Anyone seen this yet?

[The Buddha]

That is great if you want to sell 1. If you want to sell 1 million, nope.
Cool.
Buddha.

[The Buddha]

In fact I would make it a platform for a lot of other things. I'd make a cruiser, a enduro and all of them on the same engine and mucc of the rest will be shared and swappable.
Better yet, you should be able to pin point and fix the problem at the component level. Like dont swap a black box, first of it will be several boxes, and you can diagnose each one and swap just that. No sense tossing a 500 buck air box when a 30C capacitor is dead. Now when better stuff gets developed, it will be made backwards compatible.

If better injectors were made for future models, they will fit the older ones. same with tars/wheels, brakes, everything. Also I'd consider that these things wil lend up in junkyards and the bike will be designed to be fixed up with that. Also these will end up on the used market. So I'd do a full on parts support where all dealers will know what from what will swap in with what modification. The thing also will have mostly generic bearings and internal components with an open design. No proprietary garbage like yamaha did on the XS650. They made a 30 X 78 bearing. WTF ... a 6306 bearing is a 30 X 72 ... garbage like that. Nope. made to be easy to work on and easy to fix. Keep it out of the junkyards and land fills for want of a 30c capacitor which in turn kills the black box which in turn is 500 bucks which in turn renders the bike useless.

Cool.
Buddha.

[makenzie71]

That's almost the entirety of my dream, SS.  A simple frame spans the three genres I had in mind...cruiser, standard, and sport.  I think something much lighter may be in store for an on/off road model, but there may be room to work there.

I even incorparated it into my engine.  I know you don't like twins...but that'd be a variant.  There'd be a 300cc single, a 600cc twin at either 60* or 120*, and a 900cc triple spanning 120*.  The block and jugs are modular.  The bigger engine just has one more jug.  Block is the same across the board...single crank journal...only real complicated thing would be cam timing which would have to be three chains (heavy) or push rods.  I think 100hp would be about the max on the triple, but the torque would be off the chart.

The whole idea with me was people want to start riding...they get a single.  When they're ready to step up...a top end rebuild with a new jug added is more financially possible for the buyer than a new bike.

The cross compatibility thing is my biggest desire.

It's a dream.

[tt_four]

I would say that if gas was to cost more a series of economy bikes, think GS but smaller and more efficient engines, like 300-400 FI, water cooled motors in sturdy GS sized Aluminum frames ...

Hmm.... You guys should make me a gsxr400 like they sold from 1990+, those bikes looked awesome, and made way more power than the GS, plus they had aluminum frames. I love those bikes but they didn't sell them here.

You know Buddha is gonna gonna team up with you if you'll make a parallel twin. Those are the magic words.

[makenzie71]

Maybe same concept but parallel twin and V4 setups.

[ACDNate]

I can chime in on the GT250 here. While the one I owned was a 2005 and a non fuel injection model, i was very thrilled with the bike. The MCN review rubbed a lot of people wrong, on both sides of the fence. Right around the time of that review, Kawasaki renewed a large advertising contract with them, or so the rumor was...

The GT25 feels lighter and more stable than the GS500.  Stability in corners is probably mostly from tires though. I flogged the ever living crap out of mine for about a year and half and 10k miles with no problems. Only failure due to poor manufacturing was a clutch cable.

Brakes needed a bit of an upgrade off the rip as the pads were made of carboard I think. A set of Carbon Lorraines and a stainless line upgrade and braking was significantly improved. The R model with dual fronts I would imagine is even better, my naked had a single disc front. 

If I could have afforded to keep two bikes, I would have kept this one when I got my Bandit 1200...

Lousy overprocessed pic but...

[The Buddha]

Dude I love twins, just hate V twins.

In fact I could totally get on board with a parallel twin with a 2-1 manifold and a single throttle body with 1-2 injectors sourced off some car.

Like rip off a mid 90's toyota at the junkyard and you have FI for life on your bike. Better yet, it will be published in the shop manual.
The goal is ... every one will only need to ever buy 1 bike. I dont even intend on selling parts as part of my income.
I'll make em, but not really plan to sell em in any quantity. Cross over list will be enormous.

