James Giddings' latest project

[Gary Roach]

Video of it running:
http://youtu.be/2kLjrw_e7bg

[SouthRider]

Really cool - I remember when Doug Wilford rode one in the ISDT.

We used to have a ****el street bike on the showroom floor. Was a blast to ride. Smoothest running engine you can imagine. Like riding a big electric turbine.

In the late 70's there was an Indy Raceways go cart track in Metairie La. The carts were scaled down Indy cars with full suspension, ****el engines, and fiberglass bodies. It cost $1 to ride a timed lap around the course that was maybe a quarter mile long, shaped like a motorcycle road race course. The course was in an old drive-in movie theater lot.

There was a lap timer showing your time, avg. speed, and name. There quickly became a constant battle for local hot shoes to be on the permanent list of top ten times for men and women.

One of the owners was a Husky rider - so our shop became the de-facto mechanics for the cars. The initial course was pavement laid over sand with no shoulders. The cars had 4 wheel brakes, so people who didn't know how to drive them were always locking up the brakes & sliding off course into the sand.

We made a fortune re-building motors full of sand, and repairing the fiberglass wings on the bodies.

Mike Burgess finally talked them into letting him have one car to set up properly. He disconnected the front wheel brakes, and added a piece of motorcycle front fork springs onto the front wheel shock shafts as helper springs(the shocks were horizontal) to firm up the front a little and stop the nose diving into the corners.

He then went out and set the fastest lap time of all with no practice. With no front brakes when amateurs locked up the brakes going into a corner too hot they now would just slide around it instead of off the track (like the manual rear wheel brakes on a dune buggy).

Next thing you know we had the contract to set up all 14 cars this way, but no longer had fiberglass to repair or engines to rebuild.....

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"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do almost anything, with nothing."

1972 Penton Berkshire 100
1983 Husqvarna 250 XC
2011 Jayco 31.5 RLDS
2009 Chevy 2500 HD Duramax

[SouthRider]

Why did the software program bleep out ****el?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do almost anything, with nothing."

1972 Penton Berkshire 100
1983 Husqvarna 250 XC
2011 Jayco 31.5 RLDS
2009 Chevy 2500 HD Duramax

[Dale Fisher]

Looks like you should mind your loose clothing or boot strings around the top of that thing [:0]

Dale Fisher
Penton Owners Group - Memberships
Facebook - Cheney Twinshock Racing Group - Administrator

'70 Six-Day 125 - V2017
'71 Six-Day 125 (Dave Fisher's) - V5553
'72 Mudlark - W257
'73 Jackpiner - 175 21159727
'74 Berkshire 100 - 40171056
And some silly other bikes...

[Daniel P. McEntee]

These were mounted in prototype Hercules motorcycles, correct? I think there a few around in private collections. I remember read9ng somewhere that they developed great power, and one problem with putting them into production was finding a rear hub that could stand the strain as they kept ripping up rear hubs on the bikes. I would be interested in a few laps on one just to feel what it's like.
  Type at you later,
  Dan McEntee

[SouthRider]

They were prototype engines mounted in a standard Hercules dirt bike. Penton Imports was the distributor for both the Hercules street bikes & dirt bikes at that time. It was the mid 70's and the relationship with KTM had become strained so perhaps it was a way to put a little pressure on KTM.

I never heard of them having so much power as to destroy rear hubs, but I never saw or put my hands on one of the rotary engine dirt bikes. Doug rode them in one or possibly two six days, and also the US Qualifiers. Dwight may know more about them as he was close to the Hercules team during that era.

The street bike was very smooth with nominal power & a very linear smooth delivery. Fun to ride.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do almost anything, with nothing."

1972 Penton Berkshire 100
1983 Husqvarna 250 XC
2011 Jayco 31.5 RLDS
2009 Chevy 2500 HD Duramax

[Gary Roach]

James has been busy lately getting his Hercules ready to take to Mid Ohio to display. He said that Crazy Jake has been very helpful with parts and advice to get this project finished. He's got a few more things to do, but getting close!

Here's a video of the engine running before he restored the frame:
https://youtu.be/2kLjrw_e7bg    

[JCHubbard]

Very nice!

[JP Morgen]

As a machinist and fabricator I enjoyed all of the great photos of the project, and immensely appreciate the work involved, thanks!

[fischercycle]

HELLO ,JIM GIDDINGS , THIS LOOKS LIKE TO BE A PIECE OF CAKE TO ME, YOU EVEN HAD SOME OLD GOOD LOOKING PARTS TO START WITH ,ONE HECK OF A TASK, AND A LOT OF EFFERT AND TIME , LOOKS GOOD, JAKE

[paul a. busick]

Hi Group,  Didn't Doug Wilford ride a bike like this one in the ISDT for Fritz Dingel?  I know that I heard Doug speak of riding a ****el powered machine back in the day. Amherst Paul

[ALB]

Doug told me stories of him riding one of these in the ISDT (Isle of Mann) on the West German team. All of the team's bikes DNF. Doug was able to keep his bike going the longest, I believe until Thursday.

He told me about how the team arrived a week before the event to get accustomed to riding the bikes there. His German team mates were having a difficult time climbing the sand bluffs down by a beach area. Doug explained to them that with those bikes you have to up shift, not down shift when going up hills. They didn't believe him until he showed them.

Doug's ISDT bike was in Sam Castanzo's museum (a huge collection of Hercules ****el & Suzuki RE-5 rotary motorcycles) until Sam passed away. Last I heard the museum was sold and everything moved down to Florida.

Alan Buehner

[SouthRider]

Absolutely gorgeous!

Great job, and a fantastic piece in any collection.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are now qualified to do almost anything, with nothing."

1972 Penton Berkshire 100
1983 Husqvarna 250 XC
2011 Jayco 31.5 RLDS
2009 Chevy 2500 HD Duramax

[Mike OReilly]

The software program bleeps out the name of the inventor of the rotary engine because it confuses it with the same word ending in "r".

That word is a rude British colloquial term - I'm sure it is on Wikipedia. A Brit calling someone that is kind of the same as an American calling someone a "squid".

Amazing work on that rotary BTW.

Mike

[Rain Man]

Wow beautiful job restoring such an old rare bike. Thanks for the pics!
 One question, how many speeds does it have? It looks like only 4 at this end?

Raymond
 Down East Pentons