The Greatest Motorcycles of The 20th Century | The Greatest Ever | Spark

tonight the greatest ever goes in search of the ultimate two-wheeled ride a motorcycle is a machine for making you feel good they're the most basic form of transport but they just happen to be the best front you can have on the road to earn the right to be the greatest ever motorcycle the bikes will be pushed to the limit we'll ride them hands-free we're gonna race a jet fighter and we're gonna try and destroy them the motorcycle is an extension of one's ego a motorcycle is an extension of one's penis a motorcycle is an extension of one spirit to literally fly after you've ridden a 500 grand free bike or a motor gp bike for that perfect lap there's nothing else that can that i have ever witnessed that comes close to that [Applause] to not [Music] attracted to girls well available is it about the girl well there's certain parts of it you find intriguing some people call an obsession some people call it an addiction some people just call it the greatest thing in the world now sit back and hold on as you're about to discover the ultimate run starting our countdown is a bike that symbolizes rebellion it's well on it's the harley-davidson knucklehead knucklehead that sounds like a lot of work the knucklehead has probably the highest sex appeal factor on the rector scale well there's no doubt if that bike hadn't existed harley wouldn't exist today launched in 1936 it wasn't until after victory in the second world war when servicemen returned from the battlefield and were looking for some wild peacetime excitement that this harley legend was born it's like being able to buy a hot rod you know it was it was it was the fastest bike of its time in america the knuckleheads twin v line cylinders doubled the engine's brake horsepower while previous harleys could do 65 miles an hour the knuckleheads 1000 ccv twin could do 100. even so it wasn't fast enough everyone wants their bike to be kind of quicker and better than the next guys so people really started heavily modifying their machines and it to start off with it was all about stripping them down to their essence they chopped bits off to make the bikes lighter and faster and re-christened them choppers it was an expression of bucking the rules and from that point on people who rode motorcycles were the bad people being a bad boy was really liberating it created an image that continues to this day so this is my 1945 knucklehead chopper the engine is what makes the knucklehead a knucklehead the heads here this is why they call it a knucklehead supposedly it looks like these knuckles on a fist right here just like that this knuckle of course is in stock it's chopped or what we say chopper it's uh you take off all the unnecessary equipment and you customize it so that it's your own we have a chrome springer front end stock of course was black this is a 21 inch front wheel with a modern disc brake small headlight here these what they call dog bones to bring the handlebars up into baby apes i think it makes the riding configuration more comfortable or you're up here [Music] it vibrates it roars it uh it hugs the road it's part of you and it's part of history the idea was you sort of got on the road they were big big wide seats as you can see comfortable softly sprung because in america especially in the midwest it was 200 miles dead straight it's kind of agricultural but you do it with a big grin on your face you know it's a fantastic thing 60 years on and the knucklehead's legacy is still alive in all modern harley v twin engines but a whole new type of rider has taken to the road why do i ride a harley you know i like harley's and i like my harley friends but i love the person that i turn into the person i turn into is one that's just completely saturated with all my senses sight i see the unblocked unobstructed views of this god-given country sound of course i hear that beautiful american legendary role in thunder but the most important is the taste and you go what do you taste when you write a harley i taste the spirit of god every time i'm on that motorcycle i thank him for the freedom and the ability to cruise on my v-twin when you look at a modern harley now and you look at a knucklehead next to it you can see the two are kind of absolutely genetically related there's a really close dna between them all harleys share a unique sound but even this fantastic rumble originates from the knuckleheads v twin they make this roar kind of like a thunder it's in your ears it's in your head it's in your blood and it's a it's a roar kind of like you're on a wild beast and as you ride it talks to you it goes i'm feeling good i'm feeling good i'm feeling good i'm feeling good i'm feeling good potato potato potato potato and the more you crank the gas the faster it gets the more sound comes out of it louder and louder but just how unique is this rumble well the greatest ever is gonna find out we're going to test to see if harley-davidson really does have that unique rolling thunder one of these bikes is a harley but can angie recognize it from his sound here we go first up a honda shadow 750cc i'm positive that is not a harley next a