OK, so I should've had an update for you last weekend, but I really wasn't happy with the work that I did, so I took it apart again and worked on it more tonight. I'm much happier with how it looks now.

Mainly I worked on getting the swingarm mocked into place.

I've also decided to change my mounting point for the air cylinders. Initially they were going to be mounted with a bracket coming off of the backbone. But now I see that won't work with the way the forces are pushing while riding.
While it is by no means perfected, I'm now going to weld up a support bar going between the two upper bars that the cylinders will attach to.

I'm not going to lie and say this is all going to work out perfectly, but I'm having a great time building it and seeing what can and can't work, hey, you never know until you try right?





Somewhat close to riding position- this should be enough ground clearance for a cruiser. I guess I'll find out.





thanks guys, I appreciate you taking the time to check this out!
Sky

By the way, I consider it a minor miracle that no one on here commented about the shape of the seat pedestal.

 

its only cause you build nice ----. if you sucked at all we would.

have you checked into the laws of building your own bike. i think the state needs to inspect the frame and stuff. i have neveer done it but i looked into it once

 

I know all of jack ---- about bikes, but isn't the frame *TOO* low?

Nice work BTW

 

what are you going to do about a chain tensioner?

 

that's the beauty of doing this the way I am. Because I'm using a Yamaha frame that already has a VIN, technically, the bike will be registered as a '78 Yamaha XS650- plus, Oregon DMV laws are pretty lax, they don't even want to inspect it, all they want is their money for registration and I'm good.


I have an idea what I want to do, but it depends entirely on where I end up placing the jackshaft. Once I get that far I'll fine tune it.

 

How far can you lean the bike over before those frame rails (foot pegs? ) hit the ground?

 

So there's been plenty of people concerned about ground clearance on this bike. So I decided to take a couple of pictures at about the final riding height and took some leaning pictures.

It looks like it's going to be just fine to me.
This thing certainly is not giong to be a corner carver, and that's fine with me. this thing could be scary to ride
But it shouldn't drag if I'm smart. (riiiiiiiight)



and this last pic I happen to really like:



thanks for looking
Sky

 

You realize that at that ride height/ground clearance, you'll have the turning radius of a semi truck.

 

The riding length of this bike is 7' 8"- so a poor turning radius was bound to happen

 

On a motorcycle, your maneuverabilty is your best safety feature. Once you get it to a rolling chassis, you should take it outside and see exactly how tight it can turn. My guess is that it's gonna be a pain in the dick to park/make slow maneuvers. Also, what happens if you're doing 65 mph and your airbag loses pressure?