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Marten
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 06:55 am |
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Why did the British use cubic centimetres when classifying bikes?
A mate had the idea that it was because of the speed limits in GB and that most of the earliest racing was being done on the continent, apart from IOM of course.
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Frankfurt-Beesa
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Posted: Thu Feb 28th, 2008 08:39 am |
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| Probably to appeal to the european market.
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ashley748916
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Posted: Fri Feb 29th, 2008 07:51 am |
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That Marten is a dead interseting question to which I've no idea what the answer is but you've reminded me that last year I found a road marking here in the Harz that was marked 'milen' -miles. I thought it had always been Kms here? Anybody know?
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Frankfurt-Beesa
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Posted: Fri Feb 29th, 2008 09:03 am |
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ashley748916 wrote: That Marten is a dead interseting question to which I've no idea what the answer is but you've reminded me that last year I found a road marking here in the Harz that was marked 'milen' -miles. I thought it had always been Kms here? Anybody know?
Depends what the scale is, in sweden they still talk about miles, but a mile there is 10km. So if the marker you saw indicated a number of miles to a place, you should probably try to compare that to the KM distance. And remember the metric system was not always there, metrication hit Germany in the 1860s. Before that they used Miles Feet and inches, like proper folk. Only after metrication did it all start going wrong.
The scary part is, The metric system, and metre was first fully described by Englishman John Wilkins in 1668 in a treatise presented to the Royal Society some 120 years before the French adopted the system. We done it to ourselves .
Last edited on Fri Feb 29th, 2008 09:06 am by Frankfurt-Beesa
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ashley748916
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Posted: Fri Feb 29th, 2008 01:04 pm |
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Frankfurt-Beesa wrote: ashley748916 wrote: That Marten is a dead interseting question to which I've no idea what the answer is but you've reminded me that last year I found a road marking here in the Harz that was marked 'milen' -miles. I thought it had always been Kms here? Anybody know?
Depends what the scale is, in sweden they still talk about miles, but a mile there is 10km. So if the marker you saw indicated a number of miles to a place, you should probably try to compare that to the KM distance. And remember the metric system was not always there, metrication hit Germany in the 1860s. Before that they used Miles Feet and inches, like proper folk. Only after metrication did it all start going wrong.
The scary part is, The metric system, and metre was first fully described by Englishman John Wilkins in 1668 in a treatise presented to the Royal Society some 120 years before the French adopted the system. We done it to ourselves.
Thanks FB, thought I'd gone completely tonto when I saw it
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Marten
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Posted: Fri Feb 29th, 2008 05:30 pm |
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It is true that Sweden have miles (mil) and one "mil" is 10 km:s and we also used to go by inches and feet way back. 1860:s sound about right for the change to the metric system also for us.
Another of my mates theorys, apart from the racing classification, is that the french, germans and belgians built engines early and that some of the British manufacturers bought engines from the continent.
Maybe I will be kicked out for blasphemy??
I understand that the British are moving towards the metric system, inch by inch!
Last edited on Fri Mar 14th, 2008 08:58 am by Marten
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Rick Parkington
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Posted: Mon Mar 3rd, 2008 01:18 pm |
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It is an interesting question indeed. Certainly the earliest engines were Continental - Minerva for example, but British engines were not rated in CC but in HP for a long while for taxation purposes. Early on, HP ratings were calculated from the bore of the engine mutliplied by the number of cylinders and other factors - which resulted in manufacturers 'tax dodging' by producing very long stroke, narrow bore engines. The later ratings were simply based on capacity - it being decided that a 350cc engine nominally delivered a certain power output regardless of number of cyls or bore to stroke ratio.
A 350cc was 2.75hp by this method. This may have reflected BHP originally but by the mid-twenties the average 2.75 hp bike was knocking out anywhere between 8 and 16 bhp depending on spec. Thus the old system no longer made any sense, so in 1925 or so it was decided to make 1hp equal to 100cc. 2.75hp bikes became 3.5hp - which was what the old 500s were called, making it a bit confusing. Actually referring to bikes directly by their cc came about very late in the decade, I would say.
