It is as MAD as it looks
So finally i've strapped the beast to something with wheels
Ok the question i'd be asking is why have you fitted it to such a shit bike and its the same answer to most of the questions i get in its the one i had at the time. But that aside i like the shit bike it was my mates mums who rode it into town everyday and loved it to bits so rather than scrap it its been given a new life but in respect of its previous owner we shall call it norah as well as jet bicycle. Now when i started to build this i wanted it to be as short as possible with the ideal creation being a seat on the jet with 2 wheels but i also wanted to keep the pedals working to retain its bikeness so this was kinda the shortest version but it is quite long. Had i binned the pedals idea ye it could have been shorter but the heat this thing chucks of is intense and at times ive struggled to turn a valve of 40cm away from it so sitting on top of it would need some sort of heat shield and i think it would start to look less bicycle like. With all that in mind we cut n stretched norah by around a metre and slung it in "test time".
WILL IT PUSH
So before i get into attaching some sort of throttle and finding a place for the gas bottle i thought it best to give it a test to see if its got the power to push me because it looked all beast like raging away in the back of the van but we have no idea if that translates to much thrust. So with someone holding the gas bottle and someone else controlling the throttle it was time to feel it. Well it worked alright and like most jet engines that are small pulling away is not super quick but tit soon picked up pace once going and was a strange feeling. With my mate holding the bottle we could only mange a crapy running pace and norah wants to stretch her legs so we chucked to bottle in the van for test 2. This had disaster written all over it as the driver cannot see me for simon was in passenger seat taking pictures, no one can hear each other because of the intense noise and i'm not controlling the throttle but we didn't care we had a bike to test. 30mph was the result but there is more speed still to come and we would have had another test if wasn't for the airfield saying its to loud and no more :( but the story doesn't end here as its time to give it its own fuel and throttle and an open road.............
NORAH IS UP AND RUNNING
Fuel bottle and throttle attached she flys but......
So the throttle is actually quite simple as its 3 valves. The small valve on the left is the idol and its this you will see me tweaking with a screwdriver on start up as once started you set this for the lowest possible pulsing (if thats what we can call it) without engine cutting out. The other 2 is your main throttle, now i have 2 because to open the valves fully you need to pull them around 3" from top to bottom and i'm using a motorbike twist grip which pulls an inch at best so thought pulling 2 valves a little bit is like pulling one a lot. These are returned by springs which came of the CR125 motocross exhaust i used in the mobility scooter. There is a main shut of valve just before these and could do with one after really to shut it of quickly but well not put that on yet. When running on liquid gas if you go full throttle to quick you will kill it unless the jet is really hot but if your standing still waiting for this the tyre will melt so really fast take off's are not really available.
Whats it like to ride
As you can see from the pics the gas bottle has moved around a bit and this was to help weight distribution to make it more stable but didn't make alot of diffrence really. At speeds up to 35mph its ok rather plesant from 35-45mph it goes where it likes and is quite hard to control and at 50mph you have been lucky to stay on during the 45mph shake and just wait for the tryes to blow ... If when i get the chance to take on smoth surface (as up to now there is only one runway that willlet it on dew to the noise) a higher speed maybe possible as jet is still pushing a bit but bumps and dips in runway send things bad.
