Here's some news to warm your heart!

TTXGP (AKA E-GP) is joining up with the FIM to form a 'unified' series. Other people just call it 'selling out' although I doubt the FIM paid anyone.

Question is, Will the FIM continue to apply the E-GP rules that permit FFs? Really, you only have to ask the question!

Although the FIM lifted the E-GP rules more or less complete (breaching my copyright)when they started 'TT zero', apparantly allowing FFs, they also left in their old rule about max. seat hump height (seat backs in English) of 150mm, outlawing FFs as defined.

With the t-max project slowing down and the prospect of another summer coming and going without an FF to ride – and that summer being in the south of France, I decided it was time to build something – anything (with a low COG and seat-back) – to get me on the road.

When we left Ireland and the truck came to take our stuff to France, I had been planning to sell the GPZ that I had been riding while the T-Max was off the road being FFed, but at the last minute there was room for it, so to France it came.

Hi All,

My name is Roger Dunkley, I live in Wellington, New Zealend and I have been building my enclosed motorcycle for about 3 years now. I have recently tested it at the closest racetrack, this was the first time I have been able to really test it out and I was very happy with the results, rewaching 174 km/h about half way down the main straight with no instability and getting to about 45 degrees of lean round the corners.

February 1987 article in Motorcycle Sport about the Steaming Mango, Gold Wing based, Phasar.

Strictly speaking, it's three FFs and a maxiscooter since the BMW C600Sport is only a potential FF.....
From Left to Right, Arthur Middleton and his VF500FF, PNB and the C600Sport, Peter Fouché and his newly-built GPZ500FF and Graham Robb in his Voyager.
The BMW clearly needs to have its seat lowered by a considerable amount.....PNB

Paul Blezard (left) and Monty Billington in the X-prize-winning all-electric 215bhp Monotracer known as MTE 79 at the Peraves training day in Tuggen, near Zurich in August 2012. Twist and go to 200mph! PNB
Photo: Paul Blezard archive

Graham Robb leaves the remains of the FF stand in his Voyager at the end of the Festival of 1,000 bikes at Mallory Park.
Strange to think that both the Eco and the Voyager are now well over 20 years old! Definitely classics, then! PNB
Photo: Paul Blezard 8/7/12

Andy Tribble's 1987 Peraves Ecomobile, driven by PNB, meets Colin Russell's red Voyager and Graham Robb's blue one with an incongruous pre-war AJS V-twin bringing up the rear. One thing the Eco and the AJS do have in common is a hand gear change! Messrs Russell (left) & Robb (with hat) are also in the pic.
Photo: Paul Blezard

On the last Saturday before the Festival of 1000 Bikes at Mallory Park, this is what the bike looked like. Naked and lying in the sun - a good way to enjoy summer in Provence.

What you can't see is the closed fuel tap. I found that on the main highway.

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

Paul Blezard riding a Gurney Alligator on the cover of The Rider's Digest magazine No.165, April 2012 issue. The photo was taken by Alex Gurney with PNB's Canon EOS at Ortega Canyon highway, Southern California in December 2011.
The article about the Gurneys, All American Racers and the Alligator, 'Adventures in LaLa Land' (Part 2) and indeed the whole magazine, can be downloaded for free from www.theridersdigest.co.uk
PNB

Here's a picture of the relevent bits of the basic (single clutch) Honad Linto(ish) layout. Double sided steel swing-arm, easy enough to modify to twin shocks and top wishbone, junking complex single shock under the seat. Radiator in wrong place, but small and there's enough room to put it under the heads, Yamaha style, once the catalyser has joined the rear suspension in the bin. Doesn't seem to be anything actually in the way of FF layout except clutch housing.

Paul Blezard testing the C600Sport on the launch in and around Madrid, Spain. March 2012. This photo, along with a 19 page report on the launch, can be seen in the August 2012 issue of The Rider's Digest, No.169, available to read on line, or download for free from: www.theridersdigest.co.uk. PNB

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

Alex Gurney riding his father Dan's original Alligator on the Ortega Highway, Southern California in December 2011. The Alligator has a small but useful seat back, but it's clear from this photo that Alex doesn't make any use of it at all when seriously 'scratching' in a turn. PNB
Photo: © Paul Blezard

BMW Motorrad's American chief designer, David Robb, sitting on the freshly-presented new C600Sport maxiscooter, (which is actually a 650), at the EICMA show in Milan, November 2011. The C600Sport is clearly aimed at Yamaha's Tmax; let's hope it's as easy to FF! Mr Robb has interesting FF experience of his own because he rode the very first K100 Ecomobile way back in the 1980s, after meeting Arnold Wagner at the Nurburgring. March 2012 Update. David Robb left BMW only a few weeks after this photo was taken, at the end of 2011, after a quarter of a century working for the German company.

Quasar bodyshells being created in Sussex. The two red ones on the left are mating, having already produced the white and blue ones on the right! PNB
Photo: Paul Blezard, Nov 2011