Talk:Motorcycle history/Archive 1

Weak article
I think this is a pretty weak article. I hardly scratches the surface of the rich history of motorcycling.

Three sentences for history before WWI. Six paragraphs for post WWII.

It needs a lot of work.

Jeff dean 00:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

hello this is so true —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.238.133.191 (talk) 08:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Photo near relevant text
Hi, Jeff. You've put a 1997 Suzuki as an example of a bike that "helped Japan's rise to dominate the world's market" and a 1978 Honda under *The Present*. Then you put the Motor Officer with the "adventure touring" bikes, up by the text "There is a large demand for small, cheap motorcycles in the ‘developing world’." It almost looks as if *The Present* is all about "adventure touring." What gives, bro? --Evb-wiki 16:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Good morning, counselor. You have been very active the last few days.  Is everything o.k. in Texas??


 * Good points. Could we replace the 1978 Suzy photo with one from the '60s, when Japan rose to dominance? Like that old Honda 160(?) twin (cannot remember its name). In this context, the Suzy is not particularly relevant to any historic theme; does it represent anything from around 1978? We can delete the two GSs photo as the KLR is probably more relevant absent a good R80G/S photo. If I come across an R80G/S I will photograph it because of its importance. How about a good photo of the small, cheap bikes in the developing world? Probably could find one in the Commons.


 * I recommend that we restrict photos in this article to those that represent specific themes in the text and not put in random pix of pretty bikes. In that context, the R80G/S might be better than the KLR but the latter is a close second because of its popularity and longevity.


 * Of course, a good Triumph Bonnie photo would be good to represent the British reign in the 50s. Then, how about Harley vs. Indian earlier?  A photo of an Indian with a Harley from the 30s(?) head-to-head would be neat.  If we had good text and pix from earlier days, we might split pre-WWII to pre- and post-Depression, because there was a sea change before and after 1929-30. The mid-to-late 30s was a golden age that was stopped by WWII.

Comments?

Jeff dean


 * [[Image:ZweiRadMuseumNSU Triumph Bonneville.JPG|thumb|100px|left|]]Honda CB750.JPG
 * 1962 Bonneville -- a little LARGE
 * 1969 Honda cB750 -- a lousy photo, but a truly revolutionary motorcycle
 * Jeff dean 17:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
 * User:slarty-bart-farst*1669 Honda cB750 -- point taken photo is not good were off to the garage to do one with white back drop and reeplace this one.

History gaps
There is a 20-year gap, between 1928 and 1948, where there is absolutely nothing discussed in this article. As this is still relatively early in the history of motorcycles, I've got to believe there were still significant changes occurring during this periods. Anything spring to mind? That's the major gap. Also, *After WWII* has a lot of gloss over. It could probably use some detail work. --Evb-wiki 19:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed name change
An editor at peer review proposed changing the name of Motorcycle history to History of motorcycles. His proposal is here. It seems reasonable, and I tend to agree (a little reluctantly). Are there any specific objections? --Evb-wiki 19:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd vote no. Seems the only reason for the suggestion is that many other articles use that convention. Just because everyone else is doing something isn't much of a reason to do the same, unless the consistancy serves some purpose. We could just as easily create an article by that name that simply redirects here, to help cover for the anemic search capabilities. (It appears that including 'of' in the search moves Motorcycle history from first in the list to 12th with a relevance of just 12%. -AndrewDressel 21:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't really see the point, it would mean someone would have to change a lot of redirects, etc (unless someone's got a bot to do it) Pickle 12:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * That's cool. I wasn't real keen on it anyway. --Evb-wiki 12:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds much better the way it is. If it's not broke, don't fixi it. I am copying all these comments to the proposal page as no one has put their comments there. ww2censor 13:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Kudos to the contributors
Hi, I just wanted to say that as a biker I've occasionally checked motorcycle-related articles, and they used to be very incomplete. This article is a nice improvement. Congrats to all involved! :) 193.244.33.47 13:10, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Cleveland 1918
There was a stamp issue in August 2006 by the United States Postal Service that depicted four motorcycles in a four-stamp set; one of those depicted was a 1918 Cleveland, which looks more like a motorized bicycle than a modern motorcycle. The passage in the description of the stamp in USA Philatelic states "...the lightweight and affordable Cleveland 1918...". Was this a motorcycle that would be worth mentioning in this article. The citation associated with the stamp could be --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 22:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)