Lost an old friend recently and my heart’s not in it..  But please take some time to explore the site and the “album” links on the masthead.  I’ll be back soon.

Thanks Much.

Steve Ducharme

Some great info by “hilslamer” from the comments re-posted here about this unusual Honda MX bike shown in an earlier post.  See info and links below.  Great stuff hilslamer!   Thanks Much!

Valentino Ribi worked closely with Suzuki I think, then Honda, and then when Honda wanted Roger DeCoster to ride for them he forced them to set up the Honda with the Ribi fork.

Ribi’s patent:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=AC8tAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

While complex, it solves many of the problems(uncontrolled dive during braking, braking forces causing binding during suspension cycling, and also can create a vast array of progressivity in spring and damping rates using a conventional damper – very similar to the linkage common to most motorcycles on the rear in some form or another.

Contrary to another comment, there was a single-shock version of this but the added weight of the linkage and the position of the shock meant it probably wasn’t much of an advantage:

http://moto.mpora.com/images/uploads/features/Ribi-Quad.jpg

Most of these problems are associated with the traditional telescopic fork native to most motorcycles with rare exceptions from Greeves, BMW, Britten, et al. IN any case, it’s cool to see a couple of pictures I’ve never seen of that fork – thanks!