Tuesday 1 January 2013

Race Scooter: Winter news

After Cadwell Park, there was a little recovery time before I booked a last minute cheap holiday and shot off to Fuerteventura - a nice end to the season. Straight after this, I went back to York University for my last year in education for the foreseeable future. My arm had just about healed by the time I was back in the UK - the bruising went a lovely shade of green whilst on holiday.


In the few days that I had between commitments, I managed to take the top end apart to inspect the damage. It transpired that the tightening of the mag housing had cause the bearing to explode so I lost all support on the flywheel side. I was very lucky that there wasn't more damage to the internals than what we found.

Onto the overall progression over the winter and we first arrive at the purchase of a hydraulic bench. Hopefully, we won't have to use this often but it should make life easier when bikes need to be worked on. We also plan to insure both of us on the Mazda Bongo, not only to alleviate dad from all the driving but to transport bikes for testing when dad is unavailable. Both of these changes should dramatically reduce the stress levels we experience lose to race meetings.

We also solved an issue that will have been contributing to my gears jumping and possibly the oil leak. The button head of the wishbone assembly was rubbing on the crankcase internals so moving this should dispatch that issue and hopefully provide a better seal for the oil.


In my work at university, I started to design my own exhaust as part of my final year project. I progressed to the point of three dimensional drawings - using my own simplified CAD system and I also produced sections for a straight pipe to be tested on Chalkie's dyno at Replay Scooters.



And the last real piece of news was that I won an award at the BSSO AGM. I received 'Best Newcomer' which was a really big surprise and a very proud moment. It currently stands on my windowsill for everyone to see.


So what is in store for 2013. Well not much I'm afraid. I have very little time away from my University commitments and will have to entrust a lot of work to my father, who already has his own work to do. Near the start of the season I plan to fit a Brembo radial master cylinder as the one I currently have fitted is for two discs so lacks any sort of feel.

My blogging process is also likely to change over the season in order for me to give quicker updates and not fall behind as happened near the end of 2012. I would aspire to get footage of every session of a weekend and give a summary of results and the inevitable problems. This way, I can concentrate on other updates which is the part of my story that everyone seems to prefer reading.

Good luck to everyone that will be involved in the BSSO 2013 championship and roll on March 21st.