of Italian emotion and Japanese professionalism. And the Gilera was an expensive thing: it cost more than the Japanese 600 cc SuperSporters.
A Nuevo Saturno
And that is a Gilera Nuevo Bialbero 500 Saturno, because Gilera already had a Saturno in the program: That was between 1946-1958. There are only just about the 6000 made of it, a number that the Nuevo cannot match.
The newcomer was a thought child of Gilera technician Sandro Colombo and the Japanese Hagiwara. The idea was to put a tribute to the old Saturno on the wheels and actually only sell the machine in Japan. They were crazy about machines like that. But in 1988 the Gilera also came on sale here. Three years later he was gone again. And "bialbero" means: double overhead camshafts.
The highly modern Dakota 1985 cc, 492 pk strong single-cylinder engine with four valves, his 45 mm Dell'Orto and a balance shaft was a design by Gilera. The block was intended for use in various Gileras.
In 1986, the Japanese firm C approached Itoh Gilera to model a machine of the kind they were crazy about in Japan: a fat single-pitter that looked as racy as possible. The Gileras got suspension and damping from Ceriani and Marzocchi, the brakes were Brembos and lived in Marvic cast wheels. The slender-cut engine weighed dry 137 kilos. And he breathed fantastic out of a LaFranconi exhaust system.
In 1990 50 were shipped to England. And while the Gileras were expensive, they sold well. And bearing in mind the Italian philosophy that every Lire earned on the street had to be spent directly on the track in multiples, there was also a full race version: the Piuma. In 1993 the Piaggio Group, the owner of 'Gilera' pulled the plug from the story.
For Nico and Nick Aaldering, classic motorcycles are no carrier under their earnings model. "Old motorcycles are just fun!" Says Nick Aaldering. And the Gilera is undeniably fun.
In the meantime, the Gilera Nuovo Bialbero 500 Saturno is a beautiful genetic classic in a country where we will soon be allowed to drive no faster than 100. The Saturno must also be good for 160 + km / h.
And for the buyer, the machine may be a very good reason to do something about it. Because an 100 + kilo-heavy Dutchman on such a slender Japanese-inspired Latin beauty? That doesn't look nice.
My name is rob Kruijning I own a Gilera Bialbero and I want to sell it, what can you advise me, I would like to hear a response gr rob
Retro or not, I really enjoy my Honda CB1100 from 2013.
Of course, a real CB 750 is nice and fun, but if there is not enough space to maintain such a, now maintenance-sensitive, motorcycle, it is still a beautiful and successful project that CB1100.
The director of the Honda motorcycle department found that there was actually little for the 50 + drivers and came up with the idea to put the old CB on the table again. incl Comstar look-a-likes and 4 in 1 Marshall idea it had to be.
Everyone wanted me to whine the 70s, so …………. A Honda cb 750 had 2 in 4 exhausts and wire wheels, so the 2016 models got a double exhaust and wire wheels again.
That Honda did not just make a look like, but also had the sound and loop wide (the 750 had a somewhat irregular idle run due to the 4 carburettors), even the middle cams of the inlet camshaft were set a few degrees "wrong" and the cooling fins from thick to thinner to sound the ticking of cooling. So a tribute to the best and most famous motorcycle ever should be. and you don't even have to tinker with it much
All nostalgia aside, it is of course also a top bike! And Honda has 'the right' to hark back to the past of the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world.