If you have been to Ireland, you know that driving and road rules are different from those of the US and of the rest of Europe, e.g. drive on the left and yield to the right on roundabout (similar to rules of the United Kingdom). Well, on his new build, Irish Ger Conlon from C&C Choppers worked hard at adding to our confusion by using a Harley-Davidson Shovelhead engine modified to use 2 rear cylinders to mount a pair of Webber carburetors held by a one-off manifold. Look at his engine, it is turned backward as is the Ultima 6-speed gearbox…A mechanical exercise that got Ger a big win in Dublin at the Irish round of the AMD Championship Of Bike Building and a free trip to Sturgis to compete for the titlel of world champion.
Apart from the motor, gearbox and tires everything you see on this Irish gee creation involved a lot of one-off parts and extreme modifications from catalog parts. After building the single-sided rigid frame, Ger Conlon installed a front end born from mixing parts of an inverted front end with a Springer.. Gas tank holds both oil and gas. Drive is by friction wheel with wheels using C&C Choppers hubs made from stainless steel, alloy and bronze and steel rims on which are laced 120 stainless steel spokes and equipped with brass nipples. Rear drum brake started out as a rear Hionda CB 750 hub. C&C Choppers Ireland.
Not my style. Too angular, tortured shape, but a lot of work.
One for the show tour…
This is an awesome build, so many hand made parts and insane creativity! This is what building a “custom” bike is all about. Be very proud. And any doubters should check out their Facebook page with countless pictures on how this bike was built. Enginuity in every part! Kickin’ arse!
man that messes with my head when I think about a shovelhead engine spinning in the opposite direction. Did a special cam have to be made? oiling system changed? Or does this motor still turn its original direction and the final drive is changed to the correct direction through the tranny?
I will lie awake tonight thinking of this configuration. peace
way cool turning everything backwards , lot of work , to green for me….
as far as the revers motor system..i did it 4 years ago..custom ground cam, custom pinion gear for oil pump(ground backwards so pump goes foward) , custom ignition, some internal mods that are secret..it can be done…oh yeah..try to figure out the breather gear timing lol…its all math and basic motor tuning..but its awesome when it works…not my style but so cool to make things run backwards..not many people appreciate it. most people thought mine didnt run..it was turbo charged and a dual motor set up..i would tell them to put their tounge on the turbo when i started it.then they shut up…awesome creation! thumbs up…very creative
and all that awesome engineering and theres a 30 dollar throttle cable stuck out there for every one to see…ugggg. internal throttle please. but again incredible skill and creativeness
whatever…. this is soo easy…… I am going to do this to my bike tonight. Now where did I leave my copy of Photoshop 🙂
I like it (and I normally don’t care for this style) but I don’t understand the reason for the motor reversal aka going thru all of that engineering to be different doesn’t seem sufficient (to me, anyway)
dr robert. the drive on the bike is friction. so instead of making another gearbox to run the friction wheel in reverse. making the bike longer. because the extra box would have to sit behind the regular gearbox i just turned everything around. so now i still have a short looking bike.i hate too much space between the rear wheel and gearbox. and its not quiet finished yet. still have more to do.. oh,,and i will ride it.:-)
Ger
Correct me if im wrong because i may not be thinking about this right but isnt the motor still running in the same direction as it normally would (rolling forward?) but since you flipped the motor 180 degrees and are running it backward. .. if so how are you able to have the friction drive work any different then if it were a regular set-up.. If im thinking correctly and again i may not be you would need to run in backward and keep the motor set-up with primary on Left correct….
Again just trying to work it out in my head and its hard to see whats goinq on in pic
Never mind. you didn’t change the internals of the motor did you ? so it runs normal direction or in this case backward rolling toward the back
Erin go Braugh!…..tooo cooooll…love the wheel. To wheel look so clean in the back and keeping it short just makes it that much better,,,,,excellent job _Ger !!! I will ride it for you. Ha!
hey spider
i didnt change the internals of the motor. as it is now if i put a sprocket on the rear wheel the bike would drive in reverse, the alloy wheel pressed up to the rear tyre is spinning in reverse. which means the rear tyre will rotate forward..
I can understand why one would do this. Not that my mind would take me to this place all by it’s self. If I had the mind that would question the universe of mechanical innovation, a mind that continues to question even after most others said “NAY”… well I would not only work out the physics of this idea, I would build it to prove my theories. So yeah, I like this bike… for all the right reasons.
Great Job Ger: You have almost everyone confused now. I followed the complete build on your face book page and you did an excellent job, definitely thinking outside the box. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next. Hopefully we will see you in Canada for the International Master Bike Builders ” World Cup Competition” next year.
Ger is the Man !
Awesome.
Pretty cool.
That’s cool, the oil tank is on left side of the fuel tank. Surprised i haven’t seen more of that in custom builds, and nice plumping of the oil lines too!,,,,not my kind of bike but you have to admire the creativity and engineering that went into this build!
SOOOOO. THE MOTOR DOESNT RUN IN REVERSE? CHEATER! LOL
Hey A1 , didn’t you invent the internet too ?
That was alot of work great job Ger….
I Mr.Ger, incredible work the bike is very cool and the friction wheel allways amazing.
Like the little solex bikes.Allthe best.
Too rich for my blood…..but great for show…..
Rub. Al gore did. Lol
Very cool! It’s irish it has to be green.
Lot of work,like the builders innovation……details are good,apart from reverse drive train,wheels are the best feature of this bike.
1 speed forward, 6 reverse? LOL! Cool bike!
your guy doing the eletrics must be good cant see a cable anywhere nice one ger