Barry Sheene.. What an absolute legend and a genuinely nice bloke... In my youth his name was often used in many Bobby's arsenal when giving a young lad a rollicking for riding their 50 too hard.... " now then son.. who do you think you are? ... Barry Sheene " 🤣 Fond memories...😏
I had a motorcycle police rider stop me and say the same thing he had been following me thro thr back roads in tarlorly chesere for a couple of miles as i razzed my kh250 thro the lanes, he told me off also for wearing a non road leagal Simpson full face helmet, the first star wars style, he pointed out it was for competition use only,
You have no idea how envious I am watching the restoration of such an iconic bike. In the mid 70's I was obsessed with Barry Sheene. I had his book, which I still have, for Christmas and read it cover to cover so many times. I plagued my poor dad to Oulton Park to watch him race. He turned up late, screeched to a halt in his gold Rolls-Royce, jumped out, stripped to his y fronts and popped his leathers on 😍 Now I run a small company working on British bikes, mainly Norton and have my own Domiracer Lowboy replica race bike. The nearest I got was racing a Yamaha TZ 350A until the real world nicked all my money 🥺
When i was a kid growing up in the 80's my dad and I would watch Barry Sheene on TV, I even had a Barry Sheene toy of this very bike. This is the bike you think of when you think of him, iconic. Barry Sheene and James Hunt, my two all time greats
I remember that at the age of 13 I got to sit on one of Barry Sheenes bikes at the motorcycle show when it was held in Earls Court. It was probably but one of his write offs or maybe a copy, but to a 13 year old who knew no better it was like dream come true. Sparked a dream and 43 years later I'm still riding. Long live No7.
Please. For the love of all that is holy. Make more of these videos! This is a brilliant little series and Team Classic Suzuki has some amazing bikes. Great job, lads.
Being from Australia I didnt know a great deal about Barry other than his racing history. When Barry and family moved to Australia he joined well respected sports commentator Bill Woods to cover the Australian motorcycle GP..Learing from his coments during the race a x world champion that isn't full of him self with a great sense of humor that didn't try to take over are near impossible to find and as Bill put it ,great bloke very easy to get along with and a pleasure to work with .The following Australian GP after sadly Barry passed away RIP. You could see how visibly upset Bill was on the verge of tears at the introduction of the race.. I'll never forget that. 🙁Every year since a ride in which thousands attend to honor a genuine Champion in every way Barry Sheen 7 he will always be remember down here.
It's just a bike like every other bike but the fact that a rider called Barry Steven Frank Sheene sat on it and raced it makes it just that bit more iconic and beautiful.
It far from being JUST a bike .It's the bike that brought so much happiness to Barry his family team Suzuki and the thousands of Brits that followed him and even a few that didn't.
I hope those moccasins are steel toecaps! 🤣 I don’t know why but there is something very British about overalls, slippers, a cup of tea with perhaps a pipe and a project in your garage. ( very James May )
I know barry drove the 500, but i always thought when he crashed at daytona it was an rg750...silly perhaps but something just sticks in my head, obv you'll know better than me but barry was a legend rip.
I remember seeing Barry’s race bike proudly left outside on display outside their place on Beddington Lane. If they did that nowadays some bum would surely steal it.
Im so glad 2t was still a thing when I started ridiging. Poor kids today will never know to simple joy of ringing the neck of a little oil burner. Not that a 500 gp bike is little.
I still wheel out my 87 TZR 125 and wring its neck every so often, when this came out it meant that at 17 years old you could get on a 125cc with 26hp (un-restricted). I'm nearly 50 and its still a blast to ride.
I seen Barry race and win on this bike at the transatlantic trophy against Roberts. I paid an extra 50p for pits access and watched the Japanese mechanics tear down the top end and have it running in 45 minutes. The chain smoking head mechanic talked to me about the exhaust system that looked like matt black spaggehti with dents.. PS when the cops pulled me over for speeding they would say "who do you think you are Barry Sheen" later when I had a car it was Sterling Moss.. Two British greats.
Quand j'étais jeune j'aimais beaucoup Barry Sheene parce que je roulais en Suzuki 125 puis 2 1100 gsx et aussi son sigle donald sur son casque mon préféré des personnages Disney toute une époque les années 75 à 80
Great insights. It makes you think though: Why doesn't Suzuki introduce a range of customised, retro-themed bike designs based on its current road-going models, like what Yamaha does with its 'Yard Built' program?