whopping 1100 cc cruiser that's not a harley and last of all it's our harley davidson that's my harley did i get it right yeah [Music] the knucklehead i love it because it was the great great great great great grandfather of what you see on the roads now it's an eye catcher i'd say it's a classic looking beautiful harley it's a rolling art rolling art it may be but it's the bad boy image that sells harley-davidson motorcycles today so you get the dentist you get the lawyers who are in their office from monday to friday saturday they iron on the tattoos they put on the false beards and the good chugging around on the holidays the knuckleheads pure motorcycling emotion it's just about riding whereas the modern one's about being seen on it somehow it's it's it doesn't have the purity of a knucklehead the knucklehead is certainly a classic but for turning this symbol of freedom into an executive toy this harley gets 10th place coming up nine more fantastic bikes including the most audacious race bike ever built it seems like a crazy attempt to reach for the stars and the bike that put italy back on the road it's the sound of italy it's the sound of rome and milan as we search for the greatest ever motorcycle in our search to find the greatest ever motorcycle the harley-davidson knucklehead claimed the number 10 slot and at number nine is the most daring motorcycle ever built it's the 1955 motorgutsy v8 race bike [Music] because you're just incredible machine you know it's multi-cylinder technology at a time when no one else was doing it it seems like a crazy attempt to reach for the stars it's just a perfect combination of genius and madness so why is this bike so great well it all comes down to the engine the v8 was was genius but kind of genius and insanity mixed up in one it was a huge leap forward it was like why carry on doing what we're doing now producing single cylinder machines let's just leap forward in one fell swoop 20 years and let's build a v8 in an engine the more cylinders you have the more power you get but it also increases the size and a v8 is huge which is why it was only ever put on cars i like the most complicated possible way to do the simplest task that always seems to intrigue me and the moto motorgoozy v8 is the most complicated way to do the the simplest task to build a v8 small enough to fit on a bike motorgutsy had to quarter the size of all the components the whole thing weighed just 45 kilograms the genius of this design is not so much in daring to make an eight-cylinder engine but in packaging it so tightly that it became usable as a motorcycle engine the v8 engine was a bit of a jewel everything was so small in it compared to other engines of the time it was a real work of art when you look at one of those goozy v8s all apart it's like taking a watch apart little tiny pieces racing is always about going fast but the 50s were pretty special from that point of view the the guzzy v8 did almost 190 miles an hour and it was another 30 years before grand prix bikes have got back up to that speed but technical problems such as engine seizures plagued the gutsy v8 cost spiraled and sadly it was scrapped in 1958 just three years after its conception it was ahead of its time if metal technology had been greater at that time the v8 probably would have been a world championship winning motorcycle but it was just it was too much technology for the time i think 50 years later you think they were making a v8 grand prix bike back then it's just fantastic of course it could be said that genius which succeeds is genius and genius switch fails is madness but that can only be said in retrospect although the gutsy v8 is the most audacious statement in racing ultimately it was a failure so it gets ninth place our next bike put italy back on wheels and is today the ultimate fashion accessory in eighth place it's the vesper the vespa is just a buzzy buzzy little thing sort of a bike isn't it nevespa is one of those elements of chemistry where engineering and art kind of flow together in just the right combination it's the sound of italy it's the sound of rome and milan when you ride a vesper you're not just riding a cheap efficient mode of transport you're riding something which has so much style and history even its name is stylish vespa is the italian for wasp and was given to the bike because it looked just like one the italians are very good at design and then their designs are rooted and i think in sensuality it's all rounded the rounded edges it's not a threatening machine it's a kind of a warm and cozy fuzzy machine the entire thinking behind the vespa wasn't motorcycle thinking which is why it's such a success because it didn't sell to motorcyclists it sold to people that had to ride two-wheeler not wanted to ride a two-wheeler italy had been flattened during the second world war and so piaggio an aircraft manufacturer came up with a vespa as an innovative answer to the need for basic transport the vespa was a brilliant improvisation using things which piaggio already had or could easily produce for example the wheels of the original prototype were aircraft tail wheels the simple two-stroke engine was a starting unit for