When the Kawasaki H1 was introduced, people immediately figured it should be raced, The handling left something to be desired so one solution was to find a stronger frame. Reg Pridmore built a Norton featherbed frame-based special but chose not to race it because of ground clearance problems, others did the same combination but had more luck. Wietse Veenstra became the 1971 national Dutch champion on his. The compact nature of the triple engine is apparent in the pictures, the forward placement of the engine in the frame put the sprocket a long way from the swingarm pivot, but he made it work.
8 comments:
Holy moley that's a long chain! [Palpitating.]
With a pivot a long way from the countershaft, the chain would be too loose every time he hit a bump.
I wonder how much fuel capacity was lost when he made the tank fit his frame. Not much, I hope; the H1 (well, all the triples) got laughably bad fuel mileage, even when not kept in the powerband 100% of the time.
The other direction...https://www.kawatriple.com/articles/h1r/h1r.htm
I wanted an H2 750 so bad....
Still do.
1972 in blue. Park it next to the (fantasy) blue with fish scales 71 H1.
I do like a Kawasaki triple; my first big bike after passing my test.
Another guy with way too much time on his hands. Yvon raced a stock one and won everything.
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