"The Racing Motorcycle"
a review by Motorcycle Classics magazine

I first came across John Bradley in a photograph which was published in one of the weeklies about twenty years ago. He was pictured with his racing machine - which he was holding off the ground, with a grin on his face to show how easy it was. Then I got to know him when he came to work at the same technical college, and I found him to be a practical, dedicated and forthright engineer who was able to explain concepts and ideas about engineering - and motorcycle design in particular - in the simplest terms. These qualities are very much in evidence in his new book.

It's refreshing to find a book which does not fight shy of the mathematics and theory. I've just been referring to the chapter on springs, where there are model mathematical solutions to go with the equations, plug graphs and photographs to help you see and understand what is going on. And the accompanying text is easy to understand - without the technical ideas being compromised.

This first volume covers gearing, geometry, aerodynamics and suspension; and as such provides an excellent guide through the thinking which goes on before pencil is put to paper. These four-hundred A4 pages are illustrated with over two hundred illustraions, charts and graphs - and the presentation throughout is laudably clear. While it's pleasant to pick up the odd chapter as the mood takes you, I suspect that this will become a reference work rather than the type of thing which is devoured from cover to cover. A good thing, probably, since its soft covers would otherwise get pretty dog-eared with time. A planned second volume, which I suspect will be of more immediate use to the less advanced builder, will be concerned with materials and construction techniques.

The book sells at £32 - and that represents a lot of investment. As John Bradley points out in the book, however, new technology has brought about various advances and refinements - but the basic engineering principals remain. As well as providing a date mark for the state of the art today, the information contained in this book wil not lose its currency.

The title states that the intended audience for this volume are the constructors, which suggests a readership possessing a certain level of experience and competence in race bike design. However, I think that those enthusiasts who are trying to build their own machinery (or who are tempted to do so, but prevented by their sense of alienation from computer technology, stress analysis and the like) will find that this book gives them a commonsense starting point. It will also provide a good source of information for the everyday rider who would like to understand more about his or her motorcycle.

John Fiddell