ICONIC HONDA MOTORCYCLES – THE EBAY COLLECTION

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the Honda Motor Company on the evolution of motorcycles throughout the 20th Century, from the Cub, to the Monkey, to the Gold Wing, to the CB750 – Honda have created paradigm shifting motorcycles in almost every possible genre, or in the case of the CB750, actually created a new genre.

Of all the motorcycles in this particular Collection, the one that grabs attention immediately is the original 1969 CB750 prototype that’s currently in the midst of a bidding war with the current bid at over $120,000 USD. This motorcycle is one of just 4 built before the production line officially began ticking over, Honda engineers hand-machined the parts and often found themselves having to design elements of the drive-train on the fly.

This prototype was shipped to the USA with its 3 siblings and used to display the upcoming production bike’s features, Honda was bearish on the demand they anticipated for the model but allowing the dealers to have some hands on time with the all-new CB750 led to a groundswell of interest behind the bike. Of course, the rest is history. The Honda CB750 would go on to dominate the large capacity sports bike class for a over decade, it was so revolutionary they created a new term just to describe it – they called it the “super bike”.

Click here to see the prototype Honda CB750 and the other motorcycles in the new Iconic Honda Motorcycles – The eBay Collection.

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TURBO YAMAHA SALT FLAT RACER BY SUPER RAT

Madness takes many forms. For some it’s a slow descent into oblivion, characterised by increasingly erratic behaviour, illogical obsessions and a fondness for incoherent mumblings about the Illuminati. For others it’s a project to handbuild a turbo-charged salt flat racer from the remnants of a 450cc dirt bike.

If I ever lose my wits I can only hope that I’m afflicted with that latter form of madness.

The project began in February 2013 when a friend of Carl Bjorklund approached him with a 2004 Yamaha WR450F enduro that he wanted converted into a street-legal supermoto. The project sounded simple enough, Washington state law allows off road bikes to be legalised so long as they’re fitted with lights and a horn, so with this in mind Carl and the team at Super Rat Motorcycles set to work.

As it happens, Carl’s shop neighbour is a man named Tim Clossey, Tim was loosely described as a chemical engineer who’s smarter than 10 men – when not engineering chemicals, Tim would daydream about going to the Bonneville salt flats and breaking world records.

As the Super Rat Yamaha WR450F build began, Tim would come over and offer help, before long the team had forgotten their original directive and decided to build a Bonneville streamliner – then take her out to the salt and see how fast she’d go. At some point early in the project, the team decided that turning a dirt bike into a streamliner wasn’t quite challenging enough, so over some beer it was unanimously decided to bolt an old turbo charger onto the carburettor.

Anyone who’s ever tried to bolt a turbo onto an engine that wasn’t designed for it will quickly attest that it’s an undertaking only slightly less ambitious that creating a cold fusion reactor using nothing but a polystyrene coffee cup, jello and a slinky.

A bush league dyno was built in the corner of the garage to test the new forced induction engine and tune the carburettor, while this was being done Car set about creating the eye-catching fairing. He used cardpaper, scissors, masking tape and paste to create a core design that he liked, the aim was to give the bike an attacking, lunging look when viewed from the side, whilst also offering a significant reduction in aerodynamic drag.

An entirely new exhaust had to be built to feed the turbo, so Carl created a new stainless steel unit that passed through the turbine under the seat, then exited on the righthand side. The front suspension was rebuilt using a pair of Marzocchi Forks from a pit bike combined with parts from the original Yamaha forks, I’ve never heard of this being done before but it performed at Bonneville without a hitch.

Super Rat couldn’t find any sponsors for their new salt flat racer so their friend Paul Haukaas made one up and painted it on either side of the bike along with the engine size and class name (MPS BG 500cc). Funnily enough, once they arrived in Bonneville they met the team from XS Energy Drinks who gave them a few cases of their product and some gear, apparently the drinks were a godsend during the long nights spent trying to get the carburettor to play nice with the turbo.

The terrible weather conditions at Bonneville in 2013 played havoc with the entire field of entrants, Super Rat were only allowed 6 timed runs as a result, which was barely enough for shakedown testing. The best run they managed was just over 100mph but keeping the fuel pressure above the turbo boost pressure needed more time to resolve than they had available.

Super Rat are now back in their workshop building a fuel injection system and hooking up an intercooler to their handbuilt streamliner, they’ll be back at Bonneville in 2014 with the bit between their teeth and the 500cc world record in their sights.

Click here to visit Super Rat Motorcycles.

