Friday, April 15, 2011

DAILY INSPIRATION: taimoshan super cafe racer

It's Friday! So to you, I bring something special. The Taimoshan Cycle Works "Super Cafe Racer," belonging to John Pellew.

"Starting with a blank piece of paper it was our intention to create a bike to represent an iconic design from the 1960’s Glory years of the Ace Cafe, Isle of Mann TT, mods, rockers, black leather jackets and the best of the modern era smooth fuel injection power, huge brakes, fancy suspension, light controls and razor sharp handling, the result was Taimoshan the “Super Cafe Racer.”



No detail was spared on this build. The biggest challenge they faced was cramming a modern water cooled V-Twin engine (sourced from the Aprilia RSV), and all of it's electronics and accessories, into a Norton featherbed-esque frame that was originally meant to house a single cylinder 500cc air cooled motor.



But how would they be able to retain that bare bones vintage look with such modern performance? Where would all those wires and electronics go on such a stark naked frame?

"...after hundreds of hours of designing and planning and re-designing  only a trained eye could tell that within the envelope of the beautifully polished Manx tank lay an “in tank” electric fuel pump, a huge set of fuel injected throttle bodies, electronic ignition, full engine computer and management system, ancillary management computer, a massive wiring loom with in-excess of 65 wires and a host of other tricky bits of electronics."



The end result is a beautiful collision of 2 great era's.  

For a complete run down of this build and the copious amounts of engineering and design that went into it, visit Taimoshan's build page.





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