large aircraft engines and the structure pressed sheet metal the vespa is fascinating because it wasn't designed to be a motorcycle as such it was designed by an aeronautics engineer who actually hated motorcycles so all the negative aspects of motorcycles as he perceived them were ironed out to the vesper so there was no oily chains there was no exposed engines you didn't have to dress up in motorcycle clothing you could ride it totally normally it was just really easy to ride women could ride it people rode it to work it was just a doddle decent suspension it could be ridden over bad roads really nice little thing but it wasn't its magnificent robustness and handling that made it popular it was because it was cool [Music] celebrities wanted to be photographed on them pop stars want to be photographed on them piaggio understood about marketing he just made it the symbol of the scooter you didn't say a scooter you said a vespa it's meant so much to so many people after the second world war it got italy back on the road then it became the the choice of the mods in britain became a huge cult machine and now it's back to being what it first was it's a utilitarian vehicle i love my vespa because she gets me around everywhere in london i've always wanted a vespa i used to see them parked around in scooter bays and things and i always think god look how beautiful they look they're just so streamlined they've got a beautiful shape they're just so cute look at the back of a vespa and it's got a really cute butt i don't know i just love it scooters are still around scooters are still the perfect way of getting around town and the vespa was the first it's just a genius invention the vesper is undoubtedly the king of the city runarounds but with wheels no bigger than dinner plates this bike is out of its league on the highway and so for that it's placed eighth but number seven is a machine which outperformed everything one of the most desirable and exclusive motorcycles of all time it's the bruff superior [Music] the bruff superior stood for speed and luxury in an age when it was pretty difficult to get either out of a motorcycle [Music] in its time it could achieve levels of performance that were denied to any other machine it's only 24 and it's a bike that's guaranteed to do 100 miles an hour i mean that's just madness isn't it [Music] this is my uh 1934 ss 100 blood superior it's the fastest road bike company ever produced in an age when the average car could only do 42 miles an hour the ss100s engine could get up to 110. it was the ultimate in performance and luxury the brussels beer is known as the rolls-royce of motorcycles following a road test in i think 1923 when the tester likened it to a rolls-royce george brook used this in his advertising rolls roy got a bit miffed at this so they said we're coming out to the factory to see so george had everybody put on white coats and gloves and who you know just got skilled around and so when the rolls-royce came they were so impressed that you know these guys were dressed as gentlemen and such care rolls-royce were so bowled over by what they saw but from then on the rough superior had their seal of approval george brought that made it was a bit of a showman he would do anything for publicity really i think george was a bit like pt barnum was in america and like you say you break a record then you make sure everybody knows that you've broken that record and even people not interested will now know but that's what makes them fun there's such a mystique about them there's all these sort of sexy stories and of course lawrence of arabia had seven of them and he would write letters to the factory and george would publish those letters and he would talk about the speed and erase the biplane and you know and if you're a school boy at the time well this was just you know legend for anyone wanting the thrill of speed the ss 100 couldn't be beaten but traveling at 100 miles an hour was a precarious feat problem of early motorcycles in the 1920s was called speedman's wobble a speedman was a motorcyclist who liked to go fast the wobble was caused by the front wheel becoming unstable but bruff had an ingenious answer for this the machine has castle forks which are of the leading link design which means that the the wheel spindle is carried ahead of the main fault member this means that it's a very stable design if you hit a bump then you're less likely to get into a speed wobble the bruff because of its castle fork and its stout chassis construction was stiff enough to reach high speeds without developing speedman's wobble in 1925 george brought demonstrated the stability of his new ss100 model by having his road tester ride the machine at about 90 miles an hour and then remove his hands from the handlebars this beat hasn't been repeated in 80 years so the greatest ever is going to attempt to do it again and ride abrupt superior hands-free at 90 miles an hour this is the big one there we are exciting now up to 75 up to 18 into top a bit of a crosswind but it's pretty stable 95 we're doing now hands off absolutely don't problem whatsoever george brook may have been a bit of a bullshitter but he certainly