Dr Phil mmkay
January 14th, 2009, 02:52 PM
While flipping through my monthly issue of Performance Bikes UK, I noticed a familiar but oddly misplaced logo on a close-up shot of a featured shop bike. Sitting next to a twist grip off a Triumph 675 Street Triple is the SRAM X-0 logo!
A german tuning firm called Franzen Sport Evolution, a shop which builds Street Trips for a German one-make race, have come up with a nifty way to allow the rider to adjust brake bite-point level (much like Avid's pad contact adjustment). While this feature is not new to the motorcycle world, it previously existed as a thumb wheel. Riders would typically have to take their hands off the handle bar in order to adjust this. Try doing that at 180 mph on a straight with a corner fast approaching you and things start to get a bit sketchy.
What these guys have done was incorporated SRAM's X-0 grip shifter into the brake lever control which allows the rider to adjust brake bite mid ride without having to completely take their hands off the bar. This idea was from an engineering friend of the team, Jörg Schüller, who also has an interest in mountain bikes (naturally).
And as many of us know, those Germans sure love their adjustability (see Nicolai (http://www.nicolai.net/products/e-products.html)) so this track-slut 675 Street gets adjustable Kayaba forks and shocks, LSL footrests, and Pazzo levers. The same engineer also concocted a "secret tool" to help the shop properly set up geometry on their bikes, allow for geometry adjustment conpensating for fork compression and suspension dive, sag, etc. (bike geometry is a very big deal in the mtb world since we don't have power and torque curves to fettle with)
Very cool!
I couldn't find any pictures or features of this bike online, although here's a link to the German firm (http://www.sport-evolution.de/). Although I'm not too prone to Triumph motorcycles, I do have a soft spot for a stripped down, raged-racer look of a track-specific Speed Triple as opposed to a Street Triple, however the shop sure did an awesome job at converting a factory bike into a formidable race rig.
The feature is on page 50 of the January issue of Performance Bikes (http://www.motorcyclenews.com/Performance-Bikes/).
A german tuning firm called Franzen Sport Evolution, a shop which builds Street Trips for a German one-make race, have come up with a nifty way to allow the rider to adjust brake bite-point level (much like Avid's pad contact adjustment). While this feature is not new to the motorcycle world, it previously existed as a thumb wheel. Riders would typically have to take their hands off the handle bar in order to adjust this. Try doing that at 180 mph on a straight with a corner fast approaching you and things start to get a bit sketchy.
What these guys have done was incorporated SRAM's X-0 grip shifter into the brake lever control which allows the rider to adjust brake bite mid ride without having to completely take their hands off the bar. This idea was from an engineering friend of the team, Jörg Schüller, who also has an interest in mountain bikes (naturally).
And as many of us know, those Germans sure love their adjustability (see Nicolai (http://www.nicolai.net/products/e-products.html)) so this track-slut 675 Street gets adjustable Kayaba forks and shocks, LSL footrests, and Pazzo levers. The same engineer also concocted a "secret tool" to help the shop properly set up geometry on their bikes, allow for geometry adjustment conpensating for fork compression and suspension dive, sag, etc. (bike geometry is a very big deal in the mtb world since we don't have power and torque curves to fettle with)
Very cool!
I couldn't find any pictures or features of this bike online, although here's a link to the German firm (http://www.sport-evolution.de/). Although I'm not too prone to Triumph motorcycles, I do have a soft spot for a stripped down, raged-racer look of a track-specific Speed Triple as opposed to a Street Triple, however the shop sure did an awesome job at converting a factory bike into a formidable race rig.
The feature is on page 50 of the January issue of Performance Bikes (http://www.motorcyclenews.com/Performance-Bikes/).