flattracker

UPDATE!! Tasty BMW Tracker

Update! From our old friend Stuman! AKA Mike ‘Stu’ Stuhler.  Check out his blog at http://stusshots.blogspot.com/

http://pwheelie.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html#6072330486351866165

This is one of Ron Woods’ projects. Matt Weidman tried to make the mile at Arizona back on 5/1 with this but missed the field. He’s supposed to run it again on Saturday 10/9 and try to get it in the National again after Ron got the bugs worked out of it.
Very sweet looking machine! With the rules being ‘opened up’ in AMA Flat Track this year it has made for some very interesting combinations, as 12 different manufacturers and their respective models are available to race in the Grand National Expert Twins Class. Earlier this year not only did a Ducati 1098 win–at Arizona with Joe Kopp–but Bill Werner, Jay Springsteen and Bryan Smith took a Kawasaki 650 Ninja-based parallel twin to the win here at Indy and at Springfield. Jeremy Higgins put a KTM in the main at Minnesota a couple of weeks ago, and Triumph put together a nice package based on the 865 Bonneville and has made four mains this year.
Very cool stuff, and as always Steve, you have kept things on the cutting edge here man! Keep up the great work!

Awesome!  Thanks for that!

I think I posted something on this bike a long while back but I’m not positive. Really excellent build. Your eyes are not playing tricks. The front shock mount is in fact on the rear of the cylinder. Bold stuff.

Reader Ride.. Beautiful converted Flat/Street Tracker

Ted Gail Sends in this beauty.   He Writes:

I stumbled across your page and thought you might like this bike.
It is my old race bike from 30 years ago. I had always wanted to make a street bike out of one of a flat tracker because they look so cool. I knew I needed a 4 stroke with an electric start and my first attempt was a KLR 650 engine and it just wasn’t going to fit in that frame. Then after much measuring I decided a 450WR would be perfect, good power (at least as much as the F11M it originally had) with a wide ratio gearbox and an electric start.
It is a Cycle Factory frame, Ceriani road race forks, Kosman wheels, 2007 Yamaha 450 WR engine, Champion Glass with a Greg Flowers paint job.

Hope you like it,
Ted Gail

Great Stuff Ted! Thanks!

Reader Ride. A rare 1971 T120RV, a 5 speed Bonneville.

This in from Dogtown Cycles.  They write:

A rare T120RV, a 5 speed Bonneville from 1971 with matching engine and frame numbers. The T120RV was released in the US in 1972, to permit Triumph to use them in American Motorcycle Association production-based racing.  But a few were imported in late model year 1971.  In order to race, all bikes had to be made and sold to the public in the same basic form as they would be raced. To meet this requirement Triumph had to produce and sell 200 of them before they qualified.


The Engine/Frame number, T120RV GE25619 is coded as follows:  The ‘T120R denotes this is a 650cc Bonneville, ‘R’ for a road bike, the ‘V’ five speed. The first ‘G’ in the engine and frame number represents June and the ‘E’ is for 1971 production.  As you can see it has the original and correct Triumph logo printed behind the engine serial number, for 1969 and later models.

With the exception of the stamping on the engine case, there were no external differences between the 4- and 5-speeds. They had the same final drive ratios and sprockets, and the 5-speeds were significantly quicker.

This bike has been completely rebuilt with less than 100 miles since. The engine was thoroughly gone through with a new valve job, guides, rings (std.), main & rod bearings (std.), gaskets, seals,etc. HPC coated TT pipes with removeable internal baffles. It was upgraded with a 1973 disc brake front end with resurfaced rotor, new seals/fluid and polished lower legs.  New Marzocchi shocks at the rear. It has like-new  4.00 x 19 Street Tracker tires front and rear on excellent original rims and spokes.

Crossover post from the 2-stroke blog. Race schedule notification and wicked little DT1 250 Flat Tracker Care of Don Miller and Metro Racing!

Don Miller from Metro Racing sends in this beauty that he’ll be campaigning at Daytona in a little more than a week.  You can see an earlier pic of the bike HERE from a previous post.

He Writes:

Hey Steve;
Haven’t had any 2 stroke stuff to send lately. Here’s something that may interest your readers.

My Sonic Weld, hard tail, Brakeless, DT1 250 Yamaha all ready for the new AMA Vintage Flat Track season opener at the Daytona Motor Speedways new short track on Feb 28th. If you are down there for bike week. Make sure you stop by! Seeing all these old flat trackers out on the track will be worth the trip. Racing starts at 11:00am on Sunday. Followed by an awesome amateur flat track program.

See you at the races,Don

Thanks again for the picture and for the heads up on those vintage Flat Track dates!  I’ll try and make it down for sure!

Another Virago Varient. This time it’s more of a Flat Tracker style bike.

Since the Cafe Virago pics were such a hit I thought I’d post this highly modified TR1 tracker. The TR1 is a not a Virago but it’s a very very close cousin. Anyway I love the kind of balls it takes to try builds like these especially when it pays off so nicely. Oh and I saw these over on ADV rider but tracked them down to the excellent (and all in Italian) Ottenero Blog. Really interesting stuff.