wasn't fortunate about the stability of the ss100 absolutely no problems what a machine [Applause] it was not hype it was true the motorcycle did stand up to all the advertising it was an exceptional motorcycle that did exceptional things all well the prophecy pier was this astonishing quality product it was really expensive but it was beautifully made and it was incredibly fast you kind of got what you paid for with the prophet superior in its day the ss 100 cost 170 pounds when most people earn just three pounds a week and so was only ever ridden by an exclusive few for that reason alone it gets seventh place and at number six is a truly unique race bike it's fast furious and built by one man it's john britton's v-1000 [Music] john britton was a man obsessed the britain is just two fingers up to the whole motorcycle industry everyone that's ever got their hands dirty working on a bike has dreamt of making one they've dreamt about creating a motorbike and john britton actually did it in the early 1990s john britton an engineering genius from new zealand stunned the world with a race bike that he built in his garage the britain is a unique machine because it just shouldn't have ever happened really in the 1990s it should not really have been possible for one man to take on whole factories and defeat them the v1000 won repeatedly through its racing career it did this not with the fastest engine but because it was the best designed bike on the track there's a lot of room left in motorcycle development it's not not even begun to stop and i think that he was one of the guys that saw something different and was actually able to transfer that to a living beast remarkably britain built the v-1000 from scratch and constructed every piece of it himself john britton looked at the whole bike from top to bottom he didn't just take one element he really looked at the whole thing and said how can we do this differently is there a better way of doing it to make the bike faster he had to make it lighter but the problem is this can make the bike weaker britain had a simple solution he threw away everything that wasn't necessary and if you can make one component do two jobs he did so the engine unit has got the back suspension bolted onto the back of it and the front suspension bolted onto the front of it and effectively the frame doesn't exist there is no frame but britain's most innovative idea was to use carbon fiber to build most of the bikes components just as strong as conventional materials but less than half the weight so you're always looking to make a motorcycle better you're always trying to anticipate what it wants so you can go faster so you're always looking for the last split of a second the v-1000 weighed just 145 kilograms that's 25 less than its nearest rival but to make the bike even faster britain redesigned its suspension the dominant form of motorcycle suspension to this day is the telescopic fork however telescopic fork involves sliding friction it's not a smooth motion it's a jerky motion john decided to substitute for the telescopic fork this girder type fork which uses rotary motion rather than sliding motion the circular motion of the girder fork is much smoother and meant the v-1000 could corner faster the results were startling ferociously fast and extremely well handling it just it just left everybody else in the dust the v-1000 raced against the greatest bikes in the world and beat them it's the most successful independent racing bike on the planet he made a bike that was clever beautiful and really fast it may not be the best motorcycle on the racetrack but it's his interpretation of what the best motorcycle should be it kicked ass it's the greatest motorcycle because it kicked the ass of the big guys it's such a romantic story that's what i love about it it's just this idea that one man can make a motorbike and it can win but the v-1000 has a tragic end john britain passed away after a short illness just three years after building the bike and the revolutionary technology died with him it's our sixth greatest ever motorcycle we're halfway through our countdown and so far we've had bikes that epitomize luxury and speed but still to come the coolest bike on the planet it was kind of like bare naked sex in a rough and rumble american way and the motorcycle that takes riding to the max it's frightening to drive but then again it's sort of exhilarating you just kind of go ah oh i'm still alive as we search for the greatest ever motorcycle so far in our top 10 greatest ever motorcycles we've had romance sex and speed with another five bites to go before we find out which is the ultimate ride what could top that well how about a bike that has all three a british motorcycle that became an icon on both sides of the atlantic it is the triumph bonneville triumph was the quintessential british motorcycle and in the 50s the company was made the coolest thing on earth when when marlon brando rode a triumph in the wild one he didn't ride a harley he wrote euro triumph for this british export brando was key to selling it successfully in the usa when marlon brandon wrote in the wild one writing a triumph it set a new standard for being