An 1800 mile weekend ride to Biarritz ultimate summer proved to me just what a awesome and relaxed motorcycle the stock XV950 actually is, however after a while I located myself aching within the decrease back and trying for a bit greater velocity, so I commenced to obviously lean ahead and tuck-in. By the time I’d met Sylvain Berneron (the man behind the Holographic Hammer) my mind was already made up - I desired to show the laid-lower back XV950 right into a immediately line, Horizon destroyer. Like a bullet train. A bullet motorcycle if you may.
Armed with a cartoon from Sylvain I approached Lamb Engineering and asked them if they could assist me out with a touch fabrication. And then the whole lot changed…
Tony Taysom and Larry Houghton from Lamb are craftsmen and inside days of our first assembly they had already began running on what would emerge as the ‘Dangan’ ('Bullet' in Japanese). Hand pressed aluminium panels started out to be formed, at the same time as CNC-machined, billet determined its way onto the engine and grasp plates; no longer to say the completely new top yoke fabricated by Larry because he ‘fancied doing some thing unique’.
There had been some trickier demanding situations but.
I couldn’t locate donor wheels from an older Yamaha, so if we had been going to exchange as much as 18” wheels from the nineteen” front and 16” rear on the inventory version, I simplest had one alternative - to butcher the reputable Yamaha accessory wheels and get them re-made in the suitable length. This become the single, maximum high priced aspect of the complete build. At £1400 for the pair of inventory rims and hubs, some other £750 for the splendid paintings from Central Wheel and £230 for the ‘customised’ Pirelli Angel GTs, it’s an super amount of money to spend. But these are the touchpoints of the bike with the road, the sole contact among all that machinery and the ground. And - permit’s be flawlessly honest - spoked wheels simply look too appropriate now not to do it.
The identical became genuine of the levers and master-cylinders. The inventory grasp cylinder on the XV950 is a large, rectangular, moulded piece of plastic and proved just too massive to healthy any glossy fairing around. So we pulled it out and looked for a appropriate donor. For a motorcycle that’s focused on straightline velocity, it made experience to expend a few attempt at the braking, so we outfitted a Magura HC-3 setup which offers some amazing, tweaking skills in addition to tremendous feel again via the lever. The stock brakes already felt greater than capable but with this transformation and the addition of some stable Venhill cables, we’ve moved into some ‘subsequent degree’ comments.
The devil is in the element.
Finer details started out to arrive from Lamb on an nearly every day basis. A brass, Yamaha medallion - embedded into the tail unit - was joined with the aid of freshly milled stop-caps and a lovely filler cap. Whereas at the beginning of the work I was worried I wouldn’t be capable of make the XV950 construct unique sufficient from stock; in reality It became a activity to forestall the men at Lamb from re-fabricating each last bolt. They are machines!
It’s important to remember that regularly, less is more. An old addage that Scott Lloyd - the man at the back of the upholstery - manifestly is aware of lots about because he brought a perfect example of delicate minimalism with the outstanding steel wire piping on the seat. Something I desire that we’ve echoed with the nod to that well-known livery that neighborhood painter Alan Boxall from Elite Panel Craft sprayed onto the tank.
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