It reduces the unsprung weight so the wheel and swingarm assembly react at little more easily to bumps. It's the same thing with reverse-mounted forks on later bikes. The less unsprung weight, the less the suspension has to work - wheels, brakes, sprockets, hubs and fork sliders etc. are all unsprung. If you get your bike and lift the rear off the ground, disconnect the shock/s and try to lift the rear wheel by hand you'll understand the concept more readily.
brittenv1000 thank you. Much the same reason we used to fit alloy rims, and why cars used “Mags” - lightweight magnesium wheels, although mostly cast aluminum in practice. The more reactive and supple suspension, the better to get increased power to the ground, better steering response and better brakes. All those rely on the rubber being in contact with the road.
This might give more insight into "unsprung weight" as well as the other dynamics related to the rotational mass of wheels: th-cam.com/video/PGGiuaQwcd8/w-d-xo.html
@Warren552011 what can I say ? Sir Barry Sheene was the "six million dollar man " before the Tv series with Lee Majors , the real Highlander many years before Christopher Lambert, the only one Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr. He was a real super hero, in his life, on racing and, unfortunately,in his death.
It must have once used an oil injection system instead or possibly in conjunction with premixed fuel. Seems at first unthinkable that a serious race bike might use an injection system,but there are performance advantages possible with an injection system. The amount of oil injected can be set for a different ratio at various rpm's. Not possible with premix. The weight penalty is minor with just the tank,hoses ,pump,and bolts adding mass. The oil does not factor in as it would be in the tank anyway,correct?
Oil pumps were often run off of the mechanicals of the engine,and are not always electric. An example would be the late 60s-early 70s Yamaha AT-1 and DT-1 motorcycles that were so popular. The oil pump is located under a small outer cover on the engines side case. I'm not positive, but I believe mechanically operated oil pumps were most commonly used. And here I am just asking out loud, as I do not know; would a race bike that I assume has no battery, run an electric item off the magneto, complicating the ignition system at the risk of a DNF? I have one example somewhat similar that I know to be true as I saw it. Former World Motocross Champion Georges Jobe (RIP) found himself without sponsor in the FIM 500cc series one year, and being a strong minded individual as well as quite inventive, decided he would rather NOT ride a Honda (Honda had been a former employer of Jobe) as it actually would be even better for Honda if Jobe won a Title or races on a stock Honda than if he won on a factory (HRC) supported Honda. They could claim a stock Honda was better than the competitions works racers,and it would be true! And for free too! So Jobe built what he felt was the best he could build without it being a Honda. Well,sort of not. He built a Yamaha 490, normally an air cooled machine, by using an HRC Honda cylinder he no doubt had left over from his Honda days. It was of course a water cooled cylinder he was grafting onto an engine never meant to pump water. So no mechanical means to power a water pump existed on the Yamaha engine. Now the relevant to our discussion bit. Jobe, to cool his Honda/Yamaha, used a electric water pump taken from an automobile,but instead of using a magneto equipped with a "lighting coil" so called because it is usually used to power headlights on a machine that lacked a battery to do so, he used a small battery that needed recharging between each moto instead of complicating his ignition system and risking a moto ending loss of ignition to his engine. If the battery died or other failure happened he might still complete the 45 minute moto even if his bike overheated. I believe such concerns would have Sheene avoid an electric powered oil pump. Mechanical reliability is paramount to winning championships in all forms of motorsports. I have NEVER heard of a gear driven oil pump failure of any motorcycle. I have on an automobile though.
@@bobbyphillips2538 I was assuming it was to inject oil to the fuel. Mosy 2 strokes don't have pressure fed lubrication or any oil in the crank case. I looked on line but the info sounds dodgy. It says premixed fuel/oil is fed to the main bearings.
Because of the two strokes method of fuel induction, the crankshaft bearings would receive no lubrication were it not for the oil mixed with the fuel. I always described the method a two stroke vs. a four stroke intakes fuel this way; A two stroke uses both the top and the bottom of the piston at the same time whereas the four stroke only uses the top , above the piston to do all the required tasks. So the two stroke gets it done in half the time. Since the thumper never has the fuel charge underneath the piston its crankshaft can wallow in an oil bath. Not so with a two stroke. Intake of fuel,done on the four stroke when the intake valve is open and the piston moves down, is done on the two stroke as the piston moves up creating a vacume under it and drawing fuel in underneath it to be forced up when it comes down. More later must go
Vasilli Panin, on a race bike such as Sheene's, where would you draw power for an electric oil pump. The magneto is not capable of this, as for example a motocross bike cannot power a headlight. To provide power for any accessory, be it light or pump, requires another coil inside the magneto, like a Kawasaki KDX off road model has, that a KX lacks. Sheene has no battery on his bike as he has no electric start, again like a motocross bike as there is no need for one and its useless weight.