So whether it was to do with those old DeDion and Minerva engines or not is hard to be sure but it seems likely.
You might as well ask how come when you have an 88mm bore you ask for a set of 20thou oversize rings...
And as for slowly adopting metric, it has already happened. Apart from 'miles', which would require too much expense altering road sineage, pretty much eveything else is in metric now, which I regard as a shame. There is an organic quality to imperial measurements, they are practical, useful increments not determined simply by a decimal relationship to their neighbours.
Apart from natural disinclination to change my ways, I feel metric suffers from a sort of exponential increase because of its fixed base number. After all strictly speaking there is no increment beteen a millimetre and a metre - even if you allow a centimetre, which is really a made-up thing, there are only three in total. To be fair, you could argue four - 1mm/10mm/100mm/1000mm. In imperial there are seven incremental sizes. 1/16", 1/8", 1/4",1/2",1",12"(foot),36"(yard). Because of the base of ten, the difference increases exponentially as size increases. Between 1 foot and one yard is only a factor of three, I believe the relationship between an inch, a foot and a yard is in practice far more useful than 10,100 and 1000 mm. Inch foot and yard are commonly encountered dimensions. Metric always seems more precise to me. You'd say 'it's about a foot long' but 'about 300mm' doesn't sound right, it's too fine a measurement for an approximation. It would be like saying it's about 1760 yards instead of 'a mile'. Similarly when anyone says "A few metres away" I always hae theurge to say, well how many?
Maybe it's just me....
A. Luddite.
Funnily
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Marten
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Posted: Mon Mar 3rd, 2008 04:08 pm |
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Rick, many interesting thoughts there and I will not argue as to wich is the better system. After all I spent my youth in the 80:s trying to explain to my jap riding friends that Mr Turners twins were superior and "no, that oil slick was already there when i parked".
Changing over a measuring system takes time. If we go to the lumber yard, here in sweden, we buy a 2"x4" and we still buy nails by inches even if it say's mm on the package.
I just ordered new mains and big end bearings for my Guzzi and 1:st undersize mains is 0,2mm under, wereas 1:st oversize big end is 0,254mm over, wich of course is 0,01".
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Frankfurt-Beesa
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Posted: Mon Mar 3rd, 2008 05:32 pm |
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I'm of the opinion that metric stuff is for the mathematically challenged. I like inches too, even is getting a German to understand the concept can be difficult. But every measuring stick here has inches on it, and is called a Zollstock or "Inch Stick"  .
Strangely timber here is also cut in inch sizes and then sold in "finished" millimetres.
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Marten
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Posted: Mon Mar 3rd, 2008 09:14 pm |
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FB- Can you find Withworth and BSF and the like in Germany? The other day I needed a 1/4" BSF bolt and went to the hardware store but the only thing I got was a blank stare.
Another thing that keep me awake at nights is the question were the terms "senior", "Junior" and "Lightweight" comes from. I understand that the first TT races on the IOM did not have these classes.
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jessplop84
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 12:37 am |
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Whilst travelling home last time, I met a fr*nch chap, and whilst discussing things such as hydrostatics, he very smugly scoffed how the british are the only people who still use psi to measure pressure, and how we are so backward whilst the rest of the world are using the metric system. I soon lost interest in this smug fr*nch git and realised why I prefer to use imperial measure over metric, even decimal feet and inches are more friendly.
I used to enjoy hearing people refer to 1/32" as "a thirty-tooth of an inch", like they really thought about what they were doing, not.
Ho-hum, as you can tell, I am back at work, and not a lot going on, again!
Over here, it is really amusing when the locals are trying to find an imperial spanner or socket, but then it's quite amusing watching them try to find a metric one, or do anything actually, really does make me wonder how they built such a huge wall or invented everything that they did thousands of years before "we" invented them. Must be time for a ciggy and a brew soon.