a bad boy they were the coolest bikes in america it was kind of like bare naked sex in a rough and rumble american way the bonneville was the kind of bite that every young thrusting male wanted because it was performance personified and it was performance that gave the bike its name you call a motorcycle the bonneville it's all about speed a modified and streamlined triumph set a new land speed record of 214 miles per hour at bonneville utah it was the fastest bike in the best range of bikes that were on the market it was light it was powerful it handled well it was the ultimate go fast motorcycle back in those days i mean when you went into the triumph dealer all triumph bonnevilles had that sticker on the gas tank and said for the expert rider only when it comes when you're 14 and never even sat on a motorcycle well that's one you have to have because obviously you're an expert it will soon be the bonneville 650 650cc twin cylinder engine provides loads of power but with two large pistons moving up and down at the same time it has a major downside vibration this is my 1970 triumph bonneville i'm going to start it up so you can see the vibration what you can see here is the front wheel is dancing that's due to the vibration also look at the instruments they're all wiggling and as is everything on the whole motorcycle is vibrating and it gives you the feeling of power you know that there's real horsepower there as you're accelerating and the vibration of course continues as you accelerate they did vibrate and uh uh women seem to enjoy them a bit more so oh oh we have a triumph yes i'll write on the back of that sure as much as power was at the heart of the bonneville it was its sheer beauty that sold it it was a motorcycle that created desire you desired one it's sexy it's cool it's fast it's it's just the perfect balance of what a motorbike should be this bike as you see it i think was about as perfect as it got in in styling in looks in in paint there's nothing on the bike that doesn't have to be there with the exception of the used to call this the castrator this lovely luggage tray here and you'd have the accident you a certain part of you would hook onto this and then you see so then you and then then you're back to writing vespers after that the bonneville defined high performance on two wheels for 10 years but without any investment in 1969 honda stole its crown and triumph was forced into bankruptcy so it only gets fifth place the bike at number four takes riding to the max probably the most controversial motorcycle on the list it's the exceptional y2k well this is a really a stupid motorcycle the y2k motorcycle raises the question why the y2k has got as much relevance to motorcycling as a fish to me the y2k isn't about motorcycling it's an exercise in technological masturbation steady guys this bike has a specification that makes grown men weep this is the y2k turbine superbike it's powered by a rolls-royce gas turbine engine producing over 320 horsepower this little engine is capable over 400 foot-pounds of torque at 2000 rpm the bike weighs essentially 500 pounds dry it will hold eight us gallons of diesel kerosene jet egg quite literally anything that'll burn this motorcycle will run on it it's incredible jet engine is taken straight out of a helicopter and means the y2k can travel at 250 miles an hour it doesn't make any sense at all and it's one of those things you can only run in america in england you'd be in prison you'd be in prison within minutes of having this stupid thing on the road jay's owned a bike almost four years now and he's quite literally our test pilot when we talk about distinctive sounds that motorcycles make you know you can hear a harley davidson you can you can tell a ducati that's coming but the y2k makes a sound signature uh unlike anything else on wheels you feel like there's an f-16 landing in your backyard but it's j on the y2k well it's a great fun to ride it's a bit like flying a jet plane but on land i mean you open the throttle and then you feel this tremendous fire as the turbine and it's like it's frightening to drive it but then again it's sort of exhilarating you just kind of go ah oh i'm still alive why would you put a jed helicopter engine in a motorcycle frame and try to pilot it down the street and the answer is because we can i mean this was meant to lift a bell ranger helicopter with six guys in it and full of equipment you know what does that weigh 5 000 pounds this is 450 pounds so power rate power to weight ratio do the math at 250 miles an hour the y2k holds the guinness world record as the fastest production bike ever made it's also the most expensive well the motorcycle's at 185 thousand dollars on for the faint of heart but obviously you have to be able to stroke the check to have this kind of a sensation in your life and i guess if you could bottle and sell to be the most addictive drug in the world and uh this is the kind of drug i want to be addicted to i'll show you something cool on this look at the rear taillight but behind this gimmick lies a serious story built on experience when i was sitting at a traffic light one day and there was a nissan infinity you know