The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

Goodspeed 500 Garage Racing Series

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Goodspeed 500 bike

Professional racing in the parking garages of Europe, well, semi professional, perhaps, but interesting for sure. The website conjures the image of an elite yet friendly way to compete and blow off a bit of steam, a “gentleman’s racing” series or perhaps a Fight Club on bikes. Their code of conduct, however, lays out rules which seem to keep everyone in line which is a good thing. This seems somewhat rowdy, but civilized.

Racing a purpose built bike, the Goodspeed 500, which is a single cylinder, 450cc 4 stroke and looking like a street tracker of sorts, the idea is to run heat races in parking garages, all very supervised and closed to regular traffic. If you saw the most recent Fast and Furious movie where the racers drifted around parking garages in Japan I think you get the idea.

The bike itself is rather interesting.

The first 20 Goodspeed bikes will be built solely for the event. Racing can only be done on a Goodspeed 500 motorcycle. Every rider will be able to buy the Goodspeed bike or rent one from the organisation.

The bike will become commercially available when the international rollout of the event has been completed.

Their idea is to develop the ultimate city bike. Full specs are available on their website as well as everything you need to apply for membership in their club.

I’m not sure whether this is for real or a bit tongue in cheek but whatever the case it sounds like a hoot. Evidently, there is a write up in PB magazine which I haven’t yet seen. Hmm …, I think I need to look into this a bit more.

Thanks for the tip, Chris!

Link: Goodspeed 500

Comments

  2. why would their website require you to register to see pictures of the bike?
    not one decent photo available from what I could see…

  5. I work in a mall, and often have fun burning up and down the parking building after work. A few guys on scooters have the same idea, and I sometimes find myself surrounded by little 50cc whingers with the footboards removed, reaching some crazy lean angles given the size of the bikes. The great part is, because these bikes are so cheap and the speeds are relatively slow, most crashes (and given the surface of concrete and the tyres involved they are very frequent) result in yet another scratch to the plastic shell and a couple of bruises. For this particular racing series to be made successful, the organisers would have to deal with the traction issues first and foremost. It’s fun though, very fun.

  6. The specs of the bike are impressive. 220lb (dry, I assume) with 50hp? Sounds like fun. Styling like that? I’m drooling. Being able to join a club of sophisticated ruffians who like to engage in some high class hooliganism? Sign me up. This is a very clever way to market a bike.

  7. okay, i’m sure this is going to be a fairly unpopular opinion, but. . . let our image in the legislations eyes be damned. Motorcycles have never been about pure transportation. two wheels have a little more risk, a little more excitement, more fun regardless of consequence or other peoples opinions. take the mufflers off and rev it at the starting line just for the hell of it. now do it in a concrete box. awesome!

  8. Nice to hear everyboy here is so enthusiastic about the goodspeed venture. Yes there was a write up in PB magazine about us. We are in the last stage of financing the whole thing. We have contracted tigcraft, the supermono wizzard, to built the bike. And it is going to be a damn cool bit of kit. Power to weight 1:2 and razor sharp handling.

    End of april we hope to get really started with the bike and the event. We are expecting to have the circus on the road within a year. Anyone interested can contact me dimitri@goodspeed500.com. I can send you a digital copy of the article in pb if needed.

    Regards Dimitri

    PS hope seeing you soon in a garage near you.

  10. aaron, just double click the bike drawing in the bike section of the website and you’ll find the same pic as in this article. If you want an updated picture of the bike just send me an e-mail.

  11. SWEEET! Did you say road legal? In california too?

    I don’t know how many people who have been waiting for Honda or Yamaha to make their 450 thumpers street legal, maybe even pu

  13. The picture looks like part were taken off one of Ron Woods Dirttrackers, I also wonder why wouldn’t you pick up a few dirttrackers (Framers) you may want introduce it on the http://www.flattrack.com page, sounds like the indoors at the San Jose Fairgrounds they had this last weekend. I also remember a series similar that M.A.R.S. Motorcycle Asphalt Racing Series.
    DTXers,Supermotards and Dirttrack Framers if you wanna do that during the winter Rock and Roll sounds like it would be a kick in the pants good luck.
    Two Wheel Drifting!

  14. Big mike you do have a keen eye. I used the wheels of his yamaha flatracker picture. We did think about it to get a few frames of C&J racing frames but in the end it will never look the part and won’t handle the way we want.

  15. Sounds like a fantastic project. Love the vintage flair mixed with modern urban culture. Interesting you say that the handling of a C&J Frame may be wrong as we are in the business of creating prototype racing chassis and have numerous articles to back that statement. I would venture to say that we could design and fabricate a purpose built chassis that can handle what you have to dish out in any road, race, and dirt arena. We are up to the challenge if you are. Love your ideas, good heart pumper. Original concepts are few and far between.