Kawi2strokes.com Forum

Evil Knievel ,amazing what he did and with what he rode

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1975 S3 project bike
1974 H1 project bike
1972 Yamaha R5
1974 Yamaha RD350

oh yeah well. thats an XR750 factory race bike engine and chassis. alloy rims, Ceriani forks, with full alloy wheel, looks like about dual 40mm carbs running into a cammed up sporty engine with cut fins, magneto, and probably 1000 cc top end.
That HD there is one fast bike. It would give most any bike a full view of its tail light. If it had one. And i am a severe anti HD guy.
Hard to make anything better in its day. Kawasaki probably would break in half with the impact that bike took.
Only real competiton to that bike in its day was the BSA/CCM or custom Triumphs

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Collecting All Vintage High Performance Japanese Street bikes. Parts bought and sold. www.cyclebusters.com

I got to meet him in LA in the early 70's. He was at a car dealership, and he showed films of his crashes, and had his rig and bikes there. Pretty cool.

They have one of his KR's at the "Wheels Through Time" Museum in Maggie Valley. They fire it up on July 4 and jump a few school buses-matchbox variety.

Its hard to be a daredevil these days, I reckon.


John

I went to a Evil Knievel tribute in July , Evils Grand daughter did the intro and then a stunt jockey jumped 8 vans on a 1970 American Eagle Laverda 750 it was a good show and to see some one jump an old school bike like the Laverda 750 is a an eye opener for sure makes me wonder how Evil Knievel did those big jumps as far as I can remember Evil was the only one doing those types of stunts in his time period.

Btw I road a tricked out XR750 back in the 80's while it was fast and powerful it was also like a locomotive on rubber not much handling , balance or grace to those bikes even when tricked the XR750 sucked when compared to Japanese bikes.

Evil had the skill to do what most could never do, no doubt he was the King of motorcycle stunts ...

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1975 S3 project bike
1974 H1 project bike
1972 Yamaha R5
1974 Yamaha RD350

With all respect to Mr Knievel, I do not mean to hijack this. But he reminds me our own daredevil, Arto Nyqvist. He started with H2:s, continued with Z1:s but his favorite bike was Z1300. He once did try to get a job from Mr Knievel showing pics he will do the same jumps but sitting backwards... Mr Knievel throw him out. This clip is from early 80's :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3FOOAMqMvM

Arto is still going strong:



His problem was lousy English so he did not succeed outside Scandinavia.

Smokin, "Mr Knievel throw him out." oh please ,

Arto Nyqvist I watched the video cool but got to wonder the riding gear sneakers a windbreaker and open face wow , I never heard of Arto had he been on the tube in the 70's I'd defiantly been tuned in ,but Evil was the King and it hard to follow in the shadow of greatness

Evil tribute video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOR8yHjxses

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1975 S3 project bike
1974 H1 project bike
1972 Yamaha R5
1974 Yamaha RD350

Jackman, like I said, with full respect... this throwing out -story is direct from interview still visible on tube but unfortunately only in Finnish. He literally says he was thrown out because Mr Knievel did not understand his lousy English. That is also the reason he did not try to enter to showbusiness in USA.
He was (and still is) a name here in Scandinavia. Probably someone still recalls his name in Germany.
His trade mark was wooden Dutch style shoes.

And by no means my intention was underestimate Mr Knievel's achievements.

I missed audio part because I don't have speakers so just a silent video is what I get but I did like it , takes a heluva rider to wheel standa KZ1300 , also I never serious in my post its all for ha ha and reading enjoyment

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1975 S3 project bike
1974 H1 project bike
1972 Yamaha R5
1974 Yamaha RD350

Evil was one wild nutball. You can plainly see what I mean in the photo of him above. I believe he probably threw out lots of people if they rubbed him the wrong way.

Here's a short article about the opening of the Evel exhibit at the Harley museum. Note the last paragraph.

http://www.motobullet.com/news.php?id=10336

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If it surges, that's normal, upshift.

my friend Tony Marx interviewed him a about 10 years ago for MMM (Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly)

the article is cool enough, and Tony was pretty stoked to have been able to do it.

http://www.motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/2008/99/feature99.htm

Tony told me that Evel had that "Thousand Yard Stare" and thought that any second he was going to go nuts and start throwing chairs... Also said it was a difficult interview as it kept going to religion and politics. Evel would start getting worked up and red-faced...

As a kid, he was like a cartoon character. Personally, I just think he was a nutjob that lucked out and didn't die doing stupid things. Sure, he could ride a good wheelie.... But seriously? Anybody (insane enough) can climb on a Harley and TRY to jump over something. Only to catastrophicly crash. And yeah, I know he landed sometimes.. But that wasn't the draw. People showed up/tuned in to watch him die.

IMHO he's nowhere near the level of a Travis Pastrana, etc. Travis is nuts, but with a technical mind and amazing skill. Trifecta