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Frankfurt-Beesa
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 06:30 am |
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jessplop84 wrote: Whilst travelling home last time, I met a fr*nch chap, and whilst discussing things such as hydrostatics, he very smugly scoffed how the british are the only people who still use psi to measure pressure, and how we are so backward whilst the rest of the world are using the metric system. I soon lost interest in this smug fr*nch git and realised why I prefer to use imperial measure over metric, even decimal feet and inches are more friendly.
I used to enjoy hearing people refer to 1/32" as "a thirty-tooth of an inch", like they really thought about what they were doing, not.
Ho-hum, as you can tell, I am back at work, and not a lot going on, again!
Over here, it is really amusing when the locals are trying to find an imperial spanner or socket, but then it's quite amusing watching them try to find a metric one, or do anything actually, really does make me wonder how they built such a huge wall or invented everything that they did thousands of years before "we" invented them. Must be time for a ciggy and a brew soon.
The great walll, actually built by a bunch of Irish brickies in the 1930's, they just pretend it's ancient, had it been built by proper engineers, it would be straight.
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Rick Parkington
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 10:25 am |
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Now, not being funny Jess, but I don't want my reasoned arguments for the common sense behind Imperial measurements to be tainted by your general rants about Johnny Foreigner!
Pull yourself together man, stiff upper lip. Get a grip - but preferably not on the throat of the nearest Frenchman!
R
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jessplop84
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 10:38 am |
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Rick Parkington wrote: Now, not being funny Jess, but I don't want my reasoned arguments for the common sense behind Imperial measurements to be tainted by your general rants about Johnny Foreigner!
Pull yourself together man, stiff upper lip. Get a grip - but preferably not on the throat of the nearest Frenchman!
R
Isn't that why we have foreigners, for us to kick about and take moking jibes at?
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850norton
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 11:22 am |
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Or least the French . Seems Monseuir Frenchy in his smugness forgot that us colonials in the US ALSO use the old trusty standard of inches/pounds etc. and from the looks of it will continue to do so for several more years to come.
I've only come across roads signs in Virginia that were marked in miles and kilometers and that was back 1980. Haven't seen them anywhere else with the exception of a few things such as fizzy drinks or paint.
As Rick mentioned when describing something as "about a foot", it's easier to visualize a size roughly in inches/feet than it is in cm/m.
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Rick Parkington
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 11:10 pm |
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As it happens M.Frenchy certainly hasn't forgotten that the US uses Imperial measurements, that's why the EEC has effectivley outlawed Imperial weights and measures over here, so that we don't have an 'unfair trading advantage' over other European countries in dealings with the States. It's all a conspiracy...Agincourt, Crecy, they've never forgiven us you know...
R
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jessplop84
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 11:26 pm |
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| Not sure if they've thanked us for liberating them from oppression yet either .
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Rick Parkington
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 11:37 pm |
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Well, we did leave the place in a bit of a mess, beaches all messed up and that. And they were probably still cross about the time before, when we churned up all the soil - it took ages for the grass to grow back, I believe areas near Ypres actually had to be re-turved.
R
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jessplop84
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Posted: Tue Mar 4th, 2008 11:52 pm |
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| It wasn't us that made the mess, it were the Girmins! And the froggies got all that scrap metal and militaria, must have been worth a few francs, so what is their problem?
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850norton
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Posted: Wed Mar 5th, 2008 02:41 am |
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I'm sure that any old scrap brass from back then must be worth something unless it's totally scrap now due to rust.
As far as the unfair trade advantage, surely that can't be true unless they, the Gaulois puffers, think that we the US, recipients of some French scrap metal in NYC, would get a Favored (without the "u") Trade Staus like the Chinese got from us. And look what that got us....cheap items that have lead and other toxic materials in them.
But not the Chinese that you work with Ploppy, they would never do that
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