I will never like 4 stroke racing motorcycles, motorcross/supercross included. Those were talented riders to handle the vicious powerband with minimal electronics on a carburatored 2 stroke
On the next video please put on safety working shoes. It’s scary to see one of you working wearing just a pair of loafers. You should know how dangerous is what you do.
I remember going to Hamilton Island many years ago and seeing Barry's Bikes on display there.. When Keith Williams managed the resort ..
I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this. Wish there was more available to see and appreciate. Legendary machinery #7
Barry Sheene.. What an absolute legend and a genuinely nice bloke... In my youth his name was often used in many Bobby's arsenal when giving a young lad a rollicking for riding their 50 too hard.... " now then son.. who do you think you are? ... Barry Sheene " 🤣
Fond memories...😏
I had a motorcycle police rider stop me and say the same thing he had been following me thro thr back roads in tarlorly chesere for a couple of miles as i razzed my kh250 thro the lanes, he told me off also for wearing a non road leagal Simpson full face helmet, the first star wars style, he pointed out it was for competition use only,
You have no idea how envious I am watching the restoration of such an iconic bike. In the mid 70's I was obsessed with Barry Sheene. I had his book, which I still have, for Christmas and read it cover to cover so many times. I plagued my poor dad to Oulton Park to watch him race. He turned up late, screeched to a halt in his gold Rolls-Royce, jumped out, stripped to his y fronts and popped his leathers on 😍
Now I run a small company working on British bikes, mainly Norton and have my own Domiracer Lowboy replica race bike. The nearest I got was racing a Yamaha TZ 350A until the real world nicked all my money 🥺
When i was a kid growing up in the 80's my dad and I would watch Barry Sheene on TV, I even had a Barry Sheene toy of this very bike. This is the bike you think of when you think of him, iconic. Barry Sheene and James Hunt, my two all time greats
Just magic what a brilliant production, all the information given is historical. These two guys are some of the best in the business.
I remember that at the age of 13 I got to sit on one of Barry Sheenes bikes at the motorcycle show when it was held in Earls Court. It was probably but one of his write offs or maybe a copy, but to a 13 year old who knew no better it was like dream come true. Sparked a dream and 43 years later I'm still riding. Long live No7.
Thanks for sharing this, bazza was a legend in my youth and I watched him at brands whenever I could. The transatlantic races were epic.
Sheene was an utter hero and legend when I was a schoolboy.
I was 4 my dad was a big big fan of Barry's I wish he was here to see this...
Barry was my absolute hero, I would give anything to see this bike in person.
Please. For the love of all that is holy. Make more of these videos! This is a brilliant little series and Team Classic Suzuki has some amazing bikes. Great job, lads.
I saw the finished bikes last weekend! Bloody awesome job Martyn and Nigel!
This is a fantastic tribute to an amazing man and a true Legend thank you for sharing 💕7👍🇬🇧
That’s a very special piece of history that you have there !
It’s actually very important for the motorcycle world !
Thank you for sharing !
Being from Australia I didnt know a great deal about Barry other than his racing history. When Barry and family moved to Australia he joined well respected sports commentator Bill Woods to cover the Australian motorcycle GP..Learing from his coments during the race a x world champion that isn't full of him self with a great sense of humor that didn't try to take over are near impossible to find and as Bill put it ,great bloke very easy to get along with and a pleasure to work with .The following Australian GP after sadly Barry passed away RIP. You could see how visibly upset Bill was on the verge of tears at the introduction of the race.. I'll never forget that. 🙁Every year since a ride in which thousands attend to honor a genuine Champion in every way Barry Sheen 7 he will always be remember down here.
It's just a bike like every other bike but the fact that a rider called Barry Steven Frank Sheene sat on it and raced it makes it just that bit more iconic and beautiful.
It far from being JUST a bike .It's the bike that brought so much happiness to Barry his family team Suzuki and the thousands of Brits that followed him and even a few that didn't.
Fantastic work. I’m so glad I came across this on TH-cam.
Such an interesting film, thanks.
What a buzz getting to work on a fantastic restoration project of one very classic racer. Well done !
Bikes were so beautiful back then.
That is a fabulous fecking great video well done man 👏 👍
Barry Sheene is responsible for my fascination with tuning...
This bought a tear to my eye...
Elemental machine. Looks fast, crouched there. Fantastic
Wonderful bike and worth all the attention of some skilled hands.
