TOUGH MOTORWORKS DRAGSTAR 650

If you’re going to name your bike building brand after your hometown, make sure it’s a good one. Lewis Reid lives in Tough, Aberdeenshire. And no, I’m not kidding. So here you have Tough Motorworks and their Yamaha 650 Dragstar.

Lewis met Andy through their respective kids being students at the local school, Tough Primary. Just gets better doesn’t it! Sorry Lewis and Andy, back to the story. Two grown up dudes, pushing back against the mainstream with a shared interest in music. Andy used to be in a punk band and had a lo-fi recording studio den set up in his garden, so the pair got together, laid down some tracks and made CD of their efforts. Polydor or EMI didn’t come knocking so Lewis thought he’d repay his new mate with a skills swap and put some work into a tired old Dragstar in the back of Andy’s garage.

A couple of hours a week of beer fuelled fettling wasn’t going to make the deadline of the brief Scottish summer, sometimes known as the week where it rains less and the skies are a very light grey. Lewis decided to take the plunge and rely on his spannering skills full time, using Andy’s bike as the guinea pig. Having owned wartime Harleys and Indians Lewis knew the stylistic route he wanted to head down.

As the mass produced Japanese plastic and cast parts were removed from the donor the vision became clearer and Lewis started to warm to Yamaha’s faux-Harley. Dust covered parts on shelves started whispering “fit me, fit me” and before he knew it 3 weeks of all nighters and one 36 hour day had passed.

The two-into-one muffler was mated to the stock exhaust but to give the impression of a fatter pipe, sections of another exhaust have been slid over the original and wrapped. This saved much needed budget and time tinkering with the carb.

The bars are in fact two pairs welded together, one of which started life as Arlen Ness Ape Hangers, with ally bar end plugs turned by mate Nigel. The step up from 7/8″ to 1″ meant clutch and brake lever housing’s needed reworking, or rasping and filing in this case.

Wiring is routed through the super-long bars to keep things tidy at the front whilst the electrickery further back hides in a cigar tin, donated by neighbour Irene. Apparently there’s a doll’s head in there to keep the CDI unit and starter relay away from the Scottish weather. If you think you’ve built a bike on a budget, think again until you’ve used your own kid’s toys.

Rattle can paint job and homemade graphics of the owner on the tank, why the heck not. Let’s hope Andy feels the same.

Again, this is the spirit of The Bike Shed through and through. Lewis converted his own shed, persuaded someone to give him a donor bike, abandoned his family (we don’t advocate this part), worked night and day with passion and dedication to the dream. Andy was over the moon and loves his ‘new’ bike, a roaring success.

There was a lot more to this story that unfortunately we didn’t have time for but drop Lewis an email if you want to hear the rest or have a build in mind. Tough Motorworks is up and running, awaiting your donor. toughmototworks@gmail.com

via The Bike Shed

BISHOP BY BANDIT 9

Daryl from Bandit 9 has quickly earned himself some hefty respect throughout the custom motorcycle scene, he consistently turns out motorcycles that catch the eye so forcefully they’ll almost snap your neck.

He’s recently shifted their primary focus to limited edition production runs, the first was EVE, a bike we featured here on Silodrome in its concept phase and then again after it had been built. 9 of them were made and shipped to an impressive variety of clientele, including royalty, and now Daryl is switching his focus to the next limited edition production motorcycle – Bishop.

Bishop is based on the versatile Honda Super Sport platform, a single cylinder, air cooled motorcycle that’s almost as ubiquitous as the bicycle on the streets of South East Asia. The team at bandit 9 will be stripping the donor bike back and mechanically sorting it out, before hand-building a custom aluminium unibody, fitting inverted forks up front and new matching springs at the rear. The electricals and lights are all to be replaced with low-key units and the customer will be able to specify oak, teak or walnut for the panelling on the side of the fuel tank.

If you’d like to order one you’ll need to click here to message Bandit 9, the cost is going to be between $6,400 and $6,800 USD depending on specification.

Rallye Deutschland 2004 : une édition mémorable / a Rallye Deutschland to remember!

Troisième victoire d’affilée pour Sébastien Loeb et Citroën/Michelin à Trèves obtenue face à un tenace François Duval, des conditions météos désastreuses, de nombreuses sorties de route et cinq membres d’équipages officiels à l’hôpital… Il y a dix ans, l’ADAC Rallye Deutschland fut très mouvementé.

Comme cette année, l’ADAC Rallye Deutschland 2004 était le premier rallye asphalte de la saison. Ce fut aussi le premier sur cette surface sans les « ouvreurs », aujourd’hui de nouveau autorisés sur asphalte. Leur interdiction avait été pointée du doigt dans de nombreux accidents.

