Top 10 reasons Burt Munro is my hero

Rickrod

Top 10 reasons why Burt Munro is my Hero
1- He lives in a shed and works on his bike all day.
2- He takes 3 hours off for Christmas.
3- Chicks dig him!
4- He pees on his lemon tree.
5- He makes his own pistons
6- He can travel ½ ways around the world on social security.
7- He mows his lawns with gasoline.
8- He is a little deaf but; Not stupid
9- He doesn’t care what the neighbors think.
10- When going 150MPH and he gets chest pains he goes full throttle.

Retiredgentleman

He certainly was one of a kind, and maybe a mechanical genius! Making his own cylinders and pistons.............that's impressive. The movie with Anthony Hopkins was very well done.

oldbikenut

Just his true passion about his motorcycle!

He is truly a hero in the motorcycle world!

xs1961

Bonzer bloke..Typical Aussie ingenuity ! Love 'em .. Smile

Anthony Hopkins is a traitorous Welsh bastard though... Evil or Very Mad

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Check your facts XS1961............... You come from Ireland Wink

xs1961

Ireland !

England born & bred I be.. Smile

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Then Check your facts on Bert Monroe or you will still be Irish to me Laughing

xs1961

Ah, I see what you mean mate, but to us the Aussies & Zeelanders are the same thing.. Twisted Evil

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Yea well Aussies like to think any Kiwi that has an ounce of talent is an Aussie as well...........Crowed House, Russel Crow, Sam Neil and even Scott Dixon but only after he won the 2008 Indy Car Championship and i am sure RG would just love to be thought of as an American using your thinking on Kiwis........I am not real big on Patriotism but i try not to insult a persons heritage.....I suppose John Briton is English as well Laughing

xs1961

Id never insult Aussies or Kiwis ,we have great respect fer you ,besides Ive got loads of relatives over there!

I bet you Aussies & the Yanks think of the UK as one 'big' happy family - we're not mate, we're fed-up with the ungrateful Welsh & Scots here living comfortably off on our taxes enjoying better quality health care etc..! Evil or Very Mad

I did consider the Canadian/US thing as an example like the OZ/NZ thing but thought that might be pushing it a bit ! Wink

As for Anthony Hopkins - we rate him here as a great actor but still a treacherous git after the things he said about the country (Britain))that made him famous ... Cool

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Any colonized country will always hate the aggressors, then the colonizers will resent that for exactly the same reason you are using.
I am 2nd generation NZ'er with 3 of my 4 grand parents coming from Scotland, Grandfather was 9 when they came over. The Scottish are descendants from Ireland so i guess you could say i am mostly Irish unless some Viking got in there or some Spanish Confused

I looked up Anglo Saxon the other day and that bought up some interesting facts and DNA studies have the English pure blood breed out of them by conquers themselves.
The royal family is German more than any thing else.

That is why i find patriotism in its extream destructive Mad

Sorry bout the rant and no offense intended Smile

xs1961

Agree with you entirely Skull..
No offence taken at all mate - I presumed yours was light-hearted/tongue-in-cheek as was mine ! Smile

Anyway Rickrod, I/we share your admiration for Bert M. Smile

xsjohn

Yeah......we shouldn't be patriots here........just let the left wing sell us out......then what do we have.......... answer is soon forth coming here in the USSA...........then let you guys figure who is coming to help......China and Russia....... good luck there....well help might not ge the best word......just ask the Japs on that one..............

xsjohn

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

You need us for your Space exploration and global defense when your satellites are blind............well a Sara Palin as a Vice president???????? and you wanted her??????????

And with a min wage of $7.25 and 2 years ago that was only $5.15 and hadn't changed for around 11 years before that and an extract Quote: "The purchasing power of the minimum wage is less than it was in 1959; That means that today the minimum wage would purchase less in terms of food, clothing, housing, clothing, transportation and other items than in 1959.” Unquote.

And this does not cover the waiters/waitresses who have to rely on tipps/handouts many of whom are on not much more than $2 ph.

Retiredgentleman

I'm proud to be a Canadian and proud to be descended from Scotland. Americans are our neighbours and our good friends.

Descendants from the UK now populate the most industrious, democratic, freedom loving countries in the world.

When times got tough in the past, WW1,WW2,Korea,and now the Afganistan conflict, the British Commonwealth and the USA stood together to make the world a better place.

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

True RG.

Didn't mean to drag this into a political thing Laughing

Burt Munroe is an Inspiration and a Kiwi. And when you think of his achievements along with John Briton, (coming from such a small country with a population of around 4 million), There impact on the world biking stage is something to be proud of. And the thing both of them have in common is they built their parts themselves in there house/shed using kilns and buckets of water.........Bl**dy amazing Cool

Finn51 · Full Member Joined: Apr 25, 2007 Posts: 59

As a Kiwi, Burt is my hero too, but so are many NZers who have done well, or shown a little Kiwi inginuity. The list is long, and forgotten by a lot of the younger kids these days. Have any of you seen the video on John Britten building his bike in his shed, just like Burt, casting his own engine, making carbon fibre wheels etc, very impressive. Even though I haven't called NZ my home for many years, it still is home, as my family, on both sides, arrived on its shores from the UK, by way of Ireland and Scotland in 1840. And as far as being mixed up with Aussies, I don't care, been called far worse. Thanks for setting the record straight Skull. John.

