Talk:Vincent Black Lightning

Special Category for British Motorcycles

As part of the Motorcycling WikProject I am working though all the missing articles and stubs for British Bikes. To make things easier to sort out there is a special Category:British motorcycles Please add to any British motorcycle pages you find or create. It will also help to keep things organised if you use the Template:Infobox Motorcycle or add it where it is missing. I've linked the Category to the Commons Motorcycles of Britain so you could help with matching pics to articles or adding the missing images to the Commons. The people behind the bikes also bring it all to life - I've created the Category:British motorcycle pioneers so please have a look and see if you can add or expand any? Thanks Thruxton (talk) 20:51, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Nice! I used to live near where the works were in Stevenage, and there was still a motorbike dealer across the high street with several Vincents in the showroom. Shouldn't there be a link or reference to Richard Thompson's song 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (which redirects to Rumor and Sigh) about a tale of star-crossed lovers and the bike? Seems to be very popular. . . dave souza, talk 21:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ask and ye shall receive. This song is much-loved and has been much-covered, but for some reason the relevant allmusic search page[23] won't open--so I included the covers I know about, but if there are others by notable artists they can also be mentioned.--Arxiloxos (talk) 23:06, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Articles should be categorized as per Wikipedia:Categorization. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with File:Rollie Free, record run.jpg

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Keys

Someone told me, with reference to the line in the Richard Thompson song "He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys", that the Black Lightning does not have keys.

Is this in fact true? Paul Magnussen (talk) 23:48, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Not only does the Lightning not have keys, neither do the A, B and C series Rapides nor does the Black Shadow. The D may have had keys, since it was a coil-and-distributor ignition, but keys on the mag-ignited earlier Vincents would be very difficult, due to the design of the ratty awful Lucas mag. Nor do *any* Lightnings have mufflers, head and taillights, or a kick starter - you have to bump start them. The song is factually crap. There's not a chance on earth of riding a Lightning on the street ... unless you add those items, at which time it becomes a Black Shadow. There was really almost no difference between them and many many shadow owners "lightningized" them. This whole fixation on the "black lightning !" is a modern trend, didn't exist in the fifties, sixties or seventies, when people actually rode these bikes (like me).

This article is pretty much breathless, gushy crap, and worse, *wrong* on many items. 203.160.86.40 (talk) 11:48, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

By the way, the photo on this page is probably of a fake. Rollie Free rode a Shadow at Bonneville late in the year 1948. There were no "Lightnings" before that. The factory did do special order hi-po models for a few people (John Surtees rode a Comet aka Grey Flash ?) but here was nothing especially called a "Black Lightning" until after Rollie's record, at which time Vincent took advantage of the publicity to create a new name. Not a new model, since there was nothing special about the Lightning, just a name. These were never "production" items, they needed to be special ordered, which would take some time.

In 1949 Vincent dropped the HRD from their name, as they thought it would confuse Americans who were accustomed to HD. Maybe they would think it was a misspelled Chinese fake :) Between late summer 1948 and early 1949 is not enough time for the name to be created, publicized, ordered, and any bikes made. Anyway, there should be no "Black Lightnings" with HRD markings, as they would all be pure Vincent by the time the Lightning was available. Rollie Free's was not a Lightning, it was a Shadow. Back in the day there were a lot of fakes, as a Shadow and a Lightning are basically identical. Take off the lights and the kickstarter and change the seat and you now have a Lightning. Whoopee. 203.160.86.40 (talk) 12:05, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Richard Thompson song and other pop culture refs

I deleted the pop culture section because it had only one source[24], which only devoted one sentence to the subject, "Since then Richard's solo career has burgeoned, especially in America, with such resolutely English-themed songs as Vincent Black Lightning 1952, celebrating a classic British motorbike."

