How very dare you, Im not one of those! I just like to tinker with things, and read more than I can possibly understand. Every now and then, I make something thats a bit better than something that came out of a factory. If I don't then I just try again, its not really engineering. Some folks on here are proper engineers, I'm not one of them.
Alignment of caliper to front disc went out after 3 months? Poor design, nothing to do with quality of components. Caliper and disc are fixed - once aligned always aligned unless you crash it.......or it completely wears out. The design IS poor because the balance of functionality and reliability against the cost and weight of components was flawed. It COULD be made to work and last as it should do, but the weight would increase and/or the costs escalate beyond the point of affordability or rideability. The two properties are intertwined. That is why hub center steering is not used more widely - cost, weight, construction, maintenance, and so on. It is a better solution than telescopics of course, for geometry, handling, cornering but didn't sell bikes. If the Whyte was the answer everybody would be copying it, regardless of patents, but it isn't, so they haven't and it's not here anymore. The guy I know who went through the six frames was 5'6", about ten stones wet through (which he often was as he commuted daily about 40 miles.........) rarely, if at all, used it off road, it was a commuting animal. So it was in the kindest environment it could be really and it just plain and simply kept wearing out. Same as chainless bicycles, the idea gets churned out on a fifteen/twenty year cycle (no pun intended) then disappears within twelve months. People have lost fortunes on them, punters and manufacturers alike.
Well its my bike, I like it, and I ride it a lot. How much experience of FFE's do you have? All those criticisms sound like the sort of things that people say when they find out you own a Ducati... Why so agressive?
MCN today p18 detailed article on the GTS1000 and hub centre steering. Good illustrations and explanations
I remember going to sports motorcycles in Bollington in the late 80s/ early 90s , when Steve was looking after Cathcarts Tesi , Steve called it the Tosi as it threw Cathcart off a lot .
That's the sort of pipe I want for my Pantah special, but a single each side. I just can't bring myself to pay £400 for some before I try to make some!
