the Ice bike

testarossa wrote:

TerryK wrote:

Cool old bike!! The ice bike title grabbed my attention lol. We've been ice racing around here since the mid 70s and we've reached an amazing level of speed and handling with the tires available and the local riders skill. Sorry for hijacking your thread, but ice racing season is almost here lol. The last picture is myself. Irishwill has also been known to come out and play on the ice when he's in town!

Check Dave's lean angle!!

I'm nowhere near the snow belt but this looks like FUN! What is the tubular attachment to the front fender for?

The extra metal on the front is usually put on to protect the rider and those he is racing against from the studded tires. Those studs can be pretty sharp, especially when you're going sideways side-by-side at 60mph. The more common version is just a big fibreglass/plastic fender that goes around the whole wheel (front and back) that most racing associations make you use for safety (the studs can fly out of the tires too)

Ahh, that makes sense. I guess getting shredded by my neighbors' tire studs would diminish my enthusiasm for ice racing.

The guards are aluminum and yes they are to protect other riders and are mandatory equipment here. As for going sideways at 60mph, it's more like being on rails at 75mph, 90 on the straights. With the tire racers use here, the grip is so good there is virtually no sliding. Traction has been compared to slicks on pavement. And these studs will not fly out. They are a full 1 1/2 long and there is a street tire inside the knobby tire that serves as a liner. The screws go through the knobby and into the street tire ensuring the studs wont pull out and don't bend over causing loss of traction.

These tires are hand built by Marcel Fournier many time Canadian Ice Race champion.

mf44.ca/en/index.asp

A tip I wish someone had given me before my 1st ice race, Screw a couple of those tire screws into yer boots. Luck G

Saw an ice racing clip once (may have been from On any Sunday, can't quite remember), leader went down and the pack was approaching quickly from the rear - never saw a man crawl so fast to get off the track.

And they say we're nuts. 3 inch spikes don't appeal to me. lol

i saw once where these old ice bikes ran with no brakes, one cyl nitro or something crazy like that

the speedway bikes are high gear only run on methenol have no brakes make about 70 horsepower and weigh about 165 lbs. look's like fun doesn't it. i have done a fair bit of ice racing myself. i've done 7 24 hour races setup like a road course instead of an oval lots of fun and really hard work but worth it. some of you guy's may heard of this race it's called the numbumb 24. perfect name for it by the way.

yea thats it, awesome
thanx for the vids onk I saw that a long time ago and fell in love with that, of course they show that over here anymore

Well I did get out on it up and down the street on Sunday. Unfortunately my onboard camera batteries died so this is all I've got


Not too exciting :laugh:

Lots of grip, I had to get back into dirtbike mode but it was giving me no troubles on the little loop I went around. As you can hear by my acceleration down the street it has a pretty wide powerband :laugh:

Sounds great! When I was playing the vid, my girlfriend in the other room thought I turned on some sort of machine in the living room :laugh:

Do many of your neighbors ride in snow, or are you the "crazy man" in the neighborhood? :laugh: