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The Commando
"Hi-Rider"
750 HiRider
The Hi-Rider makes me wonder if
Mike Jackson, at the time on the Norton sales front on the US West Coast,
wanted to test, tongue in cheek, how stupid the Norton management was, or
the American Hippie type motorcyclist. He denies it, though.
This contraption tried to convert a totally competent sports motorcycle
into a caricature, a monument of bad taste and non-functionality. With the
aptly named "apehanger" handlebars, the 9 litre petrol tank
which would take you from one drive-in restaurant to another (just), the
one man + one Hobbit seat with the "Sissy Bar" at the back (who
was the Sissy I wonder- the rider or the pillion?), the headlamp so small it just
about illuminated the bike, not the road; all this made up this prototype
of the "Soft Chopper" fashion, which was continued by the
Japanese manufacturers with most of their middle-class machinery right
into the 1980s.
I have said elsewhere this model was "not offered in civilized
countries, but only in the Colonies". This is admittedly a nasty
remark, but in fact these bikes were not on sale in Europe to the best of
my knowledge, make what you want of that. To be fair to our American
friends, Mike states this model never sold in any great numbers- he says
only about 50 were sold in the US, and very few elsewhere, and the
remaining ones rebuilt as Roadsters to get them sold. However, the bike
remained in Nortons lineup for several years, right up to the 850 models-
Mike claims to use up the leftover components. This seems improbable, so,
perhaps, there was a limited call for these things somewhere.
850 HiRider
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