Beezerpost 42

Finally ready to ride, I bought the bike back home today and plan to go out for a couple of hours tomorrow to see how it goes.

I went to collect it from Dads on Friday but a last minute check revealed that the rear box on the silencer had been placed too close to the rear shock and under load it was touching the spring.

We therefore had to adjust things so the front mounting bracket was removed and moved forwards and the rear one was removed and a nice alloy clamp was made to stiffen up the mounting point at the rear (see pic).

The other picture is the modified air filter cover. As I was concerned that it wouldn't breathe well enough with the cover on, we decided to drill holes in the closed end to improve air flow and also some holes were drilled along the bottom to allow water to escape if it were to get in.

I will report on how it performs tomorrow.

Beezerpost 41

Here are a couple of pictures of the bike as it stands this evening. There are a couple of bits and bobs still to do (tweaking the chain guard to make a bit more room for the back wheel with the new silencer taking up some space, tweaking the kick starter to clear the slightly wider footrests) but it is pretty much there and ready to go and ride - I cant wait!

Beezerpost 40

A lot of action on the bike front today....

Firstly, thanks to Terry Millichap for turning the wheels round so quickly. We now have freshly built wheels with the old hubs machined down and powder coated black and built up with stainless spokes.

Secondly, Dad has done a fine modification to lower the rear brake pedal and fit the new Talon footrests

This evening we have put the tyres on and dropped the wheels in, put some oil in and it has had its first run with the new exhaust on.

Of course it is too early to give a proper report but in the short run up and down the road it certainly runs quieter than with the old silencer and feels like it has lost none of its punch off the bottom end - all looks very promising and I plan to take it over the practice sections at the farm at some point over the weekend however first it needs a quick MOT so it's still with Dad as there is a classic bike friendly MOT station nearby!

Beezerpost 39

Things are coming along nicely and the bike should be ready to test at some point over the bank holiday weekend.

The exhaust is finished and fitted. I am pleased with how it has gone on to the frame and looks almost like it was designed to fit the bike as the front box fits nicely into the space next to the carb.

The oil filter has been pushed back further under the seat. Another right angled connector has allowed for this and also provides a better route for the oil pipe.

I have mentioned before that I had some concerns about the air filter and its vulnerability to the elements. Al Ussher had mentioned on my guestbook that back in the day people had adapted metal saucepans to provide a shroud around the filter and this got me thinking that there must be something similar out there to do this job. A little internet searching revealed that minibikes use similar filters and at muddy events they use filter covers for just that purpose. A few calls later and a new K&N filter arrived with its own cover that looks like it will do the job.

We will have to do some testing to make sure that enough air gets to the filter (we may need to drill a few holes in it to improve air flow but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. If it works then it removes the need to try and shoe horn an airbox in the remaining space under the seat.

Also this week I have acquired a pair of Talon footrests that need to be milled down slightly to fit the frame and Dad is also going to do a modification on the rear brake pedal as it is a little high at the moment.

Beezerpost 38

A little more progress today with the exhaust set in place and the front pipe tacked along with locations and brackets prepared for welding. It will be off to Ian Bullock for welding up on Thursday (Thanks in advance for helping out Bully!!).

Also today the oil filter has found a home under the seat which should keep it tucked up out of the way and far less intrusive than the old one (in fact it may even leave sufficient space to think about a small air box behind the carb.

Pictures are of today's progress. I am pleased that the exhaust has fitted into the space so well and doesn't look out of place.

Beezerpost 37

I left my bike at Dad's after the trial on Saturday with my shopping list that included the work on the wheels, the exhaust and the oil filter.

He's been a busy boy today already as when I spoke to him tonight I discovered that the wheels have been stripped, the machining done on the hubs and already they are in the queue at Redditch Powdercoating to be finished in a nice shiny black colour. (see the picture of the hubs before and after machining above)

They should be back by the end of the week then they will go to Terry Millichap for building into stainless spokes.

Work has also begun on the exhaust and the hole has been cut in the front box and the mounting brackets and front connecting pipe tacked in place ready for welding.

