Honda GB500 TT

The Honda GB500 Tourist Trophy was a short lived model which, despite it’s classic appearance, was introduced in 1989.  Inspired by British racing machinery on the Isle of Manx from the 50’s, the GB is covered in styling cues from the Norton Manx circa 1951 such as wire spoke wheels, solo seat and chromed fenders.   Even the engine specification sounds particularly mid-century British with an air-cooled single cylinder 498cc OHC engine creating 40 horsepower at 7700 rpm.

Not every feature of the bike is a carbon copy of a 1950’s specification. Other standard equipment was up-to-date such as the front disc brake and electric start (in addition to the kick starter).

According to Motorcyclist magazine’s review of the then-new GB500, an XR600 engine may be directly bolted in place of the original engine. Upon further investigation, it appears that the GB is a sleeved XL600 with the same 75mm stroke. I haven’t found an instance where anyone has actually done a direct swap of with the XR power plant. The GB500 engine was also used in the Japanese and New Zealand market in the XBR500. A 400cc variation of the GB was also available in Japan and New Zealand for several more years.

There have been plenty of performance parts offered for this bike. Thought it seems that most people generally regard modifications to this engine as an exercise in futility. After all, it is still a 40 horse power single from the era of high horsepower inline 4s. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. It just won’t ever be a fire breather. Megacycle Cams (www.megacyclecams.com) offers race profile cams and piston kits for the GB500 in their catalog.

• If you have a GB500TT or GB400TT, join Teknikka.com for free and tell us more about it. Register Here!

Further Study:

• GB500 in the Teknikka Library

• Thumper Page FAQ
  

• Motorcyclist Magazine, March 1989 pg.84-88

• Isle of Manx TT ; Norton Picture
  

• GB400TT Restoration
  

2010 AACME Show

Phoenix, AZ - Here is the first round of pictures from the AACME show. More to come. . .

If we caught your bike at the show, register for free and tell us about it by clicking HERE!

Honda NR750 and RC30 Unpacked After Two Decades!

Stockholm, Sweden- In what is perhaps the worlds greatest show of patience ever, the owner of MC-Varuhuset, Bengt Gunnarsson uncrated his NR750/RC40 and RC30. This is just about the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.

http://www.mcvaruhuset.se

Show us your RC’s (yeah, even the fake RC with two cylinders!) by REGISTERING FOR FREE!

Those were the days . . .

Once Upon A Time, USA - Here are a handful of pictures circa 1919 that are being added to the library. If you have any vintage pictures, we would like to publish them online. Just send them in an email to admin, with any information and credits that are associated.

The following pictures were originally published prior to 1923 therefore are in the public domain. Enjoy.

If you have a pre-1920 motorcycle REGISTER FOR FREE and show it to us!

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First Round of Changes

Phoenix, AZ - You will notice some changes to Teknikka.com effective today. The first change is staring at you from the top of the page right now. That is the new logo. We think it is important for the logo to better convey the intent of this page. The first round of Teknikka.com was centered on the mechanical side of things, thus we used the black and white piston logo. Now that we are looking at this project from more of a historical perspective we thought we would give the name a nice throw-back look.

The name is also different. We will refer to the company as a whole as Teknikka Motorcycles. This will help people catch on to the purpose a little quicker we feel. Also, it has some implications toward some future plans that we are working on!

Third, the Library is still locked so that only admins can place information there. This is a measure to prevent random people from submitting information that hasn’t been checked. However, any of the topics from the Library may be discussed in the forum, which has practically been erased and restarted.

Fourth, I am not a programming guru so there are some glitches here and there that I’ll get to. You will notice that all the different modules (front page, garages, library, forum,news) are much more consistent in appearance than before. If anyone knows off hand about how I could make the nav. buttons from the front page appear and function properly at the top of Mediawiki or SMForums I’d love to hear it.

Fifth, we have new Facebook and Myspace profiles as well. So if you dig that kind of thing check us out over there and race us in Motorcycle Madness.

In the meantime, we are constantly adding new content. Today we expanded the Definitive List of American Motorcycle Manufacturers. We are always looking for any information about any company on that list. Harley-Davidson’s model list has been expanded to cover Model 16-42. Though with all the variations and abbreviations its looking pretty complicated. Does anybody have a more logical method of organizing them?

