How bikes are built

Before the Kindle

These e-book readers are the coming thing, are they not?

Retro bikes 1

Came across a really cool 'retro' bike on Ebay that I hadn't heard of before.

A 1999 Suzuki ST 400 Tempter. Japanese home market bike not sold in the UK (why do they Japs keep all the cool bikes for themselves?), the engine looks similar to the 650 Savage custom that we got.

Just look how slim it is

Did a bit of looking around the Web and found a couple more pictures. This one (re)painted gold:

 Looks a bit like a mid 60s Ducati. And this one for sale in New Zealand with an aftermarket silencer that give it a more 60s look.

If any one is interested, the one in the top picture is on sale on British Ebay here.

I also found a 'walk round' on YouTube, the tank badges will confuse old codgers!

A couple more retros, this time new and for sale on Ebay:

A Skyteam Ace 125 Cafe Racer, looks a bit like a 60s Honda, and

A CPI Sprint 125, styled to look a bit like a BSA (check the tank badge!)


Both probably built in China, with all that that bring with it.

More retros later...........

Friday bike

Here's another bike that I found on the Web. There are a number of V-twins based on the Royal Enfield singles running around, but this one caught my eye not only because it looks really 'traditional', but also because the builder has put so much detail onto his website.
The 'Enfield Musket' (good pun there!) was built by Aniket Vardhan, an Indian living in the US. He 'officially' went to the US to study for a Masters in Industrial Design, but claims the real reason was that he loved the sound of Harley Davidsons!

He carved wooden patterns of his crankcase design, then found a company to cast them.

Just imagine making the pattern (on the left).

Looking at the finished bike just illustrates what a good designer and engineer Aniket is - I hope he got his Masters!

His website has lots of details of the bike's construction, along with pictures and videos. In this video, he explains the silencers he's fitted, then starts the bike so you can hear the superb sound it makes. Great stuff!!

Coupes Moto Légende 2012--Au-fil-des-allées

Found a gallery of pictures from the Coupes Moto Légende that we attended earlier this year. Click.

The gallery is in French, but the only things you need to know are 'Lancer le Diaporama' means 'start the slideshow', and 'Suivant' means 'next'.

Lots of very nice bikes, including this Vincent Black Lightning:

What a rare and exotic machine, so rare and exotic that Richard's going to sing a song about one. Take it away.....

Love how Loudon Wainwright III looks like he's falling asleep, and Suzanne Vega's face just says 'how are we going to follow that?'

Friday bike

Sometimes you find something interesting on the Web, and when you search further you find all sorts of unexpected goodies.
I found the picture below and thought 'that's this week's Friday bike', but when I searched further.....

Yes, that's a V 12 built from two Honda CBX 100 engines! Only information I had was that it was built by Andreas Georgeades, so Googling that brought up details of an extraordinary character.
Andreas was born in Greece, but grew up in South Africa where he became a successful racer in the early 60s. Winner of a bronze replica at the Isle of Man TT, he competed in the European Championship for some years before moving to Canada. There he continued racing, and built a race bike using a 600cc 4 cylinder Honda car engine. The engine was watercooled, but he converted it to aircooling by cutting the waterjacket off and adding fins! This was before Honda had released the CB750, so he probably had the only privately owned Honda 4 at the time.
He's obviously a man who wants 'more', and has (so far) built 3 Ferrari powered bikes.

Gulp!

 A remarkable man - successful racer, incredibly talented engineer, and probably a bit mad! Articles on him: here, here, here, and here.
I also found a video of the V12 going - just listen to that sound!

For every occasion.....