Eventpost 54 - Sammy Miller Series Round 2 - Harry Perrey Trial, Clee Hill

Today was the second round of the Sammy Miller Series held around the Clee Hill area of Shropshire.

The weather was fantastic and even without the trial is was a superb day for riding bikes around the Shropshire countryside.

The trial was held over 30 sections which were mostly held in rocky streams and gullies and the odd bit of woodland. The sections were set out on the easy side but consisted of plenty of challenges that could easily take marks.

I started off steadily to be clean after the first 2 groups then we met some more slippery sections in Silvington Wood where mud and rocks combined to make the going quite tricky. I had a dab on section 9 then on section 10 a difficult set of muddy slots followed by a rocky gully up a steep bank I cleaned the difficult early part of the section then getting ready for the rocky gully up to the ends cards I stalled the bike for a silly 5 when a very good clean was definitely on the cards. This was followed by another dab on section 11 in Starvecrow.

I then got my head down and managed a string of cleans which started to make the 7 marks quite reasonable once again. I stayed on 7 right up to about section 24 in the penultimate group, a double sub with an exit that looked so simple that I didn't even bother to walk it. I rode the section for clean then got to the top of the bank and headed for the ends cards but missed a gate and another stupid 5 was on the card!

A dab and a 2 in the last group at Bedlam finished the day on 15 which I think will be a long way off the mark, however I take encouragement from the fact that I actually only lost 5 marks through riding the sections which I feel was a pretty steady ride and the actual score of 15 didn't really reflect the way I rode.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and yet again the bike didn't miss a beat all day (I am pretty sure that even the stall was my fault as I normally clutch it and clear the engine in sections where required and on that occasion I think I was just not concentrating enough on what I was doing).

The photos are all from today and I will post results as soon as I get them (not holding my breath though as I would imagine a number of riders would have been on low single figure scores.

Results just in......

2 Stroke Class
1. Russell Jones 5
2. Peter Gaunt 6
3. Jim Pickering 8
4. Chris Denney 10
5. Brad Jones 13
6. Peter Salt 23

Unit Construction
1. Jonathan Souch 7
2. barry Stephens 8
3. Keith Gardner 9
4. Gary Hawkins 15
5. Gerry Minshall 36

Pre Unit/British Replica's
1. Davy Morewood 3
2. Duncan McDonald 4
3. Martyn Wilmore 6
4. Mick Grant 11
5. Dave Dawson 15
6. Dave Emmott 16

Beezerpost 36

This weekend I am riding the Harry Perrey Trial which is the 2nd round of the Sammy Miller series. I will again be riding in the British Replica's class which includes the pre unit bikes that wish to ride the hard route at the event so the entry looks quite competitive with the likes of Wilmore, Grant, McDonald and Morewood all out on their trick Arials.

After this weekend it will be an opportunity to address a couple of things that I have noticed that need a bit of attention.

1. The bike is pretty loud (loud enough to give me a headache after 10 mins riding it on the road - I'm honestly thinking of ear plugs this weekend!) - there are a couple of solutions here..... to go back to Steve Gagg and try another approach with the silencer, to add a final silencer and also to try something different. I don't want to change the power delivery as i am quite happy with how it performs, so before anything else I have managed to get hold of a stainless steel silencer from a Seeley Honda and I think it will fit quite well with little modification. As it was pretty inexpensive I think it is worth a try before doing anything else. It arrived today and is a nice job so it will be interesting to see how it works

2. I have never really liked the bulky oil filter that we have been using so I have bitten the bullet and bought a nice small unit from D&C Classic Motorcycles called 'the unique oil filtration system' this fits in line on the return pipe and should fit neatly out of the way either under the engine or even up under the tank (see picture)

3. Following the bad weather I got quite a bit of road salt on the wheels transporting the bike around. As a result the galvanised spokes became pretty marked and don't look great. I am therefore planning to have the wheels stripped and re-built with stainless spokes. Whilst the wheels are apart we will possibly do a bit of machining on the hubs and have them powder coated black so they look the part.

