The off road club I'm in set up a "viewing" at the Moto Armory in Illinois. If you've never heard of it like me its worth a google search. They're know as having the largest privet collection of vintage bike (mostly dirt bikes) in the world at over 500 and growing daily. Its owned by the co-owner of Springfield Armory, which is cool in itself. My mind is still blown by the volume and quality of bikes here, I spent 2 hours looking and still found stuff that was totally one off factory stuff. I think I saw 4-5 brands I never knew existed and maybe 4-5 more that I'd heard of bit never seen! Very very cool and free!
I took a picture of this last one because most people wouldn't understand what they are truly looking at. This is John Dowds kx500 but, the kx500 never came with a two piece side clutch side cover and this is the mythical factory two piece cover that's like a unicorn now and very impossible to find a photo of yet alone see first hand! There is stuff like this all over if you know what your looking at!
I felt sick seeing a 15yr old bike with tech that's considered "new" and "revolutionary" on bikes today. Aluminum frame, fuel injected, slanted motor and on and on.
Can i keep the money, wtf were rokon thinking having the carb trumpet lick the front wheel?!? Bet thats a nightmare in the wet and need a full rebuild in sandy conditions, pritty though.
Had they just stuck with the original motor Folan built for them they would have been good. They thought they could build and engine and went broke trying.
Not sure what the Folan configuration was but couldn't have been worse. Headpipe length was a serious problem with those. No one wants a big-bore four-stroke with no low-end.
Problem was, the Aluminum frame was a copy of the worst one ever (Honda 97-99), the fuel injection worked poorly and flamed out constantly, slant motor was ill-designed. Airbox (frame) choked motor so they threw on a hoakey second intake/filter as a bandaid, headpipe was so short motor only made top-end power. And on, and on, and on. The "new" and "revolutionary " part of the tech now is that it works well.
i got to ride one of the cannondale bikes back in the day and wasnt impressed. my friend had just gotten a new yzf 400 so i had high expectations. of course we held a bunch of drags to see how it did and my 500 husky roundly cleaned its clock every time. this seemed to anger the guy much more than getting beat by the yzf every time..i remember him saying "but it has a metal tank and dual shocks, what the heck IS that thing? good times..
Marc the Swedish Folan power plant was a very Swede looking standard config 4 stroke. looked like a lot of Swede 4T Husky DNA in it. Highland branded view http://www.wired.com/2012/11/us-highland-bikes/ http://www.ushighland.com/engines/
I think one of my favorite bikes was Mike Young’s 1995 Vertemati GP500. That thing seemed bare bones and clean but then looking closer had the carb hooked into the frame and a filter under the seat, pretty cool!
The Honda in that first group of pictures is actually a Honda factory built CR500 aluminum frame built from a cr250 frame using all new parts as kind of a fair well to the cr500 production. Built by Honda with ohlins, pro circuit, troy Lee and others. So yes Honda technically did make a 500 Aluminum frame bike and it was popular enough that Service Honda jumped on it.
Gotta love google. That thing is very close to the same design as my 94 FE501 berg. Motor looks almost identical. Lots of similar design features. Interesting.
ha ha ha guess I just needed to read the article i got the pic from... http://www.pulpmx.com/stories/look-...lassic-steel-31-mike-young’s-1995-vertemati-g "The fire-breathing GP500 power plant borrowed liberally from the Husaberg design. While the lower end of the motor was completely custom built, the top end was right off a Husaberg 501. "
