The big thing is that those of who love the infernal combustion engine for what it is and what it does (lives, breathes and is a miracle of engineering) and have been around for long enough to remember when a Cortina with 40,000 miles on it was almost worthless and needed a rebore and new pistons and rings just to get it to the scrap yard, we have all had the best of the automotive world.
I passed my test in 1964. The roads were quiet and a bike or car would run all week on a quid's worth of fuel and a set of Michelin X tyres would last a million miles but no one ever said they gripped the road. Waterproofs didn't really exist, there was almost no protection apart from a pudding basin helmet, points and regulators let you down at the worst possible time, lights didn't light and in the winter, you could break a leg or flatten the car battery just trying to get the thing to start and only the true petrol head knew how to operate a choke properly if it didn't fire first time. And as for the use of a starting handle...
Today, everything starts first time (hot start issues aside), if you get wet it's your own fault, there is still lots of joy to be had on the right open road at the right time and most modern engines will run well past 100,000miles (200,000 for an oil burner) without needing even so much as a new battery, alternator or starter motor, things that had to be changed every few years back then.
We've gone from 40bhp per litre in the Ford Anglia family saloon to 155(totally reliable)bhp per litre in my similar sized Audi S3 and 136bhp per litre in the K. Those figures weren't even being dreamed off in competition cars back then; Mk 1 Lotus Cortina - 105bhp from 1557cc...
We've gone from an era where everyone could fix their own cars but only the 'specialist' petrol head got big performance figures to an era where no-one understands how the damn things work but everyone can have true performance in even a shopping car.
We've gone from empty roads where everyone would stop to help a stranded motorist or biker to traffic-clogged virtual car parks where no-one can tell if you are broken down because no one is moving.
We've gone from a totally inregulated world where if you could bolt it on and it made it go faster, you only had to decide whether you told your insurance company, to a world where you can't even open the bonnet on some cars and when you can you can't change much without the computer saying 'NO!'.
So, for those of us who grew up lapping-in our cork clutch plates on a piece of broken glass and who could reset our points in the pitch dark of a country lane by touch alone, who went through big valves and side-draught Webers and who now have unheard of performance and reliability built-in at the same price, the impending death knell of the infernal combustion engine is a sad day indeed.
The mind-numbing acceleration from standstill of an electric vehicle is awesome. Awesome but soulless.
It is the ultimate 'automatic' experience. Clutches have remained on bikes for a reason, bikers love the involvement, controlling the variables to get the best from the beast.
With electric bikes, that will all be gone. They will all be twist and go machines, the ultimate expression of Tron.
Brian (who loves the idea of a left hand rear brake lever though
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