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1915 INDIAN BOARD TRACK BIKE BY CRAIG KITZMANN

This 1915 Indian Board Tracker might look a little bit like nothing you’ve ever seen before, that’s largely due to the fact that it’s a 3D model and not a real bike. Yet. It is, however, the exact sort of thing that makes me wish for a significant acceleration in the development and adoption of 3D printers.

The bike started out as a project assigned to Craig Kitzmann by his professor at San Jose State University, they were given the topic of early board track racing and asked to create a 3D model representing the era. Craig quickly fell in love with the men and machines and after some work in Maya, Photoshop and Mudbox he created the remarkable bike you see here.

Rather brilliantly, he also crafted a back story for the bike, to explain its unique foot-steering mechanism and hand throttle – I’ve added it below in full.

Discovered via the always wonderful - MegaDeluxe

So this model was our first project in my last class at San Jose State. We were asked to do research on 1910-1920′s board track racing and re-create one of the bikes from that era. What came out of it was a new found love for board track racing bikes and their riders. The insane stories and crazy pictures that we came across were so amazing. It hooked us all in. The first concepts I created was a straight up 1915 Indian board track racing bike with a V-twin motor. I was happy with modeling it out right but the instructors wanted to see us push it more. The idea was that anyone could model from some pictures but not everyone can inject a story and artistry into it.
 
So I went back to the drawing board and started some quick iterations to explore interesting silhouettes. I came to a silhouette close to what the final version is now. I also found that I was subliminally drawing inspiration from work that Daniel Simon had created. I then needed to figure out how the rider would steer the bike. I developed a pulley system that can run from the front to the riders feet. I then asked well why would he need to drive with his feet? I then thought of the story of a guy who was a rum runner at the time. He would ride his Indian in and out of the streets while avoiding the police. At one point he took a nasty spill and destroyed his bike and lost his left arm. Instead of being defeated he salvaged the parts from the wreck and created a new frame and driving mechanism. He now wears a brace around his chest that can hook into the left side and uses his right arm to grip and throttle.
 
The model was created in a program called Maya, it was textured in Mudbox and Photoshop and rendered in Mental Ray. I tried to stay true to the original design and engineering but I’m sure any board track racing enthusiast could spot some potential problems.

Craig Kitzmann

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BRISKO GARAGE XV 750 TST

Stefano Briscolini is 35 and was born in Urbino in Italy, growing up in Rome before he moved to Milan where he works in Computing by day and as a Personal Trainer in the evenings, but despite the busy schedule his passion for engines means he makes plenty of time to spend in his garage. He even sleeps there on occasion, and he calls it his second home, so when it came to giving his workshop a name, it was to be Brisko Garage, Officina d’arte Meccanica (“Workshop of mechanical art” )

The garage came into being in Feb 2012 and was soon crowded with bikes from the 70s and 80s,; a 1982 XJ 900, a 1983 CB 750… And this custom 1983 XV 750 Virago. Stefano tells us more… “Virago, says Wikipedia, is the word often used to describe a woman whose aspect and especially the way of thinking and acting, has significant traits of a man. I’ve done nothing else but matching the nature of my bike to my name, with a massive injection of testosterone. Hence the name of the bike: TST.”

“One year work in my garage and almost everything handmade personally, with the only exception of cutting the forks, welding the most delicate parts and painting the bodywork.”

The modified frame and wheels have been powdercoated while the tank was sandblasted and painted in clearcoat for protection. The forks have been shortened by 10cm and use heavier oil. A Suzuki Bandit mono-shock takes care of soaking up the bumps at the rear, but it is cleverly coupled with a lateral Kawasaki shock, mounted without it’s spring, to handle the return. We have no idea how well this might work, but it sounds very clever and looks different.

The clips-ons are custom items. A Yamaha R6 donated the brake master cylinder and clutch lever while Ducati offered up the steering damper. A Lithium Ion battery is hidden under the tank and the electrics have been moved under the seat. The stand-out subframe has been handmade, as was the leather seat, with the rear light housed in the aluminum custom tail. More aluminium has been hand-bashed into a numberplate holder with integrated bullet-style indicators.

Conical air filters suck in the air while burnt gases exit through a custom made exhaust with custom open mufflers. Credit for the welding goes to Olisald, made by Master Olivari (Melegnano). The painting is by GMG (Caselle, Lurani – Lodi).

It’s certainly no clone of any other XV we’ve seen out there. Most pay more than a nod of tribute to Docs’ Chops or Classified etc, but this is a one-off, with it’s Meccano style rear end and steam-punk rear shock setup, complemented perfectly by the raw metal tank and drop bars with brown grips. Thanks for Stefano his story and the photos. …See more on his facebook HERE.