The first time the final version of Genesis has ever been snapped with a Carver. This was in the car park of The Ivy pub in Heddington, Wiltshire, home village of the late Malcolm Newell, co-creator of the Quasar. This was the venue for the final group stop of BruceFFest 2011.
Photo: Paul Blezard

Jen leaving the Bell Inn at Yatton Keynell in her Carver, followed by John Brennan in his MonoTracer. This was the venue for a convivial lunch on Sunday, before we moved on to Heddington. Photo: Paul Blezard

John Bruce (centre left, blue shirt) welcomes devoted FFers at the Craft Renaissance Centre near Usk as his chickens look on in wonder. Blue Voyager owner Graham Robb is standing next to him. To the right, Royce Creasey, with his back to the camera, is gesticulating while talking to Arthur Middleton and further away, to the left, are VF Quasar owner John Cooper and 'Hooray' Henry Mayhew. Photo: Bob Wreford (Bob's own 'KawaBanana' GPZ500 is in the foreground, right).

Getting the ComforTmax well cranked over on a roundabout in Surrey, 2005. The extended forward footrests were just starting to ground at this 'angle of dangle'. This photo was used in an article I wrote about FFs and the then-new Honda DN-01 in the January 2008 edition of Motorcycle Monthly. Compare and contrast with the Roland Sands stripped down Tmax530 shown at the 2012 Milan Show! http://www.EICMA.it/en/news/yamaha-tmax-hypermodified-by-roland-sands.htm PNB
Photo of Paul Blezard by Bernard Zieja.

After pre-MOT test ride. Ready for MOT with one or two faults to fix which may fail it. Engine power is superb and yet another Quasar that needs the roof raising as head height is tight! Last minute tweaks to the rear brake saved the day! Glad to hear "I can't find anything wrong with it" after all the work I did.

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.

Paul Blezard driving Roger Riedener's modified blue MonoTracer on the Brno Grand Prix circuit. July 2011.

Paul Blezard leans a Peraves Monotracer hard right into a turn on the Brno Grand Prix circuit at the annual Peraves training, July 2011.
Photo by Steve Anderson of Cycle World, with Blez's Canon EOS.

Some video shot from FJ, compiled by Ian Kew, during a trip to bewilder the Bristol branch of the institute of Advanced Motorcyclists - who turned up in cars...

John Brennan leaving Beaulieu, shortly after 'take-off' – raising his Monotracer's undercarriage.
Photo: © Paul Blezard

Beaulieu was the site of many an FF gathering in the noughties at the annual and late lamented Motorcycle World. See here: http://www.bikeweb.com/image/tid/31
The new Beaulieu Ride-In is a shadow of those events, but better than nothing, especially in the perfect weather of 26th June 2011.

Mark Verden died early this month, after a heart attack a few months after his sixtieth birthday. Mark was one of the FF proponents in Bristol in the late seventies who swapped Velecette Venoms for self-built FFs. Mark based his on the last, incomplete, set of Quasar parts liberated by Malcolm Newell after the Quasar project shut down. He was one of several people who demonstrated the Quasar safety performance, in his case by slamming one into the wall at Waterworks in the Isle of Man.

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

Interesting look at ultra-lightweight FF performance, and novel engineering solutions.

Here are some ambituous claims, based on believable performance and weight figures. Vapourware?

This shot of Koen's 1992 Ecomobile and Genesis at Zolder Clean Week, shows just how long the Eco is. Bear in mind that, at 72 inches, Genesis's wheelbase is some 8 inches more than that of the standard Burgman 650 chassis on which it's based. The Eco's wheelbase is about 112 inches.....Photo: Paul Blezard

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.

Craig Vetter in his prototype streamlined Helix with the tail removed. It's only held on with bungee straps and can be removed in about 30 seconds. (Compare and contrast with the other pix of the machine in this folder). PNB.
Photo by Paul Blezard March 2011

Paul Blezard in Craig Vetter's Honda Helix-based streamliner after a first ride in Carmel Valley. This shot was taken after we removed the seat padding to see what a lower position would look and feel like. Better, in my opinion!
(Compare my head height in this shot with the 'high seat' photo taken on Highway 1: http://www.bikeweb.com/node/2137
PNB Photo by Craig Vetter with Blez's pocket Olympus. 20th March 2011
2013 Update. Note how this temporary plastic bodywork has since been replaced with the much classier looking finished version, in silver.