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Finn51,
Do you have a link to that Video or is it a sale item. Saw it on TV years ago and never been able to locate it

pumps · Last edited by pumps on July 26, 2009, 11:28 pm; edited 1 time in total

650skull, on youtube there is a series of videos on the John Britten story, Britten Bike Story - One Man's Dream Here is a link to part 1.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaNgT5-yEdo

yamaman

Skull, the movie is called One Mans Dream, The Britten Bike Story.
Used to be able to get it from bike shops ect. Was only ever released on video. Any DVD versions are pirated. Might still be available through Britten's web site, pretty sure they still sell some gear. They used to make die cast models that were almost as cool as the real thing!

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Thanks Guys

Snake

Old Bert was a classic..thanks skull for setting the record straight on where he came from, we now have a bert munro classic racing weekend...people are starting to come from all over the world for it, very cool,....beach racing and all...john britten bike was fantastic...as was....Kiwi Kim Newcombeand the Konig motorcycle that enthaled the 1973 500cc World Championship, before his tragic death in an accident during an event in the UK.

xs1961 · Last edited by xs1961 on July 27, 2009, 2:34 am; edited 1 time in total

That john Britten story is a bloody inspiration ! Ive watched it several times , the mans was a genius ..Ruddy shame he died, imagine what he'd be building now..
I saw the Britten race in the Isle of Man back in the 90's , he was the talk of the island!

Im getting the tape out again this evening... Smile

650skull · Support Staff Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 1186

Here is an extract from an article i read about John Britten

"I am referring to my one-time neighbor John Britten, who was born with a serious learning disability that made reading extremely difficult. Not able to learn in conventional schools, Britten attended night school and eventually earned an engineering degree from Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.

His determination to earn a degree — and, more important, gain precious knowledge — was a sign of things to come.

Britten was a quiet, unassuming, totally focused individual. Some years before I met him, he began building, of all things, a futuristic motorcycle in his garage. His stated goal was to win the prestigious Battle of the Twins international cycle race in Daytona Beach, Florida.

His cutting-edge cycle involved over 6,000 parts, most of which Britten hand-made. With the notable exception of the engine, his extraordinary machine was constructed primarily of carbon fibre, a first for the motorcycle industry.

He had dedicated helpers who worked for free, mostly at night, while holding down full-time jobs during the day. Incredibly, the actual cost of Britten’s masterpiece was not more than a few hundred dollars, while many large corporate sponsors spent several million dollars on their entries.

Working while others slept was a Britten norm that was accepted by those who agreed to become involved in his projects. Toiling around the clock became his trademark. Anything short of a superhuman pace would have made it impossible for him to build his one-of-a-kind cycle from scratch in just under eleven months, barely finishing in time for the Battle of the Twins.

With just three weeks to go before the big race, Britten’s carbon-fibre cycle crashed while being tested. It was a cruel blow, a bad break that everyone agreed Britten didn’t deserve. The task of locating and correcting the problem, then repairing the bike, seemed insurmountable — but Britten and his crew again managed to overcome all obstacles, and arrived in Daytona just in time.

Then, during the qualifying run, disaster again struck. Just twelve hours before race time, a hairline crack in a cylinder sleeve — one of the few parts Britten had not built himself — threatened to end his bid for the unofficial world championship for twin-cylinder motorcycles. Britten’s reaction? After tireless but fruitless efforts to find the right spare part in the Daytona area, Britten, who had no previous experience in welding cylinder sleeves, repaired the broken part himself.

By race time, Britten had been awake forty-seven hours straight. But, as events unfolded, it looked as though the monumental effort by him and his team would finally pay off. Once again, however, like a scene out of a depressing movie, bad luck reared its ugly head. With Britten’s cycle leading the pack, rain forced an end to the race one lap from the finish, which meant the entire race had to be run over.

In the restarted race, Britten’s cycle again led the pack most of the way, until — you guessed it — yet another non-Britten-built part, a faulty rectifier, halted his bid for victory once and for all. John Britten had captured the admiration of the racing world, but had failed to come home with a trophy.

But when he returned to New Zealand, he didn’t waste time focusing on the bad breaks he had experienced in Daytona. Instead, he went right back to work, rebuilt his handcrafted motorcycle, and returned to Daytona the next year. This time, he finally won the Battle of the Twins championship, a Rocky Balboa finish if there ever was one.

Sylvester Stallone as Rocky BalboaThe victory doesn’t end there. The first commercial version of the Britten motorcycle sold for a record $140,000. Not a bad return on the few hundred dollars he had spent on the design and construction of the original model.

The moral to this story is that most bad breaks, particularly those that do not involve life-changing injury, terminal illness, or death, are no match for human intervention. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, “Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creature of man. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.”

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