Now . . . back to work.

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The Past Is Alive

Phoenix, AZ - Sometimes it takes a while for an idea to develop and find it’s direction. This happens all the time in the design process. When sketching up new designs for whatever I’m working on, I generally have huge stacks of paper full of ideas that fall by the wayside as each piece evolves. Frequently the first dozen or so drawings get thrown in the garbage. It’s kind of like blowing out the cobwebs. You just have to get them out of your head so they can be sent to their after life of being recycled into toilet paper, useless MVD forms or something. Surviving ideas go through cycles of refinement until the design is ready to release.

Teknikka has been cruising through its evolutionary cycles for a few years. What started out as a design company side project followed a twisting and turning road until my good friend Craig Pike called me up to help work on his Hot Rod site- MyRideIsMe.com. When MRIM got moving it became evident to me that the motorcycle version of that site needed to be included in my vision for Teknikka. During this past year the project has gone through another round of Darwin’s theory and now stands on what I feel is it’s path to the future.

That future is about preserving the technological and social/cultural history (and history to come) of the motorcycle and making it readily available.

TECHNOLOGY

Just like plants and animals evolve and change over many generations, so too does technology. This project will document the progression of two-wheeled transportation from the Laufmaschine to the Mission One and beyond. Teknikka is about the experience. So, not only will we provide functional descriptions and photographs like one would usually find on an enthusiast site, but we will include audio and video (along with touch, taste and smell when computers catch up with my ideas!). Additionally, we will work to bring commentary to the topic to explain why a design succeeded or failed based on as much solid information as possible. The idea is to allow the visitors from the motorcycling community to get as in-depth as they desire into any technological development topic and know that they are getting the facts.

SOCIAL

Machinery doesn’t stand alone in a vacuum. Without people to design, build, ride, dispose of and restore motorcycles they are nothing more than lumps of alloy and rubber. Behind each motorcycle on the road or in the junkyard there is an interesting story. We want to document these stories to take a permanent record of who motorcyclists are and were. Furthermore, motorcyclists are not a single homogeneous group of people so we want to show the different sub-cultures within motorcycling culture at large.

ORGANIZATION

Teknikka will still have the same basic organization. First,we are dedicated to keeping this a free website. You will never have to pay a dime for access or sit through obnoxious ads while I’m in charge.

As before,we have a reference section and an interactive section. Reference pieces include our write ups on the front page and the content within the encyclopedia and business register in the LIBRARY section (formerly called Wiki). The interactive part is available through the Garages and Forum. When you register on the front page, you automatically have a garage space and forum profile.

Your garage allows you to keep written and photo journals for each of your projects and build how-to guides for others with your motorcycle.

New sections will include a bicycle front page with all the same features as the motorcycle side.

Also, the store will be expanding to cover more exclusive photography from Mona Holman Photography and other publications that we are working on. Additionally, we have a few bigger store projects in the works to be announced when we get closer to completion.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Teknikka.com needs your help building the site. As much as we would like to travel around and become motorcycle historians, the reality is that I still have two full time jobs and can’t realistically do it by myself with the small group of people currently involved here. For the good of this project, we would like to recruit people who can provide information to the Library section. Everything there is available under the GNU Free Document License. So, anything you submit to the Library is easily and freely available to anyone according to the license. Furthermore, anything published prior to 1928 is in the public domain and will not violate any copyrights.

Any of the following items will help:

Literature:
1. Workshop Manuals
2. Spare Parts Lists
3. Operating Instructions
4. Advertisements

Photographs:
1. High Resolution Images of Any Motorcycle (Sides, Front, Back, 3/4 view, controls)
2. High Resolution Parts Photos (pref. with a scale or ruler in the photo)
3. Any motorcycle related pictures from the past.

Contacts:
1. YOU! We want to hear your story!
2. Anyone with great motorcycle stories
3. Anyone who would like to share their motorcycle collection online
4. Anyone with rare a motorcycle who would like to share it online

Coverage:
1. Correspondent coverage at events, museums, collections and workshops around the world.

