Mock-Up Begins

After a weekend of cleaning, sanding, blasting, and priming, I decided to start the mock-up process for the bike. I set the frame up on a small stand, then fit the front and rear suspensions. My first task was to try and determine the ride height of the bike with me on it. My goal is to get it as low as possible to help minimize the frontal area, while still retaining enough room for my lanky features.

The first step was to take apart the front leading link suspension, and see if can be easily lowered. As luck would have it, yes it can. The small coilover shock setup inside the front forks uses a short coil spring mounted above a spacer roughly 2 inches tall. Simply taking out the spacer, or shortening it, will allow the leading link to move upward with weight on the bike. After a bit of measuring, I decided to trim the spacers in half. This lowers the front end about 2 inches total (based on the motion ratio of the leading link pivot) while still giving about 1 inch of bump travel.

For the rear, I initially threw on the hub/wheel setup with a spare 3x17 knobby tire than came off a spare bike in the parts collection. I wanted to check the clearance in the rear fender, since I assume I'll be running a bigger than stock rear tire to help gear the bike up.

Bike at its first mock-up stance


I even sat on the gloves to play Ricky Racer while the neighbors watched


My next project is to figure out where to mount the handlebars based on the very specific rules for the class.

Chris H.