Who is 'Dave Taylor' re Dave Taylor head steady

I've seen a lot written about the Dave Taylor head steady.

Purely for my own curiosities sake, can someone please enlighten me as to who is / was Dave Taylor and how / why he came to 'invent' his head steady?

I have no clue who he is but I assume he can be contacted through the various direct web sites that sell his head steady like Commando Specialties?

but why not a positive plug for his rod linkage head steady while I am it, I think it is great.

I installed his head steady on my 73 850 about five years ago and I could immediately feel the difference in how the bike felt it was on rails compared to the stock rubber donuts head steady.
His, and other rod linkage set ups allow the motor to move fore and aft and up and down but not side to side at the top mount.

I can see that these steadies may need a little grease or oil on the ball linkage part, and maybe an occassional part replacement from wear through time, as Dave's appears a little less robustly built than subsequent efforts I have seen. Regardless, I like his unit a lot!

Fast Eddie wrote;

can someone please enlighten me as to who is / was Dave Taylor and how / why he came to 'invent' his head steady?

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Hello Nigel,
Dave Taylor is the very same "cash" on this forum whom you appear to have sold your PWK carbs to in January. He hasn't posted much for a year or so, and so I'm glad to see he still appears to be "upright."

I believe he lives quite close to RGM's premises in Cumbria, and also had a hand in designing the straight through "black caps," if I recall correctly. I can only speculate why he invented his head steady.......because it stops the motor moving laterally when cornering :?:

I have one of his head steadys on my bike. I'm pleased with it although I think Jim Comstocks head steady looks pretty good as well. When I had a Norvil headsteady, I found it very fiddly to set up.

Dave Taylor is the very same "cash" on this forum...

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+1 -- and I might add ,a super nice guy, with some really good " back in the day" Norton and motorcycle stories from his youth.

Brian Tryee was the 1st to try a front rod helms joint link to successfully tame Calif. freeway rain groove wondering. Then Bob Patten did some geometry and math to come up with the rear link to stifle-tame the rear patch pivoting on rear iso to slap the front iso gap & forks silly plus ties frame and cradle together better so less twist/release from road and pilot loads. Some years in between these two Dave said he'd designed his head steady but feared it would transmit vibes so never made one. I came on scene '01 via Tom Davenport {Phantom Oiler} intro to Bob and his link reasoning and the loads involved so put on a rear similar to Bob's and a front similar to Brian's and made my own top link and reported no vibes to Brit Iron and NOC lists where Dave hung out for years and it prompted him to put into production. There is bad ju ju lurking w/o a head steady of some sort and a short fairly slow ride w/o one is best way to understand what led to the thoughts behind up graded head steady designs. Some have worried the tube clamps would crush tubes but so far not reports of it. There are reports of any the exposed helms joints wearing out before 10,000 so consider sealed type or keep em grease covered. Bob Patton has the most insights of the most important handling behavior physics of a Commando I've been mentored by. Herb Becker is also onto the same reasoning track but by a different swash plate path.

Steve, the ju ju is as bad as your imagination..... :shock:

Of course any number of head steady designs are better than stock.....the only thing that can have had going for it is cost...a piece of bent steel plate and a couple of exhaust rubbers....but believe it or not a few of us raced them without drama....(well too much)

The long sweep of Coram at Snetterton tested it pretty well.....best technique was to lay it down till the rearsets scraped and relax your grip on the bars and let them flap a little if they wanted....they did....and with it the front 3.60 TT100 would not always be in contact with the tarmac, but keep the power in and let it go.....a lot of handling 'problems' can be relieved with a gentle touch....

Wish I was young enough to have the faith to do that again! But it worked. I never fell off the bike and earned my National licence in 6 race meetings (the minimum possible at the time) and even got my name in the Motorcycle News a couple of times.