I will update the site with a report from the weekend and also pics and reports on these jobs as they happen.

Beezerpost 35

As you can tell from the recent results, I am very happy with the bike and now I am tinkering to adjust and amend the fine detail to resolve the small niggles that you get from any bike after a few rides.

The first one is the position of the carb. When I fitted the DelOrto carb it had a nice alloy carb manifold stub that allowed me to fit the carb with a piece of hose, however on the first ride it became clear that the carb was sticking out a little to the side of the bike and was catching on my leg in sections, so much so that I knocked it off in one section and also any mud that was thrown up from the back wheel (especially with a broken rear mudguard) hit me on the backside and then dropped down onto the air filter. (see the picture above to see how much it stuck out and also how much muck got onto the air filter after the trial).

The solution was to make a manifold stub with a slight crank in it which points the carb backwards parallel with the frame and tucks it away out of the way of my leg. It now works fine...

The second mod, done today, was the handlebar clamps. I had pulled the fork legs through the yokes by about 1 inch to improve the steering and in order to achieve this I needed to put a spacer under the bar clamps to allow the bars to be above the fork legs. This worked great, however it made the bars a little too high and also with the long bolts and 2 sets of spacers the whole lot creaked under load and gave me a feeling that something was about to snap.

I read about some new S3 clamps that modern bikes use to lift the bars but also allowed for multiple adjustment forwards and backwards. I have now put a set of these on coupled with a pair of Fatbars which are slightly lower rise and combined have achieved the goal of making things more stable whilst lowering the bar height slightly (see pics above)

Eventpost 53 - Red Marley 2010

This weekend saw the 2010 Red Marley trial and after a number of years where the event has been dry, the recent rain made the going very difficult and slippery.

The sections marked out in the dry on Saturday morning took a battering on Saturday afternoon with the downpour which required them to be eased off on Sunday morning as some of the sections in the wood were difficult to reach, let alone ride through!

The event comprises of 2 laps of 20 sections in 3 main areas of the land, a stream with rocks and steep rooty banks, a wood with banks, fallen trees and a quite slippery hard packed ground and a second wood with a deep sandy surface on steeper banks.

I started in the stream and had a steady ride through on the first lap with a few dabs and a 3 on a difficult section over 2 fallen trees in the stream with a muddy gripless turn. The sections here had been marked very tight (perhaps too tight) and were very difficult to clean without a bit of lifting of the front or back wheels.

Next was the top wood, which was most affected by the rain and was very slippery, but as the sections had been opened up there were plenty of options for lines and with a bit of creative thinking they were all ride-able with the odd mark here and there.

This was followed by a couple of sections on the very rooty hillside on tight cambered turns and I was taken by surprise here with a 5 when I lost the bike across some pretty simple looking roots.

Finally the lower wood, which by the time I got there had carved lines in the sections and were not too bad.

The lap went for 26 marks, which although not brilliant I was fairly content with as I saw other riders losing plenty of marks.

The second lap went in a similar fashion with a steady, though not spectacular, ride which included a big 5 where I ended up on my back under the bike trying to clean section 11 rather then taking an easy dab, however a very consistent 26 left me on 52 for the trial.

Although it was quite a hard event, I thoroughly enjoyed it and was pleased with the end result and yet again the bike performed faultlessly and didn't miss a beat all day.

Results

Experts (Up to 250cc)
1. Ross Danby 13
2. Scott Faulkner 28
3. Alan Nicklin 38
4. Kevin Taylor 47
5. Ben Millichap 52
6. Mick Burton 61
7. Alan Whitton 63
8. Chris Denney 64
9. Dave Wood 65
10.Adrian Kent 84

Experts (Over 350cc)
1. Chris Collins 38
2. Dave Dawson 52
3. Chris Chell 62
4. Simon Chell 66
5. Gary Hawkins 77
6. Pete Reed 89
7. Mick Bowers 103
8. Tim Britton 131