Come from the shadows - the Shadowfax restoration.

[Gosling1]

OK here are some more photos of the lunchtime ride on Saturday.........

thanks to Lech Budniak from the PCRA for these

[greenman43]

Saw the bike on Sunday, a really nice bit of work fellas

Cheers,
Brian

[Kwakked Up]

Cant believe that you did this all in less than 12 months

Congrats on a great job and a really entertaining story to follow, well done all round

[Gosling1]

Cant believe that you did this all in less than 12 months

Congrats on a great job and a really entertaining story to follow, well done all round

cheers mate - and most of the build was actually only done in the last 3 months - the frame only had forks and a swingarm fitted at Xmas !


OK here are some more photos of the bike on the weekend - including some famous faces. A lot of these photos are courtesy of Kent Miklenda, who took hundreds of photos over the weekend. Here is a selection of some of them.........

[leep]

awesome work Gos! congrats on the awards...very well deserved!!

[Gav]

I really enjoyed following the progress of this thread.Well done all those involved. I'm going to miss checking it out..

[dub]

Can someone else start a build thread like this, with as much action as this so I don't go into withdrawals!

[fezzick]

Don't look at me...

[Phil]

Who's the old codger in the balck and white leathers at the end

Looks like he may know a thing or two about Superbikes

Love that pic of Gos wheeling it out of the pits, brilliant

[fezzick]

That pic, the one of the bike on the track with the long shadow beside it and the "moody" shot in the pits with the tyre warmers on are all Kent Miklenda efforts. As well as being a talented designer and graphics artists, he's also a professional photographer and was, in his day, a damn good road racing pilot as well.

[Kwakked Up]

Can someone else start a build thread like this, with as much action as this so I don't go into withdrawals!

hard act to follow though

[plane]

Awesome achievement guys!

Wally, Robbie and Croz all seemed impressed, they probably wouldn't have even looked at the bike if they weren't.

Congratulations,
Pete

[fezzick]

This morning I finally got my butt into gear and finished off the Shadowfax restoration thread on my blog site.
http://www.halfofmylife.com/on-two-whee ... storation/
Thanks again to all. Retelling the story brought lots of smiles I can tell you.

[Gosling1]

Not so much an update on 'Shadowfax'- but rather an interesting anecdote about a fantastic 50th birthday present I got last weekend.....

Kent Miklenda - the original constructor of the futuristic bodywork found on Shadowfax - also made some other tanks back in the day. One of these was fitted to a local bike that used to ride with our crew back in the early 80's - it was a tricky rig that would be called a 'streetfighter' in todays lingo - but back then it was just called.....the Wildebeest

Based on a GS850 Suzuki - yep the shaft-drive model - old mate did a number on this bike with a TZ750 tail piece, home-made sidecovers done in sheet aluminium, and home-made rear-sets.........here it is.



Cool bike, Pete rode this up to Bathurst with our pack of reprobates in 1982 - I stole it while he was asleep and rode it around the top of the Mountain and then down into Bathurst to buy smokes !!

Well, last Saturday night at my 50th party down at the pub - Pete and Mark turned up carrrying a rather large present wrapped up in a dirty old curtain but I could tell it was something special by the smile on their faces......

This is the only remaining part of that old 850. It now lives in the 4th and will find a home on a certain ZX1100 streetfighter in the not too distant future......










You can see this tank is identical to the one on Shadowfax, with the exception of the position and style of the fuel cap. It is off-set from centre - unlike the cap on Shadowfax which is centred. It is also an old HQ car cap !! FFS !!! It is getting totally binned and replaced with one of those flash spin-on aluminium jobbies....

So I won't have to get a new tank made up - this old tank does not leak and will clean up pretty well I think......just have to ditch that Suzuki sticker !!

[Phil]

Cool, what a brilliant birthday present