Hi, thought you guy's might be interested in hearing about my chosen mount for my first attempt at the Lands End Trial.
The started life as a £65 1980 Kawasaki z400 twin. It languished around the back of the house for many years until it was built into a hardtail bobber. Much fun was had blatting around the South West for a few years. Then a friend announced he'd really like to do the Lands End Trial for his 50th Birthday. Count me in I said. Then I thought it would be pretty cool to build a bike especially for the trial. Luckily I had 6 months to do it in.
I decided to use the little Kawasaki as a base. I run a small one man business fabricating parts for custom motorcycles so had a pretty good spares stash to raid. The back wheel came up first (a 14" TW125/200) and the style of the bike was all worked around this funky sized wheel. Cutting a long story short, I also modified and fitted the shock and swing-arm from a TW200. This had the advantage (I reckoned) on extending the wheelbase by about 2".
A rummage around turned up some Yamaha DT125 yokes and a pair of Honda VTR1000 forks (41mm). These went on with very little work and together with the new mono shock raised the bike 2". The standard z400 wheel went in up front but I converted it to run a single VTR floating disc. Once I'd offered up the Yamaha RD200 body kit I started getting really excited! The bike was coming along nicely, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to increase the power. This was done simply by fitting the whole top end from a z440 - a useful 10% more power.
The last main job was the exhaust system. Although I didn't think I'd really be doing any river crossings I thought a high level jobbie would look cool. As I was on a tight budget the exhaust was made from off cuts of stainless.
I got the bike back on the road in February time, and started then working on the trial extras. These were decided upon from You Tube clips and reading the club magazine, hand guards, heated grips, sump guard, pannier rack, spot lamp and mud flaps. These were finished (and the bike just about ran in) a few days before the trial. It was then that someone asked me how it went off road? " I dunno, I haven't tried it yet..." I said sheepishly.