Le double champion du monde Marcus Grönholm avait crashé sa Peugeot 307 WRC après quelques mètres de course dans l’ES1, très vite imité par « tarmac expert » Gilles Panizzi (Mitsubishi) et l’Espagnol Dani Sola (Ford). Puis Petter Solberg avait connu son plus sérieux accident dans le camp militaire de Baumholder. Un « hinkelstein » avait envoyé sa Subaru Impreza dans une impressionnante série de tonneaux.

« Un grand fracas », se souvient un collègue présent sur les lieux de l’accident. « On entendait la Subaru au départ. Petter montait les rapports jusqu’à un léger droite. Entre les arbres, on a vu passer la Subaru à grande vitesse, peut-être en 6^e, avant un gauche-referme et un autre gauche en 5^e derrière les arbres. On ne la voyait plus, puis on a entendu un énorme bang et le bruit de multiples impacts et du métal frottant l’asphalte. Petter n’a jamais franchi le gauche en 5^e où nous étions… »

Son copilote Phil Mills avait été transporté à l’hôpital pour des examens, où il avait rejoint les frères Panizzi, Sola et son copilote Xavier Amigo. Seul Mills était resté la nuit suivante.

Les conditions étaient difficiles et changeantes le 2^e jour et les nouvelles restrictions de pneumatiques avaient compliqué les choix. Le retaillage était alors autorisé et permettait de nombreuses combinaisons.

Dans ces conditions précaires, François Duval s’était révélé. Le jeune pilote Ford avait pris la tête et remporté cinq spéciales, soit deux de moins que Sébastien Loeb qui avait dû attaquer fort pour signer un « hat-trick » en Allemagne. Le pilote Citroën était constamment sous la pression du Belge qui fut retardé par quelques soucis mécaniques. Son copilote, Stéphane Prévot, avait ensuite avoué avoir quitté la route à au moins dix reprises !

Au final, Duval avait dû s’incliner pour une trentaine de secondes, alors que Carlos Sainz complétait le podium sur sa Citroën Xsara WRC. Cette victoire avait quasiment assuré Seb Loeb du titre 2004.

Mikko Hirvonen (8^e, Subaru) est le seul pilote officiel encore en activité cette année. Ses anciens adversaires sont soit à la retraite, comme François Duval qui dirige le garage familial, Marcus Grönholm qui gère un centre commercial ou Gilles Panizzi qui a ouvert un magasin de cycles, soit courent dans d’autres disciplines comme Petter Solberg en Rallycross, Sébastien Loeb en WTCC…

Germany’s round of the 2004 World Rally Championship was a dramatic affair. Loeb made it three wins in a row for Citroën/Michelin in Trier, but came under big pressure from Ford’s François Duval as many of the stars crashed in the horrendous conditions. Five works crew-members ended their Deutschland weekend in hospital.

The 2004 Rallye Deutschland was the first ‘clear’ asphalt contest of the season. It was also the first sealed-surface event to take place after the championship’s ban on the use of ‘gravel crews’, now reinstated and known as ‘safety crews’. Their absence was blamed for the high number of accidents.

Two-time world champion Marcus Grönholm crashed his Peugeot 307 WRC just metres after the start of SS1, and he was later imitated by Mitsubishi’s Gilles Panizzi and Dani Sola. However, Petter Solberg’s argument with one of the rally’s infamous hinkelstein concrete blocks is remembered as one of the scariest accidents in WRC history.

“It was a mostly auditory experience,” recalls a colleague who was spectating on the Baumholder military ranges. “We heard him off the start and flat up the gears through a slight right. Between trees, we caught a glimpse of his Subaru travelling at speed, probably in sixth, heading for a kink-left before something like a five-left. After that, the car was concealed by trees. The next thing we heard was a massive bang and sounds of multiple impact and creasing metalwork. Petter never made it to the five-left where we were standing...”

Co-driver Phil Mills was taken for checks in hospital where he joined the Panizzi brothers, Sola and the latter’s co-driver Xavier Amigo. Only Mills was retained overnight.

Conditions were notably bad and unpredictable on Day 2 and newly-introduced restrictions made tyre calls highly complex. Unlike today, the ‘re-cutting’ of tread patterns was still permitted, so there were plenty of possible permutations and it was vital to get choices right.

One driver who revelled in the mud and rain was Ford youngster François Duval who led early on and eventually claimed five stages, just two fewer than Loeb who was pushing for a Rallye Deutschland hat-trick. The Frenchman came under constant pressure from his challenger who might have pressed even harder had he not been delayed by mechanical trouble. Meanwhile, the Belgian’s co-driver Stéphane Prévot reported having left the road at least 10 times!

In the end, Duval’s bid failed by half-a-minute, while Citroën’s Carlos Sainz finished on the podium, a further 40s back. Loeb’s victory practically settled the fight for the 2004 world title.

Mikko Hirvonen (8^th, Subaru) was the only front-runner who is still active in the WRC. His comrades of the day have since either retired or moved onto other disciplines. Duval, for example, now spends most of his time today running the family garage business, but still occasionally competes in rallies and rallycross events.

panthère