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Christine's
Norton
C652 Production Bike "Mopi"
After
Christine's big sister Katrin had built herself a C652 from leftover
components, and Christine was about to pass her motorcycle license, having
exercised the art since her 14th birthday on various Nortons on
racetracks, she dearly wanted one like her sister's. Opportunity arose
when one was offered in a German secondhand vehicle site. I let a
friend contact the owner who turned out to be the son of a deceased
customer. This saddened me, having known his father who had been a very
nice man with a great sense of humour. The son was not all too sure what
he had for sale- the description mistook it for a race bike-, but still tried to tell me details about the
motorcycle when I collected it. I told him not to worry- I was the
manufacturer.
In
the first two years of Christine's ownership the bike was limited to 34bhp
through reducing the inlet manifold diameter- a legal requirement for
German beginners. On riding the bike I found no real loss in power against
the "open" version- the motorcycle was amazingly quick, possibly
through lowering the gearing to BMW F650 ratio. With the BMW F650 weighing
20kg more this is probably not surprising. It is now on full power- 50bhp-
but apart from all-out top speed performance in traffic seems not much
different
Seat
height was a problem for Christine at first as she is shorter in the leg
than her sister, but now she got used to it and knows how to balance the
bike on tiptoe if necessary. She loves her "Mopi" and would not
part with it, though she fancies the Tony Denniss bike, mainly because of
the glitter paintjob. Kickstarting could be a problem on a Commando for
her- on the racetrack (racing Commandos) she is used to being push started
by one of the team members.
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Left: Christine on
her "Mopi", starting out for her first motorcycle tour,
shortly after taking her motorcycle test.
Below: Christine behind
Mopi, Simone behind her "training bike", the
"Ironing Board"
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