Just found this great vintage motocross set from Lee Sutton.

Megola uploaded by stkone

more photos

The crankshaft was the front axle, which remained stationary while the cylinders rotated with the wheel. A hand-controlled butterfly valve was located in the hollow crankshaft to regulate throttle. Power output was a meager 14 bhp (10 kW) but was applied directly to the wheel, the machine lacked both clutch and transmission. Starting it required a person to either spin the front wheel while the bike was on its stand, or to push-start. The cylinders could be disassembled without having to remove the wheel spokes. The tires were tubed with the front inner-tube being a circular sausage shape rather than a complete donut so that it could be changed without removing the wheel and engine. The box section frame contained the main fuel tank which fed by gravity a smaller tank mounted on the axle. The front suspension was comprised of semi-elliptical springs. Top speed was 85 km/h (52 mph) resulting in a win at the German Championship in 1924, while later, sportier models were said to be capable of 140 km/h (88 mph). A total of 2000 Megolas were built and only 10 ridable examples remain (via Wikipedia). This bike was included in the Guggenheim’s art of the motorcycle exhibit.

Rotary engines, where the crankshaft is stationary and the cylinder block rotates, are not to be confused with Radial engines, where the opposite is true. The design was originally invented by Lawrence Hargrave in 1889, the first effective rotary was patented by Stephen Balzer for automotive use, circa 1896. In 1908 the Seguin brothers introduced the Gnome Monosoupape for aviation use, the crank would be bolted to the airframe and the propeller attached to the cylinder blocks, in WWI, 80% of the aircraft used rotary engines. Today the term Rotary Engine refers to the Wankel Rotary most commonly used by Mazda in their RX7 and RX8.

Where does this leave me in regards to a project bike? Nowhere really. But maybe a Rotary Engined Monomoto…

Taken from Caferacer.ca:

This MV Augusta 60cc Monomoto Superleggera is the experimental machine ridden by young wealthy Italian Luiggi Bandini, during practice for the 1954 Milano-Taranto Road Race. Bandini tragically lost control in a misty mountain section, while waving to a pretty spectator.
Read more.

I’ll be doing a series of posts on the gems I find, along with project candidates in the coming weeks. Do I dare build a Monomoto? Is it safe? As long as I avoid pretty spectators.

I don’t want the ordinary, choppers are overdone – like a cliché, same goes for bobbers, besides I’m probably nowhere near cool enough. I’ve considered a fully built RC51, not my bike, but a second ground up street legal race bike – outside my budget. Vintage bikes are OK but I have this thing for custom parts, I’m no purest. Supermoto’s don’t really classify as a project bike in my view, something you swap some parts on, make some suspension changes and you’re backing it in faster than you can say “this thing is more fun than riding your sister!”.

Café Racers are cool, something that I could take some time in fabricating a few parts by hand while adding my own ideas to what a bike should be. Again I find myself in a pinch, what kind of Café? I love the old Manx, so a Manx inspired bike would be cool, I also dig CB750’s, but a CBX Café would be way cooler with six megaphones hanging out the back. Triton you say? Mmmm… yeah, that be cool, the epitome of the Café. Then there was this ultra slick Kawasaki two stroke 750 triple Café that I saw on eBay a few weeks back… I could go on, but I won’t.

Point is, that almost anything is possible in the world of bikes, given the time and the cash, so what do I build? I guess I’ll keep looking for a decent project bike/basket case and I’ll know it when I see it. I’ll be posting the project here when I get it started.