BBC4 tomorrow at 9 The Glory days of British motorcycling. May be worth a watch.. BBC Four - Timeshift, Series 13, Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes, The Café Racers
BBC 4 9pm tonight Not about Ducati but no doubt of interest :wink: Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes. Here's a clip BBC Four - Timeshift, Series 13, Full Throttle: The Glory Days of British Motorbikes, The story of the British motorbike
and sadly failed to deliver on its promse for me. Once again a programme containing contributions from people from a priviledged background or postion, admitedly with 1 or 2 exceptions, and just reinforcing the stereotypical bad boy biker with attitude of a bygone era. There was very little positive for me although I was interested in the early Isle of Man racing which if I heard correctly took anything up to and over 3 hours so 10 laps ? Puts the current generation a bit in the shade. I was also a little disappointed in 1 or 2 factual inaccuracies. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and rode a Norton 650ss in the late 60s and throughout the 70s and there was so much more to motorcycling than doing a ton and beating up scooter boys although it did seem we did do a lot of that. Hey ho, another missed opportunity by the BBC. Andy
I too felt disappointed, it dragged on for half an hour about Pre war bikes and the TT and then just jumped to another half an hour about the 1960's Rocker culture. The motorcycle industry was huge in the late 1950's for regular families that couldn't afford a car, all that was just missed out.
The talking heads did it for me. where do they get these people from? More history and technical narrative from a professional narrator would have made it much more enjoyable than listening to a bunch of goons talking out of their arses.
The olden days stuff (T.E) ways interesting....The rest has been done to death! Still better than watching TOWIE....
I enjoyed it. Plus I like the 'bad boy' image stuff. Its what being young was and still is all about. You old feckers.
They tried to cover too much in an hour long programme. It showed how there is scope for individual documentaries on topics like the Vincent, the Brough, Nortons , Triumph, Café Racers, Rockers, WD Bikes, Post War Bikes as the major means of transport, Bike Development from the early days, Bike Fashion and Helmet Development, oh I could go on and on, but it ain't gonna happen, so I'm grateful for the crumbs.....
I was good light entertainment, but as WI says, they had to cram in a lot of stuff for a 60min run time
You lot seem to expect perfection, it wern't that bad. Vincent Black shadow's , Brough superior's , Bonnie's e.t.c ,Dodgy Dave Degans, Dave Croxford, great old footage of the Ace, just what do you want to fit into 60mins ?
There was an interesting point to be made about the 1959 transition from bikes as a (mainly) utilitarian form of transport for grown-ups into bikes as (mainly) kicks for teenagers. This programme almost made that point, but didn't quite get to grips with it. The bits about Broughs and Vincents as expensive toys for the very rich were amusing, but really an entirely different programme unrelated to the rest of it. I thought my old friend Len Patterson came across quite well, actually.
Brought back memories, Dave Croxford was a name from the past, he raced in the days of Jim Redman, Mike Hailwood . Steve