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Thursday, November 24, 2011

INSPIRATION CAN BE TRICKY

I have no illusions that anything I do in this build will be new and different.  There will not be a ground breaking new design.  There will be nothing done on the Overland Privateer that hasn’t been done sometime, someplace else by a better specials builder.  I only hope that when it gets put together that all of my inspired ideas will result in a motorcycle that will accelerate, turn and stop without undue theatrics.   

So to try and get to that preferred end result I ask friends lots of questions and read books of all kinds to gain knowledge and insight which I hope can be turned into a working privateer racer.  So more for my own benefit than anything else I will be putting up some photos, links and information which I have found to be valuable in this process.  To that end is the following.

                                         This is what Jean Claude Barrois started with.

This is the cycle that was built by Jean Claude Barrois from the old Soyer.  The details can be found on the SouthSiders blog at http://southsiders-mc.blogspot.com/2008/12/tree-lifes-of-jean-claude-barrois-s.html.  I’m not sure where it is inside the SouthSiders blog but there is also an entry regarding his build of a Rudge four valve and his taking it to the Salt.

Jean Claude is a most excellent builder.  What I find in his work is the ability to elegantly create solutions in a simple way with no huge fanfare.  He makes things work and flow together such that it all appears natural and correct with no big show.  No shouting out of “Hey look at what I did!”  He just builds and rides and seems to enjoy the results of his work.  Too me he is also the classic privateer racer.  The guy in the shed just trying to make things work the best he can so he can go out and go fast on two wheels.  Oh and at the same time look pretty good doing it.

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