What's missing is a third party source which tells us that it mattered that somebody mentioned the bike in a song or in a William Gibson book. Random lists of things where the name of the bike was mentioned are not meaningful. Did it have some effect, some impact, some influence, on anything as a consequence of the choice to mention the Vincent Black Lightning rather than some other bike? The article Rumor and Sigh is the place to provide lengthy details about who covered which song. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:31, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that more detail at Rumor and Sigh would be more appropriate than here. But it seems notable that a motorcycle has a very successful song named after it. How many of those are there? Thompson's quoted commentary, in that referenced BBC source, on his own song, also makes it clear the esteem in which the motorcycle was held in the 1950s. It seems a little surprising that you want no mention of it here at all, especially when more people now may well have heard of the song than of the actual cycle. I'm also not sure why a song by one of Britain's leading singer-songwriters should be seen as "low-order pop-culture trivia." An alternative for facts which lack evidence for notability is to add a {cn} tag, that might at least encourage other editors to find such a source. But I still think we are slightly missing the point - the song doesn't really tell us anything about the bike, it's just a unique use of a particular motorcycle type in a well-known folk ballad. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

As for the chapter and device in the All Tomorrow's Parties (novel), I have no idea how much it matters - it's not actually mentioned in that article. I guess it may just be an irrelevant piece of trivia. But you can read the whole chpater here: [25] if you wish. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:09, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I came late to this discussion, noting it only today after another editor attempted to add a reference to Richard Thompson's song and was reverted. I strongly support including some mention of the song here. I think the relevance is demonstrated by Thompson's own quote, as was included in the previous version [26]. And, frankly, for those of us who are not motorheads and only know that a Vincent Black Lightning exists because of Thompson's song, it's puzzling to come here and not find any mention of it. My preference would be to restore the "Cultural references" heading and the first paragraph of the September 16 version. I don't necessarily think we need to recite in detail everyone who recorded the song, although the way that was done in today's edit (just a quick list) would be OK with me. --Arxiloxos (talk) 22:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If what you say is true, then you ought to be able to cite just one source that tells us so. Is it a fact that people started to care about this particular bike because of this song? One way that Wikipedia separates fact from fancy is by asking that you cite a good third party source rather than just stand on your deeply held belief. I'm more than happy to have a section in the article about this song provided the section has something to say. But to have something to say you've got to have sources. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

First of all, as I said, I think the Richard Thompson quote is itself worthwhile commentary about the motorcycle. If someone wants more, there are at least hundreds of reliable sources that talk about this song; just off the first pages of search results, I can pluck a recent column from a Georgia reviewer calling it "one of the most buoyant and joyful motorcycle songs ever devised" [27] and a West Virginia reporter commenting that the song accounts (at least in part) for the cycle's allure at a local motorcycle show [28] and articles from American Songwriter [29] and Newsweek [30] about the song's lasting significance, and an article in the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies (yes!) about how most non-motorcyclists know this cycle from the song and many Vincent owners agree with Thompson's sentiment that the bike should be ridden instead of collected [31]. --Arxiloxos (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Quoting from 1952 Vincent Black Lightning:

Top section: In 2011 Time magazine listed the song in its "All TIME 100 Songs", a list of "the most extraordinary English-language popular recordings since the beginning of TIME magazine in 1923," praising it as "a glorious example of what one guy can accomplish with just a guitar, a voice, an imagination and a set of astonishingly nimble fingers."

I think that's pretty reliable evidence of the song's notability in pop culture. And 1952 Vincent Black Lightning § Covers modestly begins "The song has been covered by several artists", then goes on to list nineteen covers, all by different artists, including Bob Dylan. --Thnidu (talk) 20:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree. That looks very reliable to me also. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:12, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

References

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Rollei Free section World Record - Shadow or Lightning?

As I stated in this edit summary, Vintagent has previously stated that he believes it was not a Lightning that was ridden in the 150mph-record. I've checked in the house and Vincent book author Roy Harper wrote in a 1980 UK magazine that it was a Shadow.

The original upload (permalink) was written as Lightning; the first accompanying source (deadlinked, Hall of Fame) states Shadow (archived) and the second (deadlinked, Motorcycle Daily, of uncertain ownership and origins but with a 1999 copyright notice - archived) shows an undated, poor-resolution advert or poster that could be later than the actual record. IMO, it's likely that the originating WP editor and web-site writer both chose to assume it was a Lightning due to this image content.--Rocknrollmancer (talk) 19:43, 31 December 2017 (UTC)