Motorcycle & Powersports News August 2010 : Page 12
He believed a motorcycle you could ride in the snow would be more fun. Over the next few years, he began sketching the design for a machine that would add tracks to an off-road bike. When Hewlett-Packard closed his division in 1996, he opted to take early retirement to create, market and sell a con-version kit to transform a dirt bike into a snow-going motorcycle. Development took time. Forbes invested all of his time and most of his money into building the track system. That was the beginning of an eight-year period of engineer-ing and development. By 1998, Forbes and his small team had a prototype machine that they tested on the snowy mountains near Idaho City. The tracked motor-cycle wasn’t what they envi-sioned, but it worked well enough that the group knew that Forbes’ concept could become a reality. In 2005, former Hewlett-Packard colleagues Bill King and Vard Williams quit their day jobs, permanently joined forces with Forbes and brought additional funds and manpower to the effort. In summer 2006, the 2Moto crew redesigned the machine. After years of late nights and long hours, they believed they finally had built a machine that would ride and feel like a dirt bike. They would need to test it in better snow to make sure they had it right. After a long summer of waiting and tinkering, they would get their chance in October 2006. The team found good snow on a glacier in Stewart, British Columbia, and put two proto-types on a truck and travelled 43 hours to the test site. Once in Stewart (which is only a few miles south of Hyder, Alaska), they helicoptered the bikes to the top of the Cambria Icefield and took a ride on a machine that embodied nearly a decade of investment and more than 15,000 hours of development. Within a few minutes, they had their answer. “We knew instantaneously that we had it right,” said Bill King, 2Moto vice president of research and development. The crew tested the machine for two full days before they were rained off the glacier and found that they had engineered the tracks, suspension and ski such that the motorcycle performed as an off-rider would expect — in the snow. “We aren’t selling a product,” King said. “We are building a new powersport.” The RadiX is sold as a kit that you mount on your off-road bike. The kit consists of a driven rear track unit in place of the rear wheel, with a ski up front. It takes about 40 minutes to bolt the kit to a bike, and the kits fit most modern off-road bikes. The RadiX is a solidly-built piece of engineering that looks simple but incorporates more than 252 patent claims. The overbuilt unit consists of a 10.7 by 93-inch track with 2.1-inch lugs mounted on a custom-designed aluminium frame. The track uses super low-friction polyethylene slides similar to the hyfax sliders used on snowmobiles The track is chain-driven, and the beefy billet drive train is designed to handle more than 100 horsepower with ease. The track can pivot left and right on a rear linkage, a feature that helps the machine navigate sidehills. A large disc brake on the jack hub slows the machine down. An adjustable 6-inch-wide, dual-carbide Simmons FlexiSki and a 6061-T6 aluminium extension bolt to the stock front suspension. The rear suspension offers 15 inches of travel at the rear of the track and uses two 14 August 2010 motorcycleproductnews.com
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