Interesting Facts for Bike Lovers


- For Chopper lovers:

Do you know why choppers are called choppers?

Contrary to what majority thinks, a chopper is not a bike that sounds like it's chopping away.

Right after the WW2, the returning US army needed some excitement and thrills. And the Harley Davison 1000cc Knucklehead was just the thing. But because men are egoistically competitive pigs, everyone wanted to be faster than the other guy, so they stripped down their bikes and chopped off the redundant pieces of the bike to make it lighter.

It soon became a fad, and everyone started stripping down their bikes to chop.

And that is how the term "Chopper" came about.


- Did you know that Vespa, in Italian, means wasps? It fits the design of the Vespa, which from a bird's eye view looks like the body of a wasp.


- The ten greatest bikes of all time. Based on a documentary with expert, high profile panel of judges.

10) Harley Davison - Knucklehead
9 ) Individual - V8 (if I am not wrong they took a V8 engine and fitted it into a rally bike. It was a disaster)
8 ) Piaggio - Vespa
7 ) Brough - Superior SS100 (the Rolls Royce of motorcycles in 1925)
6 ) Individual - John Britten's V1000 (built the whole bike from scratch. This bike has no frame. Major components all made from carbon fibre)
5 ) Triumph - Bonneville
4 ) Individual - Y2K (Jet engines lifted straight from a helicopter, able to travel up to 250mph or 402.25kmph)
3 ) Honda - CB750
2 ) Ducati - 916

And the number 1 motorcycle of all time is...





1 ) Honda - Cub


What a killjoy.

Then again, great doesn't neccessarily mean speed or power. The Cub got it's status by being in production for more than 50 years and the amount of Cubs in the world is more than the entire Canadian nation. Plus the fact that the engine is not more complicated than the average lawnmower and yet can travel up to 50mph (80kmph) and can carry the weight of around 250kg.

A Cub was dropped from the rooftop of a 5 storey building and although the back wheel was bent out of shape, the entire bike on average was still workable.