and i could see the guy easing up to look at the bike and i kept trying to go forward and he kept easing up and i realized i couldn't go any more i'd be in traffic and you've got 1200 degrees coming out of this exhaust and i look back and i see this front bumper start to go blue because it's plastic it just smells like this you know so i'm like oh gee that he's like i pull away i don't think he probably noticed until he got a hook it might do 250 miles an hour but what's the point of doing 250 miles an hour if you can't really go around corners it's not a complete motorcycle it's a it's a kind of a bit of a gimmick i suppose [Music] gimmick or not the greatest ever is about to find out we've set up an experiment to test the sheer power of the y2k's acceleration at acadiana military airport louisiana the y2k turbine superbike is about to go head-to-head with an l-39 jet fighter from a standing start the bike hopes to beat the low-flying jets over a mile long course certainly uh i'm nervous uh the rider is obviously the guy that's got this rocket between his legs we've got a special stunt rider here and james kane has agreed to ride the bike i'm confident that we've got the horsepower and the torque to get the job done as the plane makes its final descent ted gives the stunt rider some last minute instructions oh we're going to be playing is no doubt it's just how bad now i told him let it all hang out don't hold anything back the jet is flying at 170 miles an hour the bike will go when the plane is just 50 meters behind it it's a tester pure acceleration it looks like it's a close finish so ted has to wait for the official results thanks guys the y2k accelerated to an incredible 217 miles per hour in 14 seconds and beat the jet by just two bike lengths i think it's one of the greatest motorcycles because someone said let's stick a jet motor and a motor and two wheels i mean that's pushing the envelope the y2k doesn't do it for me at all i think it's just a guy with a small dick trying to prove something most of us didn't have the opportunity to become a jet pilot and fly f-14s and top gun this is top gun it really does scare you after death but it's great fun i think it's they should get the points for just doing what no one else would have thought wise to do in the first place top gun or not the experts decisions are split and for that the y2k is stuck at number four our third greatest motorcycle is one of the most pivotal bikes ever made it changed the way all bikes were designed it's the honda cb750 this was the ultimate motorcycle of its time [Music] the cb750 was the world's first ever superbike it came out in 1969 just blew everything else away it's one small step for man 1969 was the year of the first moon landing and the honda cb750 came out in the same year which is fairly fitting really because it was light years ahead of the competition the competition were the british bikes especially the bonneville but they now looked antiquated in comparison to the space age cb750 when i was 21 i had walked into a local dealership the dealer was kind enough to let me test ride a 750 honda i took it out through the streets of hollywood running along at about 100 miles an hour not that i condone speeding and came back to the dealer uh and first thing i asked is how do i buy one who do i have to kill to get this bike here was a bike that could do naught to 60 in seven and a half seconds and had such high quality engineering it could run for over 100 000 miles trouble free it was the first time a bike had been so durable and reliable it was a production motorcycle that outperformed virtually everything that was before it and it changed the way motorcycling in general is designed this state-of-the-art engineering included the first ever disc brakes on a production bike these are extremely reliable and meant the cb750 could stop much faster than its british rivals on top of this was the revolutionary in-line four-cylinder engine four symbols were like ferraris they were extremely expensive motorcycles limited production uh parts were not available then suddenly honda comes along with this and at this break i mean disc brakes were for airplanes even most american cars did not have disc brakes at the time this is my 1970 750 honda i've had it for many many years now i'm going to start it up for you i want you to take a listen to this close your eyes and pretend this is a ferrari even now most high quality motorcycles you see on the street are in line fours just like the cb750 that's like 35 years on the inline four with its two pairs of counterbalance pistons took the real glory developed in grand prix racing this removed the vibration that had limited the engine capacities of all previous bikes it meant steady power even at high speed one of the tests that the dealers salesmen tried to show was that they would balance a glass of water on the sea and red the motor and show that it still stays there it just so happens i have a glass of water right behind me let's try that test pretty amazing certainly couldn't do that on any bike made prior 69 or any other model i'm impressed i didn't realize it was that smooth i guess it does work the cb750 certainly