OT motorcycles

1981 Yamaha SX650 a real bone shaker called it my zip code bike as I would not travel outside my zip on it.

 

Clever!

 

Nobody else noticed.
@deathrowdave had a great idea starting this so we could post shovelheads and some stuff that was not able to be posted on the regular motorcycle thread. isn't working out well.

 

My last bike. Bought it new in 01 and tore it apart instantly. Big bore kit, bigger tank, bigger tire (240), lowered an inch all the way around, drag bars, hollow mufflers, chrome everything. Fast. Too fast. Scared me to keep it up in the power band.

126 HP, 4 valve heads, water cooled.

what a ride

 

My old Shovelhead....sold it.

 

My shovel

 

My daughter's boyfriend's shovel

 

Knuck at a cruise

 

My friend's shop recently burned, his dad had built the "Grand Dragon" back in 74, multi magazine feature bike, they are going to rebuild it.



Couple of his other bikes faired better, custom Buick and Merc not so much

 

Couple shots of my current shovelhead project. As you can see it has about the same wheelbase as my T bucket project.

 

Saw this rare bike at the LoneStarRoundup/person drove it there and it sat pretty much all day long!!

 

I love bikes! Fun thread hear mates. I had to give them up after a hearing loss took my vestibular system from me, otherwise I'd still be on one.

 

Another local oldie

 

HAMBer Plowboy

 

Sounds like it's "trike time" for you old fella........
I'm sure your talent for adding some shine and sparkle would go good on something like this....(take note of the engine)

 

Cool. Falthead and are they 40 ford front fenders?

 

Could be.....
It bugs me a bit that they are mounted backwards, but they might hang out too far the right way 'round.

 

Be cool if they were rear fenders (right way around) and passenger car tail lights in them. Maybe a 39 ford headlight up front. Ardun heads and a ScOT blower? Why not. Artillery wheels or wide 5's?

 

Go man go.
Make sure you do a build thread.........

 

I'm way more particular about motorcycles than I have any right to be.

My first impression about this was that I liked the lines of it, though the backwards fenders bug me too. Then I started noticing details which grate on a purely personal, idiosyncratic level, and they all involve perennial problems trike builders keep running into, which I haven't really been able to solve despite a lot of concerted inclining of the bean.

For instance, I don't like the way car engine installations tend to require at best long pull-back handlebars, at worst clunky parallelogram linkages. But, would it be possible to raise the headstock and move it back accordingly so it sits above the carb somewhere? That begins to suggest a frame design which has the engine cantilevered off a motor plate?

With the virtual demise of the larger air-cooled motorcycle I've gradually developed an aversion to seeing a radiator in front of a motorcycle engine. Now, I consider the car-engined thing a worthy challenge, and part of that is dealing with liquid cooling. Here, I'm wondering if a rear-mounted radiator might not have been useful?

I prefer — again quite arbitrarily — a trike to be compact and trim, narrower in the track than a car and shorter of wheelbase than a corresponding motorbike. The rear axle should sit somewhere around where the front of the rear tyre would have been had it been a bike? That would do two things: it would shift the proportions to where shorter rear fenders would be right, and it would shift weight rearwards — especially if combined with a rear radiator — taking weight off the front end and allowing a lighter, more delicate front tyre.

Somewhere in the process of mulling over a car-engined ride-on reverse trike for almost forty years (it began as a sort of cross between a Fad-T and a classic longbike) it occurred to me that a perfect transmission for such a thing exists: a foot-controlled full-manual automatic. Still entirely subjective, but a hand shifter doesn't feel right to me. Here is one iteration of that idea, '90s survival style and Jaguar-powered:

Of late, the concept has been morphing into a passive tilting vehicle, which is another of my obsessions.