Viewer Discretion Advised. Or, A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted.

I know Peter well. As well as you can really know Peter, anyway. He is a very book smart guy, but we have differing opinions on a lot of things.

Here in town is Fox Racing Shox, and being in the same industry as a healthy percentage of that organization with access and advice to the engineers and race techs for both bicycle and motorsport, the most valuable thing I've gleaned from them is that there is no bottom to the rabbit hole and it can always be (perceived as [?]) better. In my professional interactions with them, I realize that the things they lay awake at night about, I can't feel when push comes to shove. When it's pointed out to me, I sometimes can, but most of the time, there's a lot of "huh...ok" coming from me.

I feel like there was a real tipping point for the better when I installed the Racetech parts, and all the other fussing (oil changes, spring pressure on the shim stack, spring preload, etc) has gotten more and more marginal results for the amount of time spent. The chassis quickly becomes the weak link and it seems suspended weight and bushing bind is going to be much more of a factor than the 15th time I massage the shim stack. As is, I generally ride by myself or with folks on new bikes, and I do just fine and rarely feel my bike is holding me back. Almost always me. And I'd much rather go ride than stand at the mill or lathe trying to eek out the last of my 70 year old bike. That's just me though.
 
Awesome response. Thank you.

It's hard to learn all this stuff by myself by just research, riding, and testing. It's nice to have people around who go down those rabbit holes for you. You get to learn which paths are a waste of time without going down each of them yourself.... 😏 I still feel like I could do better if I had a real suspension expert to ask a series of questions.
 
o0norton0o said:
I still feel like I could do better if I had a real suspension expert to ask a series of questions.
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Modern, cutting edge suspension has left shim stacks for real-time variable valve stiffness, inertia valves, and tuned mass dampers. Modern mountain bikes have as advanced as anything else (available to the consumer) out there, and the chassis stiffness and friction is a big limiter. New dampers can only be capitalized on with better chassis design. Your damping valve can be super reactive, but if the shaft and seals it's running on can't stay concentric and parallel with the fork tubes, it doesn't matter, and that's not even taking into account bushing bind. As a total non-expert, I'd think if you want much better performance than the work you've done, look at replacing the 75 year old tech in the Roadholder chassis.

I rode my buddy's Ducati 1100 Supermotard again the other day, and there's just no way to get from this Point A to that Point B.

Peter loves nothing more than nerding out. Contact him!
 
t ingermanson said:
View attachment 84567

One of the things that spurred my action on this project was my giving up of road bicycling. I am in the business of making custom bicycles under the Black Cat Bicycles banner, and road riding has been a huge part of my life, but I had gone to the Emergency Room 4 times in five years, each with increasing drama and injuries, so I decided to hang up that helmet for good, or until I move somewhere where cyclists aren't treated as an inconvenience, to be battered for fun.

Road bicycles have never had great brakes, until disc brakes came around. I had gotten so used to brakes that really work with one finger that I just can't go back to "planning ahead", especially with the aggressive driving these days on the tiny roads where I live and ride. I had also gotten quite good at Honda forks over the years, so I added forks from a GL1000 and brakes from a mid-90s Ducati. Milled up some adapters, and we're off to the races!

View attachment 84570

View attachment 84569

View attachment 84568

Anyone who's been sucked into one these projects knows how many small projects there are, just to bolt stuff together. It's limitless.

Things are starting to come together though!

Fast Eddie said:
Nice fabrication work sir !
Click to expand...
The tacho from the first Suzuki RG250, is a dead ringer for the ones which were used on Italian racers of the 1950s.
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The position of the motor in the frame determines how fast the bike can be ridden around corners. It needs to be as far forward as possible.
 
t ingermanson said:
I purchased the plates from Dave Degens. He's built a Triton or two, so I reckon he knows where to put the motor.
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You have more than the required skills to make a set of plates yourself. So I assume you bought them precisely in order to buy Dave’s knowledge with regards to positioning etc ?
 
What somebody sells you does not necessarily mean it is as good as it can be. The rider adapts to the bike. If you are used to riding a Triton - there is a feeling it has when it is light in the front which will deter you from cornering fast. My friend's 650 Triton has 18 inch wheels and the motor one inch further back than my 500cc Triton which had 19 inch wheels and the motor as far forward as possible. When I rode his bike, it was nice and neutral in corners, but my 500cc Triton could be ridden much faster in corners. His bike was faster on the straights than mine. When I raced against him, it was always in Allpowers C grade races and there were Z900 Kawasakis there, so I did not usually lower the gearing on my bike. The one time I did it, I absolutely creamed the whole field for almost a whole lap, but got passed at the end of a straight by 3 bikes, then came into the next corner miles too fast behind them. I had to stand the bike up and run-off to avoid hitting them. My mate with the 650 Triton was upset - he did not know my bike was capable of cornering that fast. I used to choose where I was going to lose a race.
 