made it that you didn't have to suffer to go fast until then if you wanted to go fast you had to put up with vibration you had to put up with unreliability you had to put up with oil leaks you had to put up with bikes that perhaps didn't stop very well fell apart around you it just made it really easy sadly this outstanding performance and reliability does come with one major disadvantage this is going to sound odd but riding the cb750 is actually a little boring because it's too smooth and it does everything a little too well i guess british and italian bikes are about emotion and harleys are about emotion whereas the honda wasn't it was it was a much more clinical bike it ticked all the boxes it performed and it stopped and it went round corners and it looked good but it's just a bit boring the cb 750's groundbreaking performance and reliability ultimately made it a dull ride and for that it gets third place but at number two is a bike that will give you the ride of your life from its extraordinary looks to its phenomenal performance it is the ducati 916. the 916 is sex the 916 has got it all what makes the ducati exceptional is the fact that it looks amazing and it was this beautiful looking package but it also was phenomenally successful on the racetrack the ducati 916 started its life as a production sports bike but became a race icon when it won three consecutive world championship titles it's basically a racer on the road but it's much more than that what ducati did was introduce seriously beautiful design to a high performance motorcycle like no one had ever done before them they really thought about the aesthetics of the thing it was a completely fresh styling job uh they moved the exhaust under the seat they put this fairing on with these really distinctive headlights in it was just this wonderful package that was really slim and everything fitted together beautifully in making it dense small and simple they achieved a kind of beauty that can't be achieved in any other way it's evolutionary [Music] but it was the engine that made it a world champion motorcycle when it came out all the japanese factories were racing around on four-cylinder machines but the ducati brought things back it came out with a v-twin engine which might not have had quite as much power as the inline-fours but it was the way it produced the power a four-cylinder engine delivers high power at high revs which is great for straight away speed but anyone who's been to a racetrack know that races are one accelerating out of corners and this is where ducati's v twin excelled how do you make it accelerate when you're on the side of the motorcycle is is something that's very very difficult to do when the motorcycle is leaned over in a turn its two little footprints of its rather small tires don't have a lot of grip in order to begin accelerating early in the turn the engine has to develop smooth and very controllable power right from the beginning it can't come in with the sudden rush because it will simply break loose the tire the machine will either slide out or actually fall over if you don't have that power pulse you're not going to be able to do all them things you want to do so you're going to wait uh what five meters in each corner which means you're going to get 15th instead of first ducati's 90 degree v twin engine was developed for the specific task of accelerating smoothly off of corners you get a lot more traction you can feel the rear tyre a lot more closely so that you can accelerate much harder because you really can feel what's going on at the back of the bike ducati's ability to deliver power in that way won world championships a big wheelie imminent to take the checkered flag it is carl pogba he's the man in charge of the world superbikes 1995. the 916 dominated world superbike lie no bike has done winning a record 13 of the 17 constructors titles it competed in and sales of the road version thrusty catty from a small time company into a world heavyweight sports bike manufacturer the 916 is one of the great bikes because it redefined sports bike design in the 1990s not only did it look great it also performed really well and it reintroduced the v-twin as a serious high-performance engine configuration it epitomizes italian styling excellence engineering excellence and competition success in a single machine it's this perfect combination of sound racing success and fantastic riding experience oh and it looks brilliant too for its space-age design and incredible power delivery the ducati 916 is the second greatest ever motorcycle what a machine we've counted down nine incredible bikes in our top 10 search to find the greatest ever motorcycle but which one gets first place we're about to find out in search of the greatest ever motorcycle we've gone through nine incredible bikes that combine performance with romance styling with sex great bikes but none as revolutionary as our number one machine it's been in production for almost 50 years and has put whole nations on the road the greatest motorcycle ever is the honda cun the honda cab is the bike that made honda it was just a motorcycle that that took over america honda cup has to be number