Mick Broom's 2001 Mk1 F650FF - with fairing

This is a second photo from Mick Broom's ebay advert for his Mk1 F650-based FF. He has now clarified the fact that he did in fact make two complete FF machines, and this is the first. The second had his own design of hub-centre steering, as can be seen elsewhere in this folder.
Mick has provided more information, in discussion on the Facebook Feet First group:
"This is the first prototype machine that was used to explore the concept and find out if it would do the job with no real effort to finish things in a way that could be produced commercially and was the first step. This led to enthusiasm to take the idea forward and also a wish-list of changes to improve it, which then became the second machine. During the build of the second machine, it was decided that the commercial ambitions of the customer would not be achieved but I was impressed enough with the results to carry on and explore where we could get to with it. This first machine being more conventional is a better bet for someone to play with and produce a useful machine if they wish."
UPDATE 7th Aug 2020: The winning bid was only £159.00! Someone got themselves a bargain!
PNB
Photo: screenshot from ebay advertisement.

Mick Broom's 2001 Mk1 F650FF - with fairing

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Not invented here?

Obviously quite a good cut'n shut. Not a bad shape either, maybe with more tail..

But built in the noughties? with it's own, unique HCS system? To investigate a commercial proposition? Er... Wasn't most of this done in the Seventies? And a Mk11 Voyager HCS could have been bought 'off the shelf' in 2001, with fabrications and geometry suggestions. So really my question is, why was all this done from scratch again?

I'm genuinly curious. As Mick may know, progress (e.g. in F.1) comes from occasional sparks of genius and careful copying of anything that works. Maybe the lack of progress in FF development is the result of avoiding this simple and well proven system. For whatever reason.

In 2020 genius, innovative purity, is not required to take FFs further towards the mainstream. The vehicle is not mysterious or, according to the Teshnology Support Board, even innovative. It just needs production finance. More a political/industrial problem than anything else. Like most of the tranformational technology we could otherwise have.

Even as a hobby it makes sense to use knowledge and components to hand. Real innovation in vehicle engineering now involves assembling an electric powertrain, compiling the control systems, batteries and ultra-capacitors. As the Honad Motor Co. noted, more than two decades ago, the actual vehicle is "Almost simple"

Mick Broom replies (via the Facebook FF group)

Mick Broom replies (via the Facebook FF group)
"I am honored that Royce has made the effort of commenting on my small excursion into his world of FF with a lengthy comment which would be rude not to try and address. The simple answer is that I was following the customer's wishes as I saw them but obviously had input through advice. The machine Royce viewed was intended to be the first chapter of many in progress to a conclusion. In any development undertaken it was my usual habit of purchasing the best in class to use as a benchmark so we could have a direct comparison with any results and also later on if available do a back to back test of any comparable vehicle/competition. I may be wrong and admit not getting to the comparison stage before we switched the project off but the progress and expectations had moved on from his outstanding early efforts in both performance and styles so it needed a different conclusion. Royce is correct in that its a fool that ignores what has been achieved and most things have been done before so can be used as a guide given a full picture of all aspects and the results obtained. My assessment at that time and it's not changed is that a well designed mechanical foot forward type of machine is better for normal use on the road and will have a small following or market due to its unusual style. It does show limitations for outright performance because of its structural integrity but for the proposed city bike we were looking at it was worth a punt and I was impressed enough with the results to keep it with the intention of using it for long-distance touring but time has overtaken me."
(passed on by PNB)