Love to see stuff like this.
legend
This is beautiful. Absolutely Beautiful x
Fuck i miss Barry, he did so much for this great sport!
Priceless!
It's cool how modern tail sections (like the rsv4) are getting smaller, similar to the one on this awesome vintage bike.
meet barry once in a nightclub in Liverpool called cream just before he died made my night
I hope those moccasins are steel toecaps! 🤣
I don’t know why but there is something very British about overalls, slippers, a cup of tea with perhaps a pipe and a project in your garage. ( very James May )
Thanks for posting mate great video 👍👍
thanks for sharing, it was a part of my life just like so many others.
Fantastic work, fantastic bike well done
Very nice, I cannot wait for the second part!
WOOOOOOOOW!
What a beautiful bike.....
I know barry drove the 500, but i always thought when he crashed at daytona it was an rg750...silly perhaps but something just sticks in my head, obv you'll know better than me but barry was a legend rip.
I remember seeing Barry’s race bike proudly left outside on display outside their place on Beddington Lane. If they did that nowadays some bum would surely steal it.
More! More please!
Im so glad 2t was still a thing when I started ridiging. Poor kids today will never know to simple joy of ringing the neck of a little oil burner. Not that a 500 gp bike is little.
I still wheel out my 87 TZR 125 and wring its neck every so often, when this came out it meant that at 17 years old you could get on a 125cc with 26hp (un-restricted). I'm nearly 50 and its still a blast to ride.
I seen Barry race and win on this bike at the transatlantic trophy against Roberts. I paid an extra 50p for pits access and watched the Japanese mechanics tear down the top end and have it running in 45 minutes. The chain smoking head mechanic talked to me about the exhaust system that looked like matt black spaggehti with dents..
PS when the cops pulled me over for speeding they would say "who do you think you are Barry Sheen" later when I had a car it was Sterling Moss.. Two British greats.
Barry's bike bring back brilliance ,
Where can these bikes been seen in 2024
Quand j'étais jeune j'aimais beaucoup Barry Sheene parce que je roulais en Suzuki 125 puis 2 1100 gsx et aussi son sigle donald sur son casque mon préféré des personnages Disney toute une époque les années 75 à 80
a friend of mine has a ex Franco Unchini RG500 !!! 😂😊😊😊😊😊🏍🏍🍺🍺🍺🍺
It is ashame thhe great man is not around to test the bike when restoration is finished.
How very true, a damn shame Barry's left us.
I would kill for that bike.
perfect power - τέλειο δυνατό
Wish my rg 500 looked like this.
This is fucking cool. So thorough.
Great insights. It makes you think though: Why doesn't Suzuki introduce a range of customised, retro-themed bike designs based on its current road-going models, like what Yamaha does with its 'Yard Built' program?
TFS "thanks for sharing" G :)
I'll be happy to give it a good workout, see how it compares to my 1989 RG500
Thank you,
As an eBay regular.. I’m going to ask if they’ll swap it for my old Corsa & an original big trak
Genial, gracias. TKS
My only complaint with this video is it's not long enough.
Looks waaay sexier than the modern gp bike.
Where was the bike for the last 40 years?
In the early 70’s I was riding a Royal Enfield Continental GT, a 250 5 speed, a really “flash” bike.
Can I trade my gsx-r750 1985 for this one?
Love to old Suzuki racers.
😎👍👍👍👍
Rip Campione!
Why are the rear shocks mounted that way up?
It reduces the unsprung weight so the wheel and swingarm assembly react at little more easily to bumps. It's the same thing with reverse-mounted forks on later bikes. The less unsprung weight, the less the suspension has to work - wheels, brakes, sprockets, hubs and fork sliders etc. are all unsprung.
If you get your bike and lift the rear off the ground, disconnect the shock/s and try to lift the rear wheel by hand you'll understand the concept more readily.
@@pwollerman thank you for the great explanation. I had never seen shocks mounted like this.
brittenv1000 thank you. Much the same reason we used to fit alloy rims, and why cars used “Mags” - lightweight magnesium wheels, although mostly cast aluminum in practice. The more reactive and supple suspension, the better to get increased power to the ground, better steering response and better brakes. All those rely on the rubber being in contact with the road.
This might give more insight into "unsprung weight" as well as the other dynamics related to the rotational mass of wheels:
th-cam.com/video/PGGiuaQwcd8/w-d-xo.html
👍❤️❤️
Agostini forever at the top 😁😁😁 don't worry,I was joking 😝
@Warren552011 what can I say ? Sir Barry Sheene was the "six million dollar man " before the Tv series with Lee Majors , the real Highlander many years before Christopher Lambert, the only one Iron Man before Robert Downey Jr. He was a real super hero, in his life, on racing and, unfortunately,in his death.
