Motorcycle Fabrication Textbooks

[Mark M]

With all the discussion of frame modifications, hand building fuel tanks and the like, I thought it would be appropriate to mention these here.

The Racing Motorcycle: A Technical Guide for Constructors, Volume 1 and 2

by John Bradley

ISBN #0 9512929 2 7 Volume 1
ISBN #0 9512929 3 5 Volume 2
ISBN #0 9512929 1 9 Two Volume set

They are an excellent reference set. The first volume is mostly theoretical dealing with chassis and engine design. It has a superb description of suspension set up, for spring rate, sag and damping.

Volume 2 is all practical and has many excellent tips and explanations of everything you need to know to build your own chassis.

AFAIK, you must order them from the author in the UK, there is no longer a North American distributor. He will ship worldwide, though.

Mark

[lecroy]

IEEE Control System Magazine, October 2006, Volume 26 Number 5, "Advances in Motorcycle Design and Control"

Contains exclusive articles on motorcycle design and modeling (FEA, etc).

[Ironriot]

I went looking for these books but the shipping costs about as much as the book. Which BTW isn't cheap

[Mark M]

I went looking for these books but the shipping costs about as much as the book. Which BTW isn't cheap

Yeah. I didn't promise cheap, just good. There used to be a North American distributor, but he packed it in and cleared out his remaining stock. Shipping was much better from him, because he ordered a batch of books from Bradley and spread that shipping cost around. I can check with him and see if one of the specialty book houses picked up any copies of Bradley from him in his clear out, I know some of his stock went to other sellers.

Mark

[Ironriot]

Yeah. I didn't promise cheap, just good. There used to be a North American distributor, but he packed it in and cleared out his remaining stock. Shipping was much better from him, because he ordered a batch of books from Bradley and spread that shipping cost around. I can check with him and see if one of the specialty book houses picked up any copies of Bradley from him in his clear out, I know some of his stock went to other sellers.

Mark

Yeah but I didn't expect it to be about 90 dollars US. With about 75 dollar shipping. This is for ONE book

[Mark M]

Yeah but I didn't expect it to be about 90 dollars US. With about 75 dollar shipping. This is for ONE book

Well, that is a low volume textbook kind of price, unfortunately. There are other good books out there as well, but they all cost that kind of money because they are niche market, low production books. I believe Tony Foale sells his books cheaper, but they are much more theoretical and technical in nature, where Bradley is very practical on a lot of his stuff. Can't beat Tony's stuff if you want to understand WHY things are the way they are, though.

http://www.tonyfoale.com/

Mark