Tony’s Bike

Party in planning stages.
Several different 2A items.
Multiple motorcycles
Lots of competitive spirit
Lots of aggravation built in
Road race style course on dirt
Single rider multiple bikes, guns, targets.
Participants created obstacles.

Multi rider,
bracket, race
Lemans start
Dead engine start
Backwards start
Lap leader gets a penalty, like change bike or get a detour.
Reverse order qualify with time penalty.

Obstacles created by riders should present problems a racer brain could solve. Create challenges that have grey areas a racer would exploit.
There will be some fast stuff, slow stuff, anything to screw riders up.
Might do endurance race. Slowest riders pick team mate. Competitors may pick opponents initial ride
Some bikes that may be used
Husky super moto
CRF 250
WR400
DRZ400
1975 Powroll Honda XL412
SP200
IT175
GROM
Looking for a heavy bad handling street bike.
Some planned obstacles are
Plank ride
Eights in a box
In interested, provide ideas, bikes or guns.
The race entries will extended by invitation and or competitor consensus.
There will be some aggressive riders, don’t want to hurt the unsuspecting.
Solo events will not have such restrictions.
The idea is to make it hard to win no matter how fast you are. It won’t be about winning, it will be about keeping intensity and fun high. The shooting range will have you practice precision under stress.

So the fun has begun.
I have changed the shim stack in the forks. The bike does keep getting better, but as it does, I find other things I don’t like. When this bike is right, I should be very comfortable at positively stupid lean angles. I’m not particularly comfortable at rather moderate lean angles yet. I’ve lost the front end twice. There’s a pretty good case for it being poor choices.
The breaking consistently lacks, confidence of control. Some of that could be front suspension, and some of it is very likely the front tire burning a hole in the front of the fairing when the suspension is compressed.
Seems to explain a bit. Seen that before on a couple of GP Bikes. Really looking forward to writing this thing again soon. Today I was using suspension tools that I couldn’t remember buying. made me smile, I’m sure they were Tony’s.

Tony’s bike got a speed sensor.
You will now see speed displayed in the videos.
Haven’t got to revalving the forks yet.
The 500 motor has been opened up, not too bad. Piston came apart, crank was very close to failure. Magnesium parts look good, some rusted steel. Some of the unwanted parts have been removed.
The tapered handlebars and ASV levers may end up on my IT 175.

Well, I didn’t wanna go down this rabbit hole, but I think it’s about time. I keep making improvements on the motorcycle, but it’s just not quite what it should be. I think some of the changes are just Band-Aids. When I first wrote it in Arizona motorsports park with a bad running motor the chassis wasn’t given a chance to complain.
The first ride at Firebird East, it was positively terrifying. Anytime I was on the brakes hard. I made a change. I don’t remember if it was spring rate or oil level.
The first ride at Arroyo Seca it seemed to skip across the tops of all the bumps. At this point, I made the other change.
When I rode it at Firebird West, it was greatly improved. I did have it skitter across some of the bumps. All along, I’ve been surprised at how uncomfortable I am leaning the thing over. I’ve also got a slightly unsettled, feel under heavy braking. My normal routine was while braking put the rear wheel in the air, so I know what it feels like to be at maximum braking. There was a point where I wasn’t using much travel and I lowered the oil level to make the air spring less Progressive and I didn’t fact get the travel to make sense. I think I did it wrong. I think the travel was actually being limited by having a shim stack that was appropriate for a 400 pound motorcycle and having that installed in a 230 pound motorcycle. So it’s time for me to learn about shim stacks. I’m not sure if Tony worked with kevin on the rear shock or not. It could be that the front end is so bad. I just haven’t noticed the rear. It could be Tony did some work on it. I should be melting knee plugs with this thing on a regular basis. It should be out cornering almost everything on the track. I should have no trouble comfortably out breaking just about anything out there. It shouldn’t be the quickest thing out there, but it should be a bit better even with me on it. I now have a pipe building program that seems to be fairly well. Recommended. I don’t really need any more horsepower but why leave it laying on the table?  I just acquired some rear earth magnets to complete the speed sensor installation. So on the video you’ll be able to see how fast it’s actually going. And I will be sending my RaceBox out for warranty so I can share more data. Going out and racing with Roger Heemsbergen‘s organization, ASMA is really something pretty cool. Not a whole lot of people show up, but it is one damn big happy family. It’s like I’m there so I must be part of the family, it seems people I don’t even know. Don’t wait for me to ask for help. They just show up. If you wanna see what club racing is probably really meant to be, you should consider coming out to one of these events.

People said it needed to be a 500.
I disagree, but looky what I found.
Going to “ ruin” a 1985 Honda CR500.
I love the 250.
Pretty sure I will like the 500.

A friend is building this. It will be comparable to Tony’s bike, I suspect it will be better in some ways. Will be fun to ride the two bikes back to back. That May result in both getting better. Be great if we ride 250, 300, and 500 in the same day!

Looks like a CR500 version is next. It might become a demonstrater. We might build 2 or 3 500 chassis.
Fun May follow