Go michael dunlop md racing for 2019
Somebody tell me why a two stroke engine case has a oil pump on it. Why ? ? ?
It must have once used an oil injection system instead or possibly in conjunction with premixed fuel. Seems at first unthinkable that a serious race bike might use an injection system,but there are performance advantages possible with an injection system. The amount of oil injected can be set for a different ratio at various rpm's. Not possible with premix. The weight penalty is minor with just the tank,hoses ,pump,and bolts adding mass. The oil does not factor in as it would be in the tank anyway,correct?
Oil pumps were often run off of the mechanicals of the engine,and are not always electric. An example would be the late 60s-early 70s Yamaha AT-1 and DT-1 motorcycles that were so popular. The oil pump is located under a small outer cover on the engines side case. I'm not positive, but I believe mechanically operated oil pumps were most commonly used. And here I am just asking out loud, as I do not know; would a race bike that I assume has no battery, run an electric item off the magneto, complicating the ignition system at the risk of a DNF? I have one example somewhat similar that I know to be true as I saw it. Former World Motocross Champion Georges Jobe (RIP) found himself without sponsor in the FIM 500cc series one year, and being a strong minded individual as well as quite inventive, decided he would rather NOT ride a Honda (Honda had been a former employer of Jobe) as it actually would be even better for Honda if Jobe won a Title or races on a stock Honda than if he won on a factory (HRC) supported Honda. They could claim a stock Honda was better than the competitions works racers,and it would be true! And for free too! So Jobe built what he felt was the best he could build without it being a Honda. Well,sort of not. He built a Yamaha 490, normally an air cooled machine, by using an HRC Honda cylinder he no doubt had left over from his Honda days. It was of course a water cooled cylinder he was grafting onto an engine never meant to pump water. So no mechanical means to power a water pump existed on the Yamaha engine. Now the relevant to our discussion bit. Jobe, to cool his Honda/Yamaha, used a electric water pump taken from an automobile,but instead of using a magneto equipped with a "lighting coil" so called because it is usually used to power headlights on a machine that lacked a battery to do so, he used a small battery that needed recharging between each moto instead of complicating his ignition system and risking a moto ending loss of ignition to his engine. If the battery died or other failure happened he might still complete the 45 minute moto even if his bike overheated. I believe such concerns would have Sheene avoid an electric powered oil pump. Mechanical reliability is paramount to winning championships in all forms of motorsports. I have NEVER heard of a gear driven oil pump failure of any motorcycle. I have on an automobile though.
@@bobbyphillips2538 I was assuming it was to inject oil to the fuel. Mosy 2 strokes don't have pressure fed lubrication or any oil in the crank case. I looked on line but the info sounds dodgy. It says premixed fuel/oil is fed to the main bearings.
Because of the two strokes method of fuel induction, the crankshaft bearings would receive no lubrication were it not for the oil mixed with the fuel. I always described the method a two stroke vs. a four stroke intakes fuel this way; A two stroke uses both the top and the bottom of the piston at the same time whereas the four stroke only uses the top , above the piston to do all the required tasks. So the two stroke gets it done in half the time. Since the thumper never has the fuel charge underneath the piston its crankshaft can wallow in an oil bath. Not so with a two stroke. Intake of fuel,done on the four stroke when the intake valve is open and the piston moves down, is done on the two stroke as the piston moves up creating a vacume under it and drawing fuel in underneath it to be forced up when it comes down. More later must go
Vasilli Panin, on a race bike such as Sheene's, where would you draw power for an electric oil pump. The magneto is not capable of this, as for example a motocross bike cannot power a headlight. To provide power for any accessory, be it light or pump, requires another coil inside the magneto, like a Kawasaki KDX off road model has, that a KX lacks. Sheene has no battery on his bike as he has no electric start, again like a motocross bike as there is no need for one and its useless weight.
Viagra who needs it just look at this bike 🏁🏁
I will never like 4 stroke racing motorcycles, motorcross/supercross included. Those were talented riders to handle the vicious powerband with minimal electronics on a carburatored 2 stroke
On the next video please put on safety working shoes. It’s scary to see one of you working wearing just a pair of loafers. You should know how dangerous is what you do.
Along with hi-viz jacket and trousers, hard hat, goggles and welding gloves, no doubt.
Looks waaay sexier than the modern gp bike.