Where is quality?

It all sounds like excellent advice to me.
You've come to the right place as far as i'm concerned as there's some real knowledge on this forum, and you'll do right by heeding ChinaV and Jape's advice.
Also, if you decide to come to China on a research mission, i'm sure there'd be people on this forum willing to point you in the right direction help you get started.

Your project sounds amazing and i wish you the best of luck with it. Be sure to keep us informed on how it all pans out.

Cheers.

Thanks Dew and I will post progress on this thread.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tradedog

Thx for your replies, particularly yours Jape. Let me introduce myself. My name is Edward Byrne. I live in Zimbabwe. I am a motorcycclist and currently own an SV650 and a Montesa trials bike, no Chinese machines.

What am I trying to do? Let me explain. I am sure many of you will have come across a concept bike produced by Yamaha some time ago called an Air Tricker. There may have been a reference to it on this site some time back. Yamaha never produced this bike, just whet our appetites with pics and a little tech info. Please look it up.

My idea is to produce something along the same lines but not a direct copy. This will be primarily a "play" bike, very light weight, easy to wheelie, possibly registerable to use on the road in an urban environment. My plan is to produce CAD images of my concept and post it on sites such as this one to assess market interest and opinion. If there is interest I might produce this on a limited scale, here in Zimbabwe. It will be sold on 2 core principals, light weight and style.

I would manufacture the chassis, swingarm, subframe, plastics, tank, seat etc. here. What I am looking for from China are the other components. These would include suspension (adjustable), motor, wheels, brake assemblies, bars, pegs, levers, pedals, cables etc.

I am not looking for bespoke items made to my specs. I have come across many off the shelf parts, made in China, on the internet. The advice I am looking for is which suppliers to source from. Who, for example, produces the best, most reliable and lightweight motor. 250-300cc, 4 stroke, watercooled. Kick and electric start. Is there a supplier I can source the rest of the stuff from? I have come across one called TDR MOTO. They have a lovely catalogue and their prices are reasonable. I would imagine most of their range are stock items and quality therefore should be consistent.

I would/could produce no more than 4 or 5 bikes a month, so I would be buying in small quantities.

I am extremely competent mechanically and have good design skills. If this happens, the bike will look very good and very unique. It will be hand assembled with great attention to detail.

I am not looking at making a fortune at all here. If it even turns a profit I would be very grateful. It will, however, be great fun. This is also a bike I would like to own.

So there you have it. I would appreciate any input or opinions on my idea. PM me or post on this thread.

Thx again.

---

Welcome to the forums. Don't let the nay sayers put you down. I am sure you can buy engines.

Will be very interested to see how your project goes!

Thx Moilami

I am going to have a go at attaching some pics of the early design phase. I would really appreciate your opinions and feed back.

Could anyone tell me how to get these pics up with more resolution. I uploaded them as GIF files which are very crisp, but can only view them here as low res jpegs.

Thx

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tradedog

Could anyone tell me how to get these pics up with more resolution. I uploaded them as GIF files which are very crisp, but can only view them here as low res jpegs.

Thx

---

Post to http://imgur.com/ or http://host.fotki.com/ .. then put the direct link to the image between [ img]http://bla..... [/img] tags. Hope this helps.

Looks quite interesting concept actually. Ultra-light supermoto type bike. Would be a joy for toying and commuting.

I am just wondering where you are going to put the battery and air filter. Air filter isn't that much of a problem though, but how about the battery? In theory it could be placed directly under the seat. Or maybe below the fuel tank.

Battery is a problem. The profile of the fuel tank ultimately will have to be adjusted. Thanks for the input.

tradedog,
Your design kind of looks a Madass 125

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x...MadAss-125.jpg