Racing 2014

Charging down Thunder Alley at Road America at top speed has to be one of the greatest experiences one can ever have on a motorcycle.  Doing it on a revving British Single or Twin is even better.  This 4.05 mile long course has everything for the bikes the NYC Norton team races – very fast sections, some wavy twisties, and tight little moments. It is without question a top-3 favorite track for all of us.  We loaded up the Sprinter and began the drive to the land of cheese curds and brats - Wisconsin! Road America, Elkart Lake, WI, June 06, 2014: This year we brought 4 bikes – Helmut’s G50, Kenny’s G50, Jon’s Atlas, and Magyar’s NRE (again, Kenny riding the NRE on loan while new pistons were being manufactured for his Seeley Norton).  Kenny was to run the NRE in Formula 750 and his G50 in 500 Premier.  [...]

2024-02-25T17:56:33-05:00December 30th, 2014|commando, G50, nycNorton, racing|

Racing 2014

The American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association, or AHRMA, has lumped a lot of their racing weekends into back-to-back events.  There are mixed feelings about this as 50% believe it's impossible to take that much time off from work, and the other 50% like the fact they can get more bang for their travel buck.  For our East Coast-based racing operation, the back-to-backs weekends of Willow Springs and Sonoma Raceway in Southern and Northern California, respectively, made for easy planning and logistics.  So the Sprinter was loaded with a Seeley 750, A Norton Atlas, and a Seeley G50, topped off with diesel, and away we went.   Willow Springs Raceway, Rosemond, CA, April 25, 2014 We'd all heard so much about how Willow is a locals track, it's fast, it's hot, it's cold, and it's windy, then it's really windy, all of which became perfectly clear very quickly.  We arrived Thursday [...]

2024-02-25T17:56:33-05:00December 29th, 2014|commando, G50, nycNorton, racing|

Racing 2014

Over the last few years NYC Norton has grown quite a bit as a thriving business rebuilding classics and a successful racing team.  In 2013 we completed a Seeley G50 build for our client Helmut Niederer and delivered it to him at Barber.  Knowing little about Helmut's racing skills (other than rumors he'd taken Kevin Schwantz's racing school at least 30 times), our mission for the weekend was simply to help him get started with his new possession.  By the end of the Barber event Helmut's lap times put him within the top 5 riders of the 500 Premier class.  We were pleasantly surprised and knew we had a good one here.  After Kenny returned from his sojourn to Australia in January, a meeting was held and the 2014 season became perfectly clear - Jon Thorndike, Helmut, and Kenny would do all 10 rounds of AHRMA in the US.   [...]

2024-02-25T17:56:33-05:00December 26th, 2014|builds, commando, G50, nycNorton, racing|

Racing Update

For many years, we've been carrying our racing bikes to the track in a small but very efficient 1999 T4 Volkswagen Eurovan.  It served us well and was absorbed into the NYC Norton business as a lithe big-city bike hauler.  But the transmissions in these vans are notoriously fragile, and the need to carry more bikes and sometimes tow a trailer was upon us.  After much laboring, bean-counting, talking to car dealers, accountants, and shrinks, the business took the plunge and we bought a new Sprinter to carry bikes  - race bikes and customer bikes - with reliability.  Our maiden voyage would be the beloved Midwest excursion to Road America in Wisconsin, with the week off spent up in Northern Michigan with friends at the wonderful cottage in belonging to John and Jan Ellis, then off to Grattan the following weekend. There had been many test fittings of bikes in [...]

2024-02-25T17:56:35-05:00June 5th, 2013|nycNorton, racing|

Shop Snaps

During the Iron and Air interview, photographer Jason Goodrich snapped some really nice shots that weren't in the magazine, but certainly deserve to be seen.  These shots were taken in our old space just before we relocated across the room, increasing from 400 sq ft to 2100 sq ft, as explained in our  "Moving On Up" blog entry.  Jason's shots give it a nice, cozy feel, but we were splitting our seams.  Rest assured we will have Jason over again to better illustrate the loft setup we've moved into.  More to come on that. Seeley Tank on the bench:   NRE in the shop freight elevator, alternate shot to magazine image   Seeley Norton 1007cc final drive/rearset detail   Seeley G50 looking on   KC Racing leathers

2024-02-25T17:56:35-05:00March 16th, 2013|nycNorton, press|

Iron & Air

We are really pleased to have been featured in the latest edition of Iron & Air magazine. Chris Logsdon (The Shop Brooklyn) came over and picked our brains for a while, and the result was a great piece, cutting through the chaff of cafe racers vs. racers.  Jason Goodrich took very beautiful pics of the shop and the bikes while we all chatted, and he will certainly be shooting more for us in the future.  Thanks guys.  

2024-02-25T17:56:36-05:00March 16th, 2013|nycNorton, press, racing, street|
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