2 Blokes in a shed.

2 Blokesinashed

Make 2Blokesinashed

Model Crimson Darkling

Engine and box Reliant 750

Frame and fabrication Trike Paul and Gary

Engineering Trike Paul

Axle Reliant with Mini Lites

Front End Suzuki GS 850 Forks and running gear

Frame Finish Mick and Gary

Paint Martin.

This started life as a frame bought online. By the time I had got round to starting this build and realised it was not fit for purpose it was too late to do anything about it.

When I first fit all the parts it was apparent the frame was not square and we decided to cut the whole back end off and rebuild it. The front would be changed and improved to suit our needs. We rebuilt the back end first and made a prop shaft with a back to back UJ and then got the axle mounted squarely and welded it all up.

Once the frame was doing what it’s supposed to do we mocked up the engine and box along with the tank and seats. We then sorted the mountings and foot controls. We have rubber mounted the engine and box just as they did in the car.

The pedals are home made to a design Paul has used for a long time. They work well and give good feel. A handbrake was fitted to the left side and the brakes were connected up and tested.

The gearshift is something Paul made up too. It looks nicer than a bent stick or a welded up jobby. It works well and is smooth to use. The clutch on this is really light too and is easy to operate.

The brakes work from a foot pedal on the right and the rear drums and one front disk are connected. The other disk on the front is operated by a Honda “Fireblade” master cylinder. It can be stopped rather quickly if needed.
The dash holds the idiot lights and Speedo flanked by an oil pressure and temperature gauges. It has the starter button mounted in the centre for easy access. The key is tucked away out of sight. All the other electric’s are in a small box on the frame. The solenoid is up out of sight under the seat.

The tank dash housing and mudguards were painted black at one stage but a mate knows a young lad who was trying to get into painting bikes. After a chat with the lad we decided to let him loose on the trike parts and what you see is what he did with them. Not too shabby for his first go.

I don’t expect it to break any speed records but it’s running a SU instead of a down draught and as soon as I can afford it I’ll get it tuned a bit. I also want to have a stainless exhaust made for it with 4 down tubes instead of one.

It rides really smoothly apart from a little shimmy at about 10 mph and then it settles down. The apes are sort of comfy and make a change from having my weight on my wrists on the GSXR. It’s pretty rapid off the mark and stops well and should do what we intended. We have some great roads with great views nearby so we won’t be rushing about on it.
It’s a hardtail so I don’t see us doing any major trips on it but as long as we can get to Astle park for the NABD rally once a year and to Roughleys Bike Show in Stockport then that’ll do for me.

Most of our riding is round Woodhead and Buxton way occasionally so we will never be in the saddle for more than an hour anyway.
Paul did all the clever stuff on this and much of the credit for it even being built must go to him. I did a bit of filing on this and some cutting and a bit of drilling but none of the good stuff.

Paul showed me how to do some things and then left me to it and those will be the dodgy bits you can see on the trike.
Mick and myself did a lot of the finishing and refurbishing but had to rely on neighbours and friends to do all our heavy lifting. That caused delays sometimes as you can’t expect people to drop things every time you need a hand.

The work Mick and I did on the trike was time consuming because we are both a bit crook. We can only muster three hands and one good knee between us. Mick was knocked off his bike about 12 years ago and is held together with baling twine; He lost his right arm as a result.

I have bad osteo arthritis and drop things a lot. I sort of fall to bits as the day progresses.
Thanks to Paul for all your help. Mick too, no one polishes better than you mate.

Cheers to Wendy and the kids for putting up with me. Thanks all those of you who have been supportive on the forums when things went pear shaped.

I think I did Ok for my first effort at a trike. I wanted something that looked like a bike but with the convenience of a reverse gear without spending a fortune.

I am going to try and learn to weld. I don’t want to ever have to put a mate through 12 months of me in a confined space ever again. I think Paul deserves a medal for putting up with my madness and me.
I’ll do the next one myself and pay for any clever milling or turning I need done.

Beurocracy, jobs for the sake of employing anyone?

Right then, here’s the thing. I rang the DVLA a few days ago to get hold of the Manchester office, as I needed to speak to someone specifically who I’ve dealt with in the past. I rang the number on the DVLA website 0870 240 0010 which directs you to another number 0300 790 6802, the one your using is no longer being used by the DVLA. With me so far? Good!

After trying for about twenty minutes to get past the automated Rob Brydon impersonator that tells you they are busy and then disconnects you, YES! Fucking disconnects you I managed to get hold of a Welsh ladies voice telling me that I’m through to the DVLA and have some options, four as I recall. You are also invited to complete a customer service survey at the end of your call.

