The Great Cull of 2019

[epicyclo]

I've decided to start with the vintage stuff because it's going to be the most painful to part with (and most likely to be taken to the tip by ignorant offspring when I turn up my toes ).

Starting with an early 1930s NOS Raleigh All Steel rod-brake frame. It's still in what remains of its factory original oiled wrapping tape - not sure if the lifetime guarantee still applies.

It really should be in a museum.

 

[epicyclo]

Well that's N-1

If anyone spots a tweedy THM looking rather shabby on a bike (the bike that is, not THM), it's my fault.

While raking around for all the bits I realised that my estimate of how many bikes I had was more than a wee bit conservative...

What's worse is I'd pick up a frame and think "What if I ..." and that's what leads to looking for that vital bit to complete the job, but buying a whole bike for that missing part and then thinking "That's too good to part out..." and so it goes on....

So in an enormous act of self control, I'm doing eBay drafts for what's going on at the weekend. Only this time I'll save them because I lost the one I did the other day.

If there's any patriotic Australians on this site, my next victim will be a very rare monocoque carbon Speedster folding frame from EPX made in 2001, but I'll probably stick that on Oz eBay. All this year I was saying I wanted an Australian bike, and there was one lurking at the back of my attic for over 16 years.

 

[The History Man]

 

[velomaniac]

Re:

Eeee by gum, the gentry upa't manor av got a new(old) waggon

 

[epicyclo]

N-2

If you count the cancellation of my latest purchase. The seller got fed up waiting for the courier to pick it up.

 

[epicyclo]

Now N-3

I've given away a grey porridge frame and just sold my BMW R100G/S.

But it may turn out into (N-3)+1 because the recipient of the frame is feeling sorry for me losing the Windrush that I was buying and is talking about giving me another Dawes as consolation.

I'll have to work harder!

 

[RobMac]

Re:

A BMW R100GS!

 

[epicyclo]

Re: Re:

A BMW R100GS!

Yes. Lovely bike but my hip used to go out when I slung a leg over it so it ended up staying in the garage, the battery died, the tyres went flat, it acquired shed patina. I did say I was going to get rid off the things that would cause me the most pain first.

But fear not, I have enough BMW spares to build myself a special - the R85/8 that BMW should have thought off and produced. Once the cull is completed, that's my project and it'll be a better BMW than BMW built back then.

 

[velomaniac]

So you plan to retro-retromod a bike from the 70's/80's to the standards of the 80's/90's as opposed to bring it up the 21st century spec.....weird but interesting :xmas-big-grin:

 

[epicyclo]

So you plan to retro-retromod a bike from the 70's/80's to the standards of the 80's/90's as opposed to bring it up the 21st century spec.....weird but interesting :xmas-big-grin:

Yes.

I have a brand-new short stroke crankshaft, and if I combine it with the R100 cylinders I get an 850cc which I think is the sweet spot for a boxer twin. Hence R85, the /8 is for the front end. I've chopped the front of a standard R80 frame, and the intention is to modify it to a telelever fork.

Next mod is to extend the swing-arm by 4" to reduce jack under throttle and to allow a lower cruiser style seat with fuel tank under.

Haven't nutted out the best fuel injection method yet.

I drew this up about 30 years ago and started acquiring bits when I came over here. No hurry.

First iteration and inspiration was mods I did to my wife's Ural in the 1970s. It ended up handling better at speed on dirt roads than my then new R75/7.