FUNDING

This site will always be free to use and reference. We intend to support the operation by selling items in the store, advertising that is no more intrusive than what is currently running on the site and premium listings in the business directory. Just rest assured that our goal is to keep our online content available at no cost to you.

CONCLUSION

Some of these changes will be in place immediately. Others are on-going and will happen as we get the time and money to accomplish them. We welcome any comments, criticism or support.

Contact me by email: c.holman ( @ ) teknikka.com
by phone: 831-393-4021 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              831-393-4021      end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              831-393-4021      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

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Custom Bike 2009 in Bad Salzuflen

Member Blue Angel once again brings us coverage of the annual Custom Bike show in Bad Salzuflen, Germany. This time his Suzuki GSXR Bakker (second go around) is on display. Check out his build journal as he worked through fabrication, accidental de-fabrication, and final build HERE.

CUSTOM BIKE 2009 PICTURES

You can see the rest in the picture gallery HERE.

If you have a custom project you are building then share it with us by registering for FREE.

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Tony Foale’s Calculators

Tony Foale, the chassis design guru, has a number of handy calculators to help you out with a couple basic. They cover steering geometry, weight distribution, structural sections and tube miters.

Tony Foale’s Software Page

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Classic MX and Hondas at Pavillions

Scottsdale, AZ — The Scottsdale Pavillions are always packed during weekend of the Goodguy’s show at Westworld. This has an inverse effect on the number of motorcycles that show up. However, there will be higher quality and more classic bikes as a result. Here are a few of the bikes that could squeeze into the lot with the hot rods.

REGISTER for FREE at Teknikka.com and show us your classic bike projects!! CLICK HERE

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Chandler Bike Nights - November 18

Chandler, AZ - With the weather getting cooler and snowbirds flocking to the southwest, motorcycle activity is picking up.  On Wednesday night we decided to take a spin to downtown Chandler to see what the Harley crowd was up to on their bike night.  Since it was the middle of the week and in the suburbs of all places, I didn’t expect to see but a handful of bikes. Unexpectedly, there was quite a crowd and a few nice rides.

The gathering is set up at a row of restaurants and bars just off of Arizona Avenue, the main street running through downtown Chandler. There were rows of Harleys, Victorys and choppers in all the parking slots up the sidewalks and pretty much anywhere there was solid ground to put out a kick stand. What was particularly cool to see was that there was some uncommon fare among the crowd. Against the curb in front of Santan Brewery and behind two rows of bikes was Jesse Rooke’s Maddie. His bikes have always been particularly interesting. The classic bicycle style gives this motorcycle a look that nobody else has done and his choice of running gear would certainly make the bike interesting to ride. All I have to say is “jockey shift” and “sprotor”. It’s enough to get your blood pumping and palms sweating.

Just down the street were two custom jobs, by Evolution Custom Cycles of Tempe, using Buells as donor bikes. Of particular interest to those standing around was the rear disc brake on their bob/chop. It was not mounted to the hub or doubling as the rear sprocket like the previously mentioned sprotor. This bike has an arrangement similar to a racing setup I’ve seen from the 1970’s.  The old bike used a brake disc that runs co-axially with the front sprocket whereas this arrangement is slightly different in that the disc is shifted back about one foot on an idler. In this case, because the gear ratio on the disc and the engine sprockets are 1:1 (or appear to be), the benefits and drawbacks of this design are the same regardless of the exact position. This design allows you to get greater braking forces from smaller discs because the force is multiplied by the same ratio as the drive sprockets. On bikes with rear suspension it also helps to reduce unsprung mass. However, there is a fairly substantial drawback in that the rider loses any ability to apply the rear brake if the final drive chain breaks. The Evolution guys addressed this by adding a good sized front brake disc.

Chandler Bike Nights for this year will conclude the day before Thanksgiving but be sure to check back after the new year to see when everyone will be getting together again. We’ll be there because there are inevitably some sweet rides (plus it’s fun to watch the RUBs walk up and down the rows trying to find their brand new stock Electra Glide).

We want to see the projects you are working on. Register for free and show us whatcha got. CLICK HERE

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