I get to a likely sounding one and get that twat Brydon again, he goes on to tell me to listen to the next nine options carefully so they make sure they direct my call to the right department. I chose an option that directed me back to twatty telling me to listen to the next four options so they can ….. Still with me? Brilliant!

Anyway, after listening to Brydon guide me skilfully though all of the options I finally get to speak to a real person, Well I think she was real, she sounded a lot like the other bird from the beginning of the saga.

So forty minutes into what I thought would be a piece of cake!

It sort of went like this,

DVLA,

‘Hello, DVLA Swansea, Jane speaking how may I help you?’

ME,

‘Hi, my name is Q. Anarchist, I’d like to speak to ***** ******* at your local Manchester office, It’s concerning registering an adapted vehicle for use by a disabled rider. The person I need to speak to deals with this sort of thing all of the time. Could I have the local office number please?’

Couldn’t have made it any clearer, I know I was speaking English

.DVLA,

‘ What sort of vehicle is it then?

ME,

‘Trike, Built for use by a disabled rider.’

DVLA,

‘What about it then what do you need to speak to them for?’

ME,

‘Well, I need to find out what forms I need and how to go about it, I did one years ago and want to make sure nothing has changed, I have dealt with ***** on several occasions and know they make sure I get the correct forms.’

DVLA,

‘Oh I can’t do that, I can only send them an email, (I can hear her typing in the back ground and talking in hushed tones as she taps the keys ‘ Register disabled trike advice’) There that’s all done for you, and can I have your number please?’

I had no idea I was trying to register a disabled trike, had a wheel come off?

I gave her the number and was told I should get a call back in two hours.

She asked if there was anything further she could assist me with, I told her I didn’t think so and ended the call.

Now I only live 8 miles from the centre of Manchester, the DVLA office is right next to Old Trafford. I could have lunch, take a dump, brew up and still have the time to get to Manchester, knock on *****’s office door and ask her for the bloody forms myself all inside of two sodding hours.

The whole bloody system has tier on tier of fucking banal bureaucracy, you can’t speak to real people doing the job but have to talk to someone who works in a call centre that doesn’t actually work in the department you need.

It’s just plain stupid to remove the numbers of local offices from government websites, I should be able to contact the people who I know, know what they are doing so I don’t have to ring up and listen to Rob boring fucker Brydon take me through menu after bloody menu of lists of options.

It’s taken the best part of forty minutes to get to the point of knowing I am no closer to getting a few bloody forms put in the post than I was over forty minutes ago.

I’m fed up to the back teeth with the world being run by automated call systems and call centres that have bugger all to do with the person you are trying to contact.

Now some of you may think I’m being a bit picky and making a fuss for no reason, being a computer literate chap I could just download the forms from the DVLA website. You’d be right, I could but that’s not the point. There are thousands of folk who may need to contact the DVLA for information or forms that don’t have internet access and need to use the phone.

I had been invited to take part in the customer survey but I didn’t bother, the powers that be wouldn’t have like many of my answers based on today’s service.

As it transpired, I did get a call back, two and a half hours later when I’d already left the building so to speak, from some bloke who could barely speak English who didn’t leave a number so I drove in the following day and did it the easiest way. I went down and spoke to the person I knew, the one I knew, knew what she was doing. The only reason it took half an hour was because I had to queue up because they have a new customer service system in place. It’s no better than the old one as far as I could tell, it just took you to the customer service desk via a different route. It’s probably best to go yourself if you need any sensible information quickly.

Now I have the correct forms it should be a piece of piss to sort the registration out under the dispensation for disabled riders but that’s another story for another day.

Big Boys Toy's

GSXR 750 w Trike

I decided to trike my adapted 1994 GSXR after finishing a little Reliant engined custom trike last year. The Reliant had shown me that riding a trike could be almost as much fun as biking. My disability worsening had led to the GSXR being locked in the shed for all but ten days in eighteen months so it just had to be triked. The only downside to the Reliant was the weedy little engine, there’s a lot more horsepower in a 750 GSXR engine than in a 750 Reliant engine. A whole lot more.

I sent the bike off to John Wheaver who built the wishbones, cradle, diff mounts, hubs and a very clever hand brake and hand brake caliper. The diff casing, diff mounts, hub carriers, hubs, hand brake and caliper are all aluminium.

Along with the bike I sent a ford Granada diff, two Spax adjustable dampers with springs and a set of wheels and tyres. I also supplied the rear calipers and rotors, two Tokkiko 4 pot calipers from a GSXR 750 and two rear rotors from a GSXR 1100wp. I sent a blank rear sprocket with 2 teeth less than standard and a new standard front sprocket.

