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

I like soup. It is a great mid-day pick-up; or a restorative after a long day in the saddle. This year I sampled many euro-soups in our 3000 mile loop through 8 countries. I think it may have been a dubious French soup that upset my intestines for a week after the first night. Nevertheless, from Bouillon to BohnenSuppe and Goulash to Slovenian Jota and Spargeln Creme, we relished in our Gruppe Suppe (Phrase courtesy of Tom, this year’s organiser)

The lure of the Ring

Finally became a Quasar owner, 1978 Red Quasar, bought off Andy T. Engine is running well after Andy had a new distributor fitted. I'm going to look at sorting the dash out first and make a list of other jobs to look at later. Added more pictures after three weeks of tinkering.

August 2010, newly painted and with new electronic distributor. Now has driving lights on each fork. Now owned by Gavin Newell and I have the VF750 based mk2, July 2011.

This was the first time I saw a Quasar, 1980 when I was 14. I think the event was at the Police HQ in Preston and even had a Police version. The last pic is a group from the show.

(if he can use my name, I can use his title)
F-Roads

Ok this is the 'final' design - ready to go to the builders. The forks have been pared down to 3.6kg for the pair. They are 6061 – T6 alloy. FEA has been done assuming a 1 G stoppy with a 300kg all up weight all on the front wheel.

There's been a lot of discussion today (April 1st, 2009) about the relative merits of the Buell motor compared with the SV1000; the main concern with the Buell is the width of the primary and possibly cooling problems when it's faired.
The SV1000's only real problem is its length, though I am not too concerned about wheelbase; I'm sure it will still be shorter than a Quasar and by all accounts they go round corners very well.

So I thought I would post a few pics from back when I was designing the R1-based machine.