The flip side is, every one will buy one. Cheap to run and easy to fix. Forget motorcycle specific anything ... it will all be copied from cars and what ever, heck run car tires too. Of course bike tires are what its fitted with @ the factory, but in my case, where teh turns I go through are all at traffic lights I could well run a brick for a tire.

I also have to think of decent weather gear and what not, but a heated jacket, pants and gloves should work just fine.

Cool.
Buddha.

[tt_four]

I knew a guy with a boss hoss that go so tired of replacing rear tires he just started putting car tires on the back.

You know what'd be cool enough for me, is if more parts packages were available for a single bike. I know any bike can be adjusted to fit the rider, but picture something like a gs500 or sv650 that comes as a standard, but you can buy a whole setup with taller bars with backsweep, some forward controls, and a lowering kit, or you could get a full fairing, some clipons, and a stiffer suspension. I know that idea is already somewhat in play with the sv650 and sv650s, but I'm talking more drastic, and a bike made to swap easier.

The only downside I see to your 300/600/900 plan, is that the parts made to handle 300cc wouldn't hold up to 900cc power, and parts strong eonugh for a 900cc bike would make a massively heavy bike. If you're talking about cheap bikes with multi purpose, you're already gonna be making some decently heavy bikes with cheap components anyway. The idea of keeping a bike out of the junk yard by making them easy to fix is great, until someone rides their friends gsxr with 3 times the power and half the weight.

[makenzie71]

You know what'd be cool enough for me, is if more parts packages were available for a single bike. I know any bike can be adjusted to fit the rider, but picture something like a gs500 or sv650 that comes as a standard, but you can buy a whole setup with taller bars with backsweep, some forward controls, and a lowering kit, or you could get a full fairing, some clipons, and a stiffer suspension. I know that idea is already somewhat in play with the sv650 and sv650s, but I'm talking more drastic, and a bike made to swap easier.

This is along my idea.  While I think adjustable clip-ons would be a need on the sportier model, you can get the same grip position with handlebars.  You'll order the ones you don't want...and I'd like it to be a feature that, within a given period of time and given the parts are still in perfect condition, things like handlebars can be traded in at a minimal fee, if not for free, if you want a different style.

The only downside I see to your 300/600/900 plan, is that the parts made to handle 300cc wouldn't hold up to 900cc power, and parts strong eonugh for a 900cc bike would make a massively heavy bike. If you're talking about cheap bikes with multi purpose, you're already gonna be making some decently heavy bikes with cheap components anyway. The idea of keeping a bike out of the junk yard by making them easy to fix is great, until someone rides their friends gsxr with 3 times the power and half the weight.

Well you're looking at a tops of about 100hp.  We've pretty thoroughly proven exotic alloys and such aren't needed to handle 100hp.  The bike will be heavy, that's a given, but it doesn't have to be piggish between the three models.  The only real weight difference between them would be the jugs and rear wheel and there's no reason the 300 cc bike would be heavier than the GS500.

[mister]

Sounds like the beginnings of Bimota... take an existing bike engine and some other bits and put them into a Bimota frame with other bits (Bimota Kit).

As far as it looks, Bimota still does the same thing. They just put Ducati engines into kits they make and sell the bike as a complete unit.

If you didn't see it, youtube Twist of The Throttle, Bimota. "Twist" also did stuff on Suzuki, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, BMW, MV Augusta. Very interesting stuff.

Michael

[tt_four]

I'd love to have the skill to build frames someday so I could pick an engine and just build up a bike. I would just make it to fix existing parts like a tank and swingarm for an existing bike, but other than that you could do pretty much whatever you want. I honestly don't know who I'm kidding though, all I'd do is buy an old cheap Japanese vtwin and build my own version of a buell.

[jonjon]

meh imho those feel cheap, i rode one in my MSF course and they were ok but the fairings felt as if they were about to fall off