one because it's the biggest selling bike of all time you can't argue with that with more than 40 million cubs built that's more than the entire population of canada what sashiro honda wanted to do when he designed the cub was was to have an incredibly simple machine that would have huge mass appeal the engine in the honda cub is not more complicated than the engine in a lawnmower although it's got just four brake horsepower it can pull 50 miles an hour with its one cylinder air cooled engine and three speed automatic gearbox you don't get much simpler than that it's sort of what got motorcycle people started because you could go down and buy it and it ran forever it was a get on and go vehicle and this was the key to honda's tremendous success marketing his products in the united states in the 50s motorcycling had such a bad reputation if you were a biker you're either a rocker or a hells angel in order to sell the cub honda had to appeal to a new type of rider ordinary people anybody could ride one your parents wouldn't get mad at you in fact your parents wanted to ride that motorcycle when they saw it the world was hooked and it wasn't long before the cub went global this is the amazing new honda super cub with a unique four-stroke engine to zip you up hills give you up to 221 miles per gallon and speeds up to 40 miles per hour everyone's written one it's like a universal experience everyone's ridden a honda cup you know everyone from bangkok to birmingham the cub was built to be abused this isn't the kind of machine that you're meant to lavish love and care on these things are designed to be driven into the ground it doesn't matter what the cub faces it seems to keep running so the greatest ever is going to put it to the test and who better to help us than charlie borman who with actor ewan mcgregor pushed his bike to oblivion around the world okay today we're going to try and destroy a cub 90 and i've been told that you can drain the oil and put any old oil in it can i take a tub of some old cooking oil stupidly what i've done is i've i've left the nut inside here so now i'm gonna have to fiddle around for them now i'm gonna put this tip oil in there it's pretty running stuff it's almost a formula one oil change that i would say you know you shouldn't try this at home okay there's no smoke out the back so it should be okay we'll stick we'll just have a quick drive around the block and see what uh what happens okay the chipper seems to be fine we've been driving around a little bit on it and you can still pass off corners oh i could almost say that it is running better on this oil so the cub handles just as well on chip fat as engine oil onto stage two hi can i take 80 pizzas please the cub weighs just over 50 kilograms so charlie's next challenge is to overload it until it carries four times that there's not enough weight with the pizzas so we're going to uh i want to buy some more fruit and get as much on as possible [Music] all this fruit and pizzas weigh 200 kilograms the equivalent of a small family well not as conclusive as we'd hoped so time to try something more drastic you can shoot one and it'll keep on running you can crash them you'll the handlebars will bend and all that kind of stuff the bodywork will bend but they'll still keep running they were bulletproof i mean as far as the motors and stuff went they were they were pretty good well we've tried taking the oil out and filling up with this horrible greasy fat from that from that pizza place we've tried loading it up so that can barely move with too much weight and it still goes so now we're going to chuck it off a building and see if it goes after that the bike is going to fall 22 meters to the ground surely that should kill it here we go that looks alright actually though the wheels are dented but but it looks all right the bike was traveling at 54 miles an hour when it hit the ground there's surely no way it can still work see if we can get it moving oh i think it's buggered really anyway we'll see let's get it started see if we can start it see what happens there okay you see the indicator it's working again [Music] well it's still going ish at least it went forward and uh so effectively the bike has won and uh they are indestructible it's a you know testimony to the bike if you're seeking destroy a honda cub if you have sufficient amounts of c4 explosives you'll probably be successful other than that you got no chance of knocking one down they'll just keep coming it's like dirty harry the honda cub helped build an automotive empire still going strong after 47 years it's cheap simple exciting to ride and definitely indestructible it is the greatest ever motorcycle

Channel: Spark

Views: 54,599

Keywords: Amazing science, Best technology, Cameras, Cineflix, Educative video, Engineering videos, Geeky videos, Head-spinning, Head-spinning videos, Informative, Marvels of modern technology, Motorcycle marvels videos, Motorcycle picks, Motorcycle technology videos, Spark, Spark videos, Tech, Tech lover videos, Tech videos, Technology marvels, Top ten countdown videos

Id: I-brgXXI0Io

Length: 51min 8sec (3068 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2021