Every road racer should ride a 500cc Manx Norton at least once in their life - it is easy to believe they are just another bike and Geoff Duke was Superman. Very few people can grab a really big handful of throttle when they are only halfway through a corner. It is usually not the rider which is the problem.
 
acotrel said:
Every road racer should ride a 500cc Manx Norton at least once in their life - it is easy to believe they are just another bike and Geoff Duke was Superman. Very few people can grab a really big handful of throttle when they are only halfway through a corner. It is usually not the rider which is the problem.
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This is true.

I am fortunate to ride a (modern Molnar) Manx on the track.

Over the years I have ridden many track bikes and many featherbed incarnations and I really never thought a Manx could be that special. It is ‘just’ an aged design of 500 single in a ‘common-or-garden’ featherbed frame after all. Right?

Wrong! Frankly I am staggered how good a good Manx is. It is a very flattering machine. It’s still very mild mannered, it’s not a ruffian that bludgeons its way around. Its like a butler who, in his perfect King’s English, politely asks you after every bend ‘perhaps we might try a little faster next lap sir’? So I do. And it feels better. Repeat.

It doesn’t particularly stand out at any one thing.

And when I first rode it, I thought ‘yeah this is nice… but…’

But the more I’ve rode it, and the harder I push it (as asked by the butler), it just gets better and better and better.

An old friend of mine (sadly no longer with us RIP) Chris Watts had one, when I asked him what it’s like he paused, and said simply ‘it makes me a better rider’.

Which pretty much sums it up.

Viewer Discretion Advised. Or, A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted.

The Eagle Eyed will notice the change to single disc…
 
When I rode my mate's 500 Manx, it was an Calder Raceway where I had raced my 500cc Triton many times. The first time I ever rode the Triton there I could not get decent lap times, because in corners the bike did not feel right. It felt vague in corners which destroyed my confidence. I figured out, it was light in the front, so I made new engine plates and moved the motor as far forward as possible. The bike could then be ridden extremely fast in corners. When I rode the Manx, the main difference was in how hard it could be gassed while in corners because it oversteered. A bike which oversteers and is light in the front is dangerous. - Losing the front in a corner means a big crash. Manx Nortons were created to race on the IOM where there are more long roads than tight corners, so megaphone exhausts can give an advantage. On tight circuits megaphone exhausts make corners become more difficult. My Seeley 850 was built based on my experience of racing my500cc Triton, my mate's 650cc Triton and my other mate's 500cc Manx. The motor is as far forward as possible, and it has a 2 into 1 exhaust which gives extremely smooth power delivery. Nobody can ever beat me around the corners on Winton Raceway, so slower down the straights does not matter. A lot depends on the ratio of corners to straights. If it is 50-50 - the Seeley is excellent. Phillip Island might be different - the speeds in the corners might be scary. Mount Gambier circuit is more fun than Winton. It is almost all corners. One of my fears on Winton was always about hitting other bikes in corners.
 
That Manx I rode was ex-Ginger Molloy. My friend had bought it in New Zealand. He was a racing car driver and had ridden motorcycles around Europe, and on the IOM as a tourist. He was at Winton with myself and another friend. At the time we had been racing in Allpowers C grade against 1970s Honda CB750s, and H2 and Z900 Kawasakis. Car guys do not know anything about motorcycle racing. The mate with the Manx tried to keep-up with us. There was only one long straight on the circuit. There was a photo of him on the Manx - the front wheel was turned and there was smoke coming off the front tyre where it touched the road. He had about a 2 inch section broken out of his collar bone. We got him fixed up a bit in hospital, took him home to his wife and got out of there before she could have piece of us. With motorcycles - all is OK, until it is not. There was a comment about fork yokes in a post on this forum- in effect 'as long as you are in the ball park, everything is OK' - wrong advice. -A problem with the steering geometry can appear suddenly under only one set of circumstances and crash you. When it happened with my Seeley850, my mate had already experienced it, and it caught me at exactly the same place on the circuit. When I turned the power on again to crash the bike on the grass, it came out of its problem. It all has to do with addition of vectors - the torque vector of the front wheel is huge and goes straight through the centre of the wheel. The size of the trail is critical. That vector can chuck you down the road with ease.
 

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