Team 3Up-Racing, a group of club racers in the north east of England, decided to build a new racebike under the code name 95Racer. The idea was to build the 4 stroke equivalent of a 250cc GP machine similar to a Honda RS-250. The code name 95Racer means a racing motorcycle with a dry weight of 95 kg and 95 rear wheel horsepower, 1 hp per kg, an ambitious goal but likely to yield fine performance if achieved. The whole idea began back in September of 2005 and only very recently was finished and they’ve detailed the whole process on their website.
After considering a variety of engines, they finally settled on the Kawasaki 650cc parallel twin and in November of 2005 they began the design phase of the project. They give considerable credit to Tony Foale’s book and design software for keeping them on track and making sure they came up with something that would actually work.
The whole process is an interesting story and like many other projects we’ve highlighted here, it’s interesting to see the approach taken by various groups to cover the trip from initial idea to wheels on the road. Very nice bike and it looks like it was a fun project.
Thanks to Eric, Andy and others for the tip on this one.
Link: 3Up Racing
Related: Tony Foale Motorcycle seminar Review
Nick says
1 hp for 1 kg … that’s what we should look for, instead of a rocket engine powering a cow. That’s the real essence of the motorcycle !
Mayakovski says
I would think that a rocket cow powering a motorcycle is the real essence of the motorcycle.
Den says
Rocket cows are great but light and powerful is brilliant.
New Zealand backyard engineer John Britten (following in the tradition of Burt Munro with his Indian), was working on following up his amazing V1000 with a 100 HP/100 Kg single when his life was tragically cut short by cancer at the age of 45.
Roberto Crepaldi a friend of Britten has kept on with the project, producing the Rotax powered CR&S Vun.
http://www.crs-motorcycles.com/