Fearless Motorcycles - Harley Track Day

edgelett

Well-known member
Was going to put this in the Racing section but it's more about a bike build than anything.
Fearless Motorcycles is a newish workshop set up by Allan Morrison. It's also where Tony now takes his Roadster after the dealer gave it back to him with broken brackets.
These are the guys who did the wrap job.

Allan was a racer and Harley stunt rider for Matt Mingay until he had an accident which left him a paraplegic.
He continued to work his day job at the Harley dealership as long as he could, but after a while they mutually made a decision to part ways as they were having to accommodate his wheelchair and it was getting tricky.
Allan ended up starting his own workshop -Fearless Motorcycles.
Rather than being a Harley dealer selling new bikes, he focusses on custom builds, general servicing, and building race bikes.

They put this video together to show what goes in to changing a Harley from a belt driven cruiser to a chain driven racer made for track days.
You will see Allan in the video in his wheelchair, and notice his Hot Wheels Harley with the modification to a suicide shift so that he can still ride it around the track.
Worth watching till the end - his business is called Fearless for a reason.

 

cupcake_mike

Active member
Fun stuff, I love taking bikes that are supposed to do one thing and making them do something else. I wonder what kind of lap times some of those things run? Love that Buell front end on the hot wheels bike.

Not to nag, its a pet peeve of mine, that's not a "suicide shift modification". There is no such thing as a suicide shift. There is a suicide clutch, which involved removing the spring from the standard Harley "mousetrap" foot clutch (the spring allowed the clutch to stay engaged until the rider tapped it again, so their foot could be removed while at a stop). The spring was removed by riders, effectively requiring them to have their foot on the clutch the whole time while stopped (if not in neutral), which becomes an issue with no front brake, sitting facing up or down a hill, you can either be on the clutch or the brake in order to hold yourself steady with one foot (hence the suicide clutch). Typical position of shifters on these type of bikes was directly off the transmission and under the left thigh, this is called jockey shift, it got rid of the linkage and tank shifter apparatus (choppers), the rider looked like a jockey whipping the hind quarters of a horse while blasting down the road. The setup shown in the video is just a handshift/handclutch setup. Nothing jockey or suicide about it. I'm not a fan, if incorrectly engineered you can end up with a hell of lot of weight on the end of the shifter handle which will lead to lots of bouncing around and false shifts, not to mention damage to shifter dogs and bushings. Plus its awkward as hell to use one in my opinion, but obviously I'm not paraplegic so we aren't in the same boat. I'm sure they've put some time and thought into it, though, and it likely fulfills his needs to a tee.

Thanks for sharing!
 
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