Noblehops and MotoT build The Bear

Hoy hoy fellas, and Happy New Year!

New year, new project, one I have had in the wings for a few months as my partner in the build patiently waited for me to clear the lifts. We are finally ready to go, and so it is time to kick this off. I am pretty stoked about this one, and it's going to be a fun challenge. You are hereby recruited to participate, offer input, and even criticism when warranted, but most of all I am counting on some help in spots as we go. We're going to have to figure out some stuff on the fly and that's going to be the fun AND the challenge. I hope you're in.

We are building this bike for/with MotoT Design Collective ( moto-t.com/ ), in New York City. They have commissioned it and provided the brief and the bike(s) and quite a hoard of very trick parts, and the funding. We can pretty much get whatever we need if it's going to make the bike better. Pretty awesome gig.

We've probably traded 50 messages and had a dozen more conversations on what the bike is going to be when we're done, but for starters, it is based upon a 1977 Kawasaki KZ650B, mostly because that is a bike that the head of MotoT loves, and in fact, so do I. I had a summer fling many years ago on Martha's Vineyard with another man's KZ650, and I loved it. It was like a pocket superbike in 1980, a little lighter, a little easier to turn, a little more fun, but still super satisfying to ride. Loved it.

MotoT have furnished two of them for our purposes: One I somewhat lovingly refer to as 'The Mule", and the other is in reserve - it is a tired but unmolested original bike, waiting in the wings. Here's "The Mule".

The Mule was another builder's creation, and it is very cool in its way, It's sort-of a blunt instrument though, and we need something closer to a scalpel, something more capable for our purposes. We will use The Mule for our development platform, and we may end up using its chassis, but we may end up applying what we develop on it to the other bike instead. Remains to be seen.

So what are we building? What's "The Bear" going to be?

The Bear is going to be a hybrid. An urban assault vehicle, quick, agile, with upright ergonomics, great manners, and killer suspension and brakes. If The Bear needs to scale a curb or suck up a NYC pothole, it's going to gobble it up. If an emergency wheelie is called-for, The Bear will have it in reserve. The Bear will do The Ton, but the bear will do most of its work between 30-80, and that's where it will shine.

The Bear will spend some time in the woods as we know , and the Bear will enjoy that too, The Bear will have long travel suspension and a seat that allows its pilot to move fore and aft as needed. If The Bear falls down due to some indiscretion on the part of its pilot, the bear will not be mortally wounded. The Bear will be a scrambler that scrambles, an urban assault vehicle to dominate New York City traffic. The Bear will have big furry bear balls.

So that's your brief fellas, We're gonna build a Bear. Hope you'll help.

So a Super Moto KZ650
This

This


and This


Best of all worlds
Dave

Haha! We'll limit ourselves to two wheels, but the KTM is not too far off function-wise. Damn though, that stock bike rustles my jimmies.

More on the outline:

First thing we're going to spend the most effort on is the chassis and the suspension. Need to figure out the geometry and how much we need to do to get the handling we want,

We're going to put a monoshock rear end on it, probably with a Suzuki Bandit swingarm, and a ton of tubular bracing above. The front end will get a dirtbike fork, or something similarly long-travelish, with cartridge internals that can be tuned.

I would be contacting Les Holt here on KZR.

He has the brains and the machining talent and the shop to make some custom parts

to make this a real killer machine . If you can give him your concept he can make it happen

Just my 2 cents.

Dave

The Bear will have big furry bear balls.

:lol:

Looking forward to the project Nils.
The 650s are a great bike.