VOL. 52 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 P105
in with a Skills and Knowledge
Commercialization grant amount-
ing to $50,000. "This essentially
funded our patent protection
process on the front end de-
sign," says Van Steenwyk. "The
next step will be a $250,000
manufacturing grant, to enable
us to start producing bikes for
sale, and they're relatively rare;
with the decline in Aussie manu-
facturing, only two or three other
manufacturing people have ap-
plied for such a grant, compared
to IT and suchlike. We have to
bring an investor to the party to
obtain that, so that the govern-
ment will effectively match their
investment, but we're hopeful of
finding someone who's inter-
ested in turning back the tide of
manufacturing that right now has
been leaving Australia, and will
back us to get started. We want
to build a sportbike powered by
the 2014 Ducati Testastretta 11ยบ
Monster 1200 powerplant. Even
though this engine is down on
horsepower compared to other
Ducati engines, with only around
150 bhp compared to the top
end 200 bhp Panigale 1300, the
TS3's great power-to-weight ratio
will easily make up for this, and
this engine has great midrange
torque, exactly what's needed
for a well-balanced motorcycle
that is safe and fun to ride. The
Testastretta engine retains all
the necessary hard points to be
able to put the design of the TS3
straight into production."
So that's the future, but now
how about the present? What
are we dealing with here? What
is the objective of this design?
"Telescopic forks are plagued
with many well-known problems
including stiction, fork collapse
under heavy braking, incon-
sistent steering geometry in
braking and acceleration, a long
shock load path from the front
wheel to the [center of grav-
ity] of the motorcycle, and so
on," says Ray. "But the biggest
problem with any fork, including
even Telelever or Duolever, is
oscillation harmonics, which is
a sometimes imperceptible vibra-
tion frequency that unsettles the
front of the bike. The most well-
known of these, because it's
the most violent and obtrusive,
is the dreaded tank slapper, but
many smaller frequencies can
also lead to instability as well,
as in a commonplace front end
low side. Oscillation harmonics
will occur to some extent on all
bikes with the steering pivot set
or held above the front axle and
which retain any form of stan-
chions, tubular or otherwise,
to hold the front axle. That's
because the stanchions or fork
tubes act as unbalanced levers
up to 30 inches long in the
case of some telescopic forks,
which flex both horizontally and
laterally when the front wheel
encounters either a road force
deflection through the tire, or
braking forces are applied to the
