Sexy Dax

Funny how these tiny bikes can draw that much attention ... That one is a '77 model so it's a restorization (or a custoration if you like).

Welcome home

Greeny has been brought home which means yet another Channel crossing for our faithful trailer. Everything went rather smoothly expect for the bike's keys and papers. Both are supposed to arrive later this month by mail as a new V5 has to be requested and the only remaining key had been forgotten on the manager's desk.

Notice the nice British snow shovel

 A quick glance on the damages while waiting for the next ferry :

Project cannot start without a clearer view of which direction to take. Whether proper papers can be get will tell which direction to choose. So the only way to go for now is patience.

Wash me !

That's what the BMW was yelling in the garage. So when I read about that cleaning spray the other day in my favorite magazine, I decided I'd give it a go. 

Muc-off spray did win the best motorcycle cleaning product in the last Performance Bikes issue. Enough to make me want to try it and I must say I'm impressed with the result (given the very few efforts I threw in the cleaning process ...).

Maybe I'll explain a little later where these photos were shot ;)

SE Service's Slugger

Stellan Egeland is one hell of a motorcycle builder. After committing the Harrier and won custom bikes show prizes with it, he has now made the Slugger, which you could think is a turbo'ed Harrier (but in fact is not). Not only a nice way to save your crashed BMW HP2 Sport ...

I'm not a big turbo fan, but really dig bikes with a front hub suspension system ... well please don't mention the Yamaha GTS1000 as there are exceptions to that rule.

Custom Ducati (part 3)

If you're a big fan of modified Ducatis, you probably already know the spanish Ducati specialist Radical Ducati. 

These guys know what "custom build", "hand made" and "bespoke" mean from frame cutting and welding to engine management upgrade.

Liquid Boxer

As first pictures of what looks to be the next R1200GS show around the internet, there's a frenzy about the fact the boxer is becoming a liquid cooled engine for the first time. Which is not completely true in fact, but that's not the point here.

A couple of years ago a BMW engineer announced the boxer engine could not evolve any further if it didn't pass to water cooling. We were all told the boxer engines would not pass the coming Euro3 emission standards without these kind of developments. Since then, BMW has been releasing 2 generations of their big flat lump. The "hexhead" (like the one on the R1200S, for instance) is one of them and was still cooled with air through an oil radiator. Then last year came the overhead cams (on the R1200R, for instance), another change required to comply to Euro emission standards, but still that engine was oil-cooled.

Finally, 2012 means water cooling for the 1200cc boxer. Ok, now look closely at the picture and notice how cylinders have been rotated half a turn clockwise. The admission is now made from the top and the exhaust headers come out from the bottom just like the BMW R1, a prototype designed in 1992 with a BMW boxer based-engine that had liquid cooling and overhead cams (plus desmodromic valve control).