VOL. 52 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 P101
of both riding and racing mo-
torcycles with alternative front-
end designs, they invited me to
come and sample the result, and
not just once, either. First time
around was at a private test track
near Brisbane, but then when I
encountered a major fault in the
design, I got a second ride on
the TS3 Evo2 version earlier this
year 1,000 miles further south,
at the Broadford track in rural
Victoria. To experience firsthand
the effective way in which Van
Steenwyk, the system's inventor,
addressed the fault and com-
pletely corrected it, gave every
confidence that he's on the right
path with the TS3.
Okay, but first off: What led
to this? Van Steenwyk, 53, has
over 30 years of advertising, fea-
ture film and TV production work
to his credit, meaning he has a
solid background in art direction,
3D animation, and media design
and production. He's also a
self-taught mechanical engineer
who's proficient in CAD, and has
studied motorcycle dynamics as
well as much of the relevant data
on alternative two-wheeled steer-
ing and suspension systems,
with the aim of bringing the TS3
to fruition. Business partner
Colin Oddy, 64, is also a veteran
of the TV and movie sector,
having enjoyed a 20-year career
bringing high-end productions
of the Australian film industry to
fruition. Proficient as he there-
fore is in sourcing both finance
and hardware to make abstract
concepts achieve reality, Oddy
makes an effective partner in
pursuing Van Steenwyk's ambi-
tion to develop a radically differ-
ent motorcycle front end.
"I started riding bikes when I
was just 16," says BMW K1200R
owner Van Steenwyk, "but with-
out much understanding of how
they worked. But in 1995 after
finishing up a really tough movie
shoot, I got laid low with chronic
fatigue that put me in bed for
eight months. During that time I
had nothing to do except think,
and since one of my passions
was restoring old motorcycles,
I'd started to notice all the dif-
ferent fork designs and steering
geometry of various bikes. But I
also became aware of the copi-
ous drawbacks of tele forks, so
I figured there must be a better
way to do this. After gathering
up everything I could find written
about alternative front suspen-
sion, I started work on designing
something different than teles.
But this had to be squeezed in
between my film industry work,
so it actually took me 10 years
to figure out this current design.
Having done so, my business
partner Colin urged me to quit
playing with the CAD mouse,
and actually build the bike. I was
up in Canada working on the
Incredible Hulk movie when he
convinced me to give it a shot,
so I quit the same week and
came back to Australia to set
up Motorcycle Innovation with
Colin. The TS3 is the result."
Since then the Motoinno
TS3 has been developed over
a seven-year period, with CAD
designs and FEA component
But there
have been
literally
dozens
of other
attempts to
build a better
front end
over the past
century.
