Glyn,
A while ago you posted about creating larger mag forks using Kawasaki internals. Is this project still in the works?
Thanks,
Mark

The larger mag forks are "in suspension" till I catch up with everything else. I have the first batch of castings from the mould boxes, and jigs made up for machining. They are a copy of the Marzocchi 38mm magnesium forks used on F1/endurance stuff. I made the castings 4mm larger in diameter to accept 41mm tubes and cartridges. The official statement says, -- " When you are up to your ass in Alligators, it is difficult to remember that the original intention was to drain the swamp."
The move to NZ has been epic to say the least. However, I am sat here in the workshop at 8am, in shorts, enjoying warm sunshine and serenity.
Every single day in the workshop feels like holiday.

Regarding the triple clamp issue, Steve is absolutely right about spacing down the lower clamp to clear the tubes, and using a dropped upper clamp to grab the now lower fork leg. The consequence of this effectively raises the front of the bike and decreases the fork angle slightly, thus increasing the effective trail, which is what we are trying to achieve by shortening the clamp offset in the first place. Double whammy.
However, the payback is a longer wheelbase, a higher front ride height and less weight distribution to the front end because the centre of gravity has changed. Maybe to correct this, raise the rear ride height accordingly.

The short clamps/large trail is fine for a fast sweeping track to encourage stability at speed, however, on a slower track with tighter bends the wide clamp/less trail option makes the bike less stable at speed, but more manageable in the turns.

In a perfect theoretical world we would each have a wide range of triple clamps suitable for any weekend. In this unfortunate practical world we humans adapt, and cope quite happily with remarkable ease, struggling onwards (and upwards) with merely the one set of clamps. How on earth do we all manage ?

In conclusion, I concur with Steve, "If it was easy, it wouldn't be any fun"

Maybe just a bit easier would allow us to get on to riding which is certainly more fun.

I have ridden a few TT/F1 track bikes and the differences in initial turn-in and mid-corner attitude are surprising. My 43mm Showas are wonderful even though I used the Zuki clamp set at 30mm offset. No issues with fork legs banging the frame but O/A fork length is a bit short so I like the gullwing clamps idea mentioned. The DM frame Steve mentioned has similar geometry to my Verlicchi endurance frame barring one difference I know of. Both are steep raked but the DM frame was 25mm longer at the neck and I found initial turn-in was noticeably delayed, tip-in behaved as if too much trail yet that bike turned easily once tipped in and did not stand up under trail braking either. My opinion is there are enough variables some of which are very well discussed above so it may be that sufficient change can be realised by attending to either trail, rake or effective rake. My issue may well be adequately resolved by gullwing clamps or longer forks. Ideally I will make attitude changes incrementally and actually test each change before doing anything else.

Then we can confidently look at post 2012 big-piston cartridges fitted into our classic/post classic eligible forks.

No idea what these clamps are but they came of a TT2 and have that curved top clamp

I can measure them up when I get them home

Hello Fran. The cool Yamaha racer retro bike in this month's Cycle World made me look for Mule Motorcycles. Maybe they can help you. MikeV

http://www.mulemotorcycles.net/triple-clamps.html

Thanks for keeping me in mind, Mike!

I found a set of 1990 750 Sport clamps under the bench and a set of f3 41mm Showas from a friend so I only have to do a pair of caliper mount adapters and tidy things up.