American Motorcycle Dealer AMD 172 November 2013 | Page 55
To the power of
three
Written by Duncan Moore - [email protected]
Each year at the World
Championship of Custom
Bike Building there are
some unusual motorcycles,
and 2013 was no exception
with two sidecar outfits
entered in the Freestyle
class. The highest placed of
them was Pure Vision, built
by Roman Bus, of Wildstyle
in the Czech Republic
NE of the attractions of the World
Championship of Custom Bike
Building for its competitors is the
simple class system, where, for instance, in
Freestyle anything is acceptable. The open
access policy means that builders of trikes
and sidecars can compete head-to-head with
custom motorcycle builders.
One entrant to successfully take advantage of this
system was Roman Bus, who runs a business in the
Czech Republic under the name of Wildstyle. One of
his entries for the 2013 World Championship was
Pure Vision, a radical, motocross inspired sidecar.
Roman’s starting point for the build was a 1942
Flathead motor that was fully rebuilt and then fitted
with a Mikuni carb and a minimal one-off exhaust.
A four-speed gearbox backs the motor up and an
open chain primary drive connects the two.
To house the drivetrain Roman set about
constructing his own frame. Rather than go for a
traditional straight leg or wishbone down tube frame
he, instead, created a chain link effect downtube. At
Described by builder Roman Bus as a ‘Nivo’ system,
the air shock for the front suspension is inside
the headstock
O
www.AMDchampionship.com
Laterally mounted steering damper on the
handlebars helps to keep the bike under control
when a passenger rides in the sidecar
the back of the frame a Softail style suspension setup has been built. However, instead of placing the
shocks under the transmission, Roman has used a
linkage system above the gearbox to drive a pair of
Rock Shox mountain bike air shocks. These in turn
have been connected to a small compressor to allow
the bike to be raised and lowered at the flick of a
switch. At the front of the frame the head tube has
been made massively over-sized in order to allow it
to house the suspension. Described by Roman as a
‘Nivo’ system, the solid fork legs act upon a lever
mounted to the upper triple tree, which in turn
pushes on an air shock inside the headtube. Like the
The Flathead motor was rebuilt with
a one-off exhaust and a Mikuni carb
AMERICAN MOTORCYCLE DEALER - NOVEMBER 2013
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