A Voyager owner takes his HF BMW 650GS parallel twin to the Alps and back in company with two Honda Varaderos.
Size and quality

This is my new motorcycle! I will be sculpting a radical body for it over the next year that looks like the Akira motorcycle (Manga animation).

http://youtu.be/jytYbSLdDio

I thank http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeffs-Projects-By-Monroe-County-Customs-MCC/160837117318428 for producing the motorcycle (Jeff England).

Should I be here? I see a comment suggesting that this stuff should be elsewhere? No probs with that, and if the Moderator (or whoever…) suggest that I dump this to some other place, please give me a link and I’ll do that. Not sure I was needing feedback…really just posting in case others wanted to know…what not to do! In the meantime, I always thought of the old site as just that…’old’…and this was the newer, preferred one. And since this one prominently said ‘Blogs’ on the LHS, I assumed I was in the correct place…but I’ll take advice…

Out of sequence…

I’ve a couple of bits written, but it’s still ‘lead in / whimsy’ stuff, which might work if you are patient, killing time or like a meander…but might be boring as sin if you want to get to the greasy bits…so I’ll ditch some of the run-in stuff this post and add it in next time, flipping between the two genres in subsequent posts, until we are exclusively in garage + welder territory…

My Early FF Attempts

After sitting in a garage for over 8 years I was surprised it started at all, never mind on 2 cylinders. A bit of tweaking by Pete Munden and some fresh petrol, all 4 cylinders fired up. I've now replaced the oil, oil filter, plugs, rat/mouse chewed HT lead and air filters and it starts on all 4 cylinders. I've rubbed down the rust and painted. Passed its MOT 20/8/2011 and is now back on the road. Still plenty of work to do to fix some of the dash clocks/lights and sort cold starting. Bought another 1982 VF750 so I can diagnose what need fixing on the Quasar.

It only gets interesting when things go wrong. I suspect Tom would rather this thing had not gone wrong.
(pictures under Touring)

4 riders: destination Portugal
St Malo to Bordeaux on the first day, and there is plenty of decent riding to be had on the N- and D-Roads. Only excitement that night was managing to lock a room key in the restaurant when the owner had left us late-night chatting. A bit of burglary solved that.

After initially building a seat mock-up to check ergonomics, I designed the seat sub frame in two parts.

Last night I lowered the seat 3" and adjusted the Trailing Arm (front swingarm) pivot back .700" thinking my low speed handling problems are the result of too much trail.
Also went to Deadwood and got a license plate. Have to correct my earlier Blog, the LT is a year 2000 not 1999, also I have 45 years riding experience not 35. Fuzzy math going on when I wrote that (35 years).
Can't wait to try the new setup.
Doug

I should preface the following with the information that I live out in the country, my driveway is gravel and a 1/2 mile long.

Took the machine out for the first test drive today, kind of exciting.

Doug writes: "Here are some pictures of my FF project. Have been working on this for a few years (off and on) but more time lately and getting ready for a de-bugging ride. Built from a crashed 1999 K1200LT."
I have created a new folder for Doug's photos, and shrunk them to a suitable size for web use. See the folder for Doug's KLT-engined 'Beast' in the 'OneOffs' section of the image galleries here:
http://www.bikeweb.com/image/tid/123
PNB

Here is a link to my build blog for my AKIRA Kaneda's bike replica. I will be adding more info and pictures as the build continues so check back every once in a while to get updates. http://tinyurl.com/6fejcbb

This is a picture after my first test ride. This FF bike will be a AKIRA moive bike replica. It is made from a 2003 Kawasaki 500 ninja (GPZ). I changed the fork rake to match the body of the moive bike but i found out that it is too much and i plan on chainging it back to stock rake. And modifie the body to fit the frame. Jeff

The Singleshock Phasar V50 (formerly known as 'Monty's') in mid-2010
- with Bodywork
- Bare from the Left
- Bare from the Right
- Five shots of HCS after reducing Trail to solve weave-on-braking problem - successfully, it seems.

I thought I'd be able to upload these so they'd be immediately displayed but it looks like you have to go through the attachments. Eddie McD

Here the Hossack front end it being held up while the first pieces of the frame are fitted between it and the engine. The rear suspension has been disconnected to allow the lump down to ride height un-laden. The engine is supported by four temporary legs with adjustable feet. These allow the lump to be levelled. The bottom of the sump is set level and the ground clearance set to the T-max quoted ride height. As shown the wheel base is exactly as per standard. You can see that there is room to reduce the wheelbase.

The new front end interferes with the standard location on the air-box. You can see is sitting on top of the engine. The radiator is unsupported - the lump of wood fell over.

There will be 2 new feet forward motorcycles in the USA soon! One will have an Akira style body and the other will have the body of a sail plane for weather protection and higher mpg.

My buddy, Jeff, is making the motorcycles and I (also named Jeff) will make the bodies.

Not much remains to complete the first FFM. A jig will allow the 2nd one to be made the exact same way.

These are modified Kawasaki 500 Ninja motorcycles.

Jeff in Tucson, Arizona USA

A lot has happened since my last post. The first thing that happened was that I got actual prices for the billet forks. It turns out that CNC is not that much cheaper in Thailand than in Europe. I guess that makes sense as the point of CNC is to remove most of the labour which is the element that is cheaper in Thailand.

After going through the designs with Royce Creasey and faced with an imminent departure from Thailand, I redesigned the forks from 50 x 25 x 3 mm rectangular section steel.

I have sent a fax to ISR to find out how much their hub center steering kit costs.

It can be seen at: http://www.isrbrakes.se/products/ns2/

If anyone has information about this kit, or a similar kit, please contact me to let me know.

Thank you!

Jeff Bales
Tucson, AZ USA
monsoon@comcast.net

The aerodynamic feet forward motorcycle that I plan to build, after completing the Manga style body for a client, can be seen here: http://goblinmotors.com/GoblinFFM.jpg

This build will take place in about 8-12 months after completing the body design for the client. The client will have an exact copy of the base feet forward motorcycle. I will retain the motorcycle as payment for the work and send the one-off Manga style body to him for attachment to his motorcycle. You've got to love swapping skill for skill!

It's not painted yet, but my GoblinAero commuter is a blast to drive! It holds 5 bags of groceries and the fairings really make it useful. I am an industrial designer that sculpts and molds my own items.

The video of the GoblinAero can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKyQOJmLttI

I will be sculpting a Japanese Manga style body soon for a friend, then I'll shape up an aerodynamic fairing for my own feet forward motorcycle. I'll post more when that project gets started in a few months.

Feet Forward is COOL!

Jeff Bales
Tucson, Arizona / USA