After some waiting, the exchanging of ideas, parts and folding monies John gave me most of a trike back that just needed the brakes bleeding and a set of mudguards fitting along with a dollop of lighting and wiring. Mine is only the second bolt in kit from the Wheaver workshop, the turning and milling work on it is really good and the use of alloy hub carriers and bike brake parts has helped to keep the overall weight to a minimum. Its weight certificate reads 300 kg given the standard weight of the bike is 212 kg we have only added 88 kg in trike parts.

Once we got it home we stripped it all down and set about finishing the stuff John had not got round to doing. I had to have an idler sprocket and mount made up and fitted .We had to fabricate rear foot peg mounts as the standard ones interfere with the suspension. They are currently being looked at again to give the passenger a bit more room to move about. (For passenger in this instance read wife, ergo my renewed enthusiasm to resolve the issue.)

Mick and I wired the rear lights up and re-routed all the brake lines and handbrake cable. We wired in an immobiliser so it’ll be harder to nick.
We had to repair the diff after the end cap blew out under load, it was only glued in. I re-seated it and drilled and tapped the cover and bolts now secure it.

The wing mount was made at home, look closely and you can tell too, Welding isn’t one of my strong points. The wing only works over 50 mph, it pushes the rear down a bit but it is going to hold a seat pad for the pillions comfort and it’s a cool place for me to promote the NABD, www.nabd.org.uk Although it’s my toy it’s also a great tool to promote the work the NABD has done for the past 17 years to ensure bikers with a disability are able to enjoy the freedom and independence of riding their own machine.

When I first rode it the trike was set up as a street fighter with high bars and very little weight over the front tyre. The short wheelbase and rear weight bias tended to make it wave the front wheel about in the air. Not a happy occurrence given the wheel being waved was the one I use to steer the thing.

After a quick rethink Mick and I set about remounting the plastics at the front and it seems to have done the trick. All the added weight over the front has made the trike more positive to steer and the double bubble screen makes it a lot comfier as it has reduced the windblast considerably.

It’s incredibly fast for a 300 kg trike and handles well at all but a crawl; I think I need to experiment with tyre pressures on the front and hopefully that should cure the problem. The rear is a bit soft and over the next few weeks I’ll be trying different settings on the Spax, no point having fully adjustable bits if you don’t mess about with them on occasion.

It’s taken just over twelve months to get it all sorted out and the re- registration done, it’s been a build fraught with problems and tantrums but in the end it’s all paid off.
I now own a cracking little trike that won a trophy in the first show I entered it in. The judges deemed it to be the Best Adapted Trike in the 100% Bike and Trike show at ‘You’ve been NABBED 17’.

I’m still in shock and over the moon, I had thought there were some brilliantly adapted trikes entered in the show but someone obviously liked mine enough to give it a prize. It is as I described it on the entry form, a work in progress and if I get the time and money there are a few things I am going to change or improve. Funny old bits of kit are trikes, like most custom built vehicles they are never quiet done. This one is no different and ideas are constantly banging about in my head. I am already thinking of doing the wiring and rear lights again as I think it could be done a bit better. The pillion foot pegs need a re-think; more legroom would be better.

I’m really enjoyed riding this trike, it goes like a stabbed rat and looks and sounds awesome. If trikes were judged on smiles per mile, my old GSXR would be a prizewinner every time. I had to wear a lid when riding it , I looked a right nutter with this silly grin plastered all over my face every time I go near the thing.

Specification and clever stuff

1994 GSXR 750w sports Trike with Wheaver bolt in conversion

Wheaver bolt in rear end with one off alloy hub carriers and diff mounts.

Converted Granada high ratio diff mated to Rover 200 outputs and drive shafts.

4 pot Nissin front calipers with standard GSXR rotors

4 pot Tokkiko rear calipers with standard GSXR rotors on custom alloy hubs.

Custom made alloy hand brake lever and caliper

Stainless brake hoses all round with Brembo thumb brake to rears.

Spax fully adjustable coil over dampers with 375lb springs.

16-inch alloy ten spoke rear wheels with 215/55/16 tyres

One off custom mudguards.

Stainless custom mudguard mounts.

One off wing mounts and alloy wing.

One off under seat exhaust conversion with Blue Flame twin port end can.

Custom purple paint with airbrushed chequered flag panels by Matty Evans @ Mesiart.

300 kg wet weight

WOODIE!

A confused ,fat greedy 'woodie' helping itself to a fatball we left out for the sparrows. The greedy bugger had already cleaned up all the old bread and nuts we put out on the tray.

Honesty in advertising, would it sell more product?

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.motorbiker.org%2Fblogs.nsf%2Fdx%2Fvideo-an-honest-harley-davidson-motorcycles-tv-ad.htm&h=19843

Have a watch, the 'truth' is out there!