Project Greeny delayed

Project is the word of this year's last quarter. We're having too much of them and still are starting new ones almost every weeks. And the recent ones generally take precedence over the older and not-so-moving ones, which is the reason we're statting new ones by the way.

Anyway, as the Speed Triple's still waiting for its papers, it's become one of these not-so-moving projects, if not a completely stuck one. I've been assured last week they should arrive soon, but the bike's been sitting still for weeks now. Not done a single fix, not even a single part ordered, for once there's a project being treated with a bit of cautious.

The good point in the waiting is that I've been offered a bit of time to sit on the project and think about ways of sorting the bike out. And guess what ? Ideas and solutions are popping from all around the web, so the forks, panels, bars, paint and lights are departments where ways of improvement have already been found. Then comes another problem : choose which idea goes best with which solution ... Finally not that bad for a stuck project.

One good, one bad

I took these shots during our last ride. There's one nice :

And another one which is announcing a problem with the right fork seal :

Fortunately, the fork doesn't come into play in the damping process for the telelever fork system. One of the potential reason it's spitting oil has something to do with the numerous brake fluid bleeds. One other may simply be because it's 10 years old.

The ride

My good friend and I went to the Croix-en-Ternois round of the Pro Classic last week. We mostly took B roads where the R1100S excels so we rode fast mode. Weather was great if a bit hot and we just came on time to see the last race of the day involving the most exciting superbikes of the mid eighties / early nineties.
Below are few pics of the paddock : 

Key to Triumph

It's made its way by mail and it's finally there. The only remaining key for the Speed Triple 955i has arrived a couple of days ago just as Ken promised. That's a good point, but I'm still waiting for a proper V5 to come. Winter is not there yet, but project is already hibernating for more than a month now while these papers are being reclaimed for me.

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).