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The Quiet Master
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Goldammer Cycle Works
Michael Schulte
02/01/2007
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Photography by Cordero Studios/corderostudios.com
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Squaring off against Matt Hotch and the clock in a Bonneville
speed challenge, Goldammer sliced a Honda CR250R motocross bike down the middle,
keeping only the swingarm and twin-spar aluminum frame. He then grafted an
unusual powerplant into the modified chassis. “I used a Rotax/Aprilia tandem
twin 250cc two-stroke—two 125 cylinders, one in front of the other on a common
crankcase,” he says. The bike’s unorthodox design isn’t confined to the
Superkart style, push-start mill. After being told it was impossible, Goldammer
grabbed a pair of KTM radiators, a pair of wooden forms and curved the grills to
fit the cambered, triangular downtube he had built for the project. “I asked
a few people who said, ‘Hell, no, you can’t do that.’ That’s the fun part about
bike building,” he recalls of the audacious experiment. Goldammer unleashed his
lightweight, high-tech bullet on the Salt Flats, immolating the existing record
for its class by nearly 20 mph.
Now, the dexterous Canadian is applying his
singular vision to another of his passions—the Norton Manx—using some of the
technology he developed for Trouble. No mere café-racing thumper, the Manx will
feature a fuel-injected, supercharged single-cylinder Harley. “I run a rear head
on the front cylinder with a plenum chamber and throttle body assembly under the
gas tank, on top of the cylinder head,” he says of the configuration.
For
many, the most exciting aspect of Goldammer’s latest opus won’t be what makes it
go, but rather what makes it stop. “I’ve taken pieces of 12-by-6-inch round
aluminum and machined hubs out of them, with air intakes and disc brakes
inside,” he says. If that sounds like a labor-intensive odyssey, Goldammer would
be quick to agree. “I have weeks and weeks of work in the rear wheel alone.
Building all the internal brake parts—it’s insane,” he admits, adding, “If I
were to sell the wheel for $20,000, I wouldn’t be making any money, but that’s
what I had to do. It’s what I wanted to build.” Like his previous efforts,
the Manx-inspired bike will not be confined to the shiny floors of exhibition
halls. “I’m going to race it at Bonneville,” Goldammer says, continuing with a
grin, “A blown, injected single cylinder Harley, running on nitrous. It’ll
be fun.”
Fun and hard work are synonymous in the mind of Roger Goldammer. A
true throwback to the age of master craftsmen, his achievements in design are
the result of a consummate technical prowess, an artist’s eye and a work ethic
that would make Martin Luther look like a slacker. Above all, Roger Goldammer is
motivated by a true love of motorcycles and the kind of curiosity that has him
bending radiators and breaking expectations of what it is possible to do with a
motorcycle. Or as he says, in characteristically understated fashion, “I’m still
learning, that’s the fun part about it. That’s what keeps you going, there’s
always the next project, the next challenge.”
www.goldammercycle.com |
250.764.8002
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