revtothelimit - motorbike forum

Jaysus....I'd had this as an idea for several hundred decades, then just as i was going to sell a bunch of parts & bin the rest johnnymac tells me the bike is in the spirit of ldc. For those that don't know, it's a ride from land's end to john o'groats on June 21st - one day, budget bikes, no motorways.
It's debilitating, it's the cannonball run. It's fucking stupid. But it raises massive amounts for cancer research. Last year £136k, so it's become the largest single event fundraiser for cancer research.

Anyway, the hawkati is stupid too - a hawk (like a bros) with an Aprilia mille engine and a bunch of non standard parts with me using angry grinders and hammers to make other bits to hold it all together.

Sample pic...



...and here's the first of a bunch of edit free vids showing how I'm throwing it together...



...

Great stuff, nice one

Those bikes are tiny, and those engines are not.
Top bombing!

The strange thing is the engines are so similar that it's a natural fit - both 60 degree v twins. The top rear engine mount is almost identical and it took just slicing a bit off the front frame spars to get the front sprocket in the optimum position and then make up some new mounts. I started a while ago and worryingly have done a short vid each time there's been any progress- basically being some kind of media tart to garner a bit of support when the cancer research fundraising pages go live.

Here's another for the hell of it, cheers!

Magic.
Looking sharp already.

Top work!

I was following a guy on YT last year who did (sadly failed to complete) last year's LDC with a streetfightery NTV.

Are you planning to finish the build in good time, or the night before?

Fitting a Rotax V60 lump designed for use with a conventional swingarm into a Honda Hawk chassis fitted with SSSA just ups the ante even further! Top work and I have faith, brother...

Nice one but, I wouldn't want to be riding that much further than the local shops. Book yourself a Chiropractor for after.

Nobby wrote: Mon Feb 16, 2026 7:59 pm Nice one but, I wouldn't want to be riding that much further than the local shops. Book yourself a Chiropractor for after.

He did it on a 916 I think one year

DefTrap wrote: Mon Feb 16, 2026 2:06 pm Top work!

I was following a guy on YT last year who did (sadly failed to complete) last year's LDC with a streetfightery NTV.

Are you planning to finish the build in good time, or the night before?

Hoping (haaaaa!) to have it running & road legal by the beginning of may. Just gotta keep going at it in small doses in between biblical deluges because my stable is smaller than a single garage and too full up to do much work unless outside.
I was going to do Absolutely Fuckall today for once but the class of 26 started their wattsapp group so I lurched outside and had a go at matching up header pipes, mid section & exhausts. Moar work is definitely needed but I got a ballpark fit. Clearly needs a bit more angry grinder work to give better ground clearance, Clarence

Ssray wrote: Tue Feb 17, 2026 12:10 am

Nobby wrote: Mon Feb 16, 2026 7:59 pm Nice one but, I wouldn't want to be riding that much further than the local shops. Book yourself a Chiropractor for after.

He did it on a 916 I think one year

My old 996 - I'd built unklefukker- a cbr 400 with a 929 blade engine, but the loom was toast. It did for 17 main fuses then burned the ignitor box out three days before the ride so it wasn't even getting off the driveway.
So I used the 996. I could do about 250 miles with no issues, but by 500 miles it felt like a screwdriver wedged between my shoulder blades. By the end it broke me - 4 months of nerve damage between my neck and fingertips. Never again.
By contrast I've managed 475 miles in one day on the 1198s with nowt more than a few twinges & aches

I've done the odd 500 mile day on my old Bros and was relatively fine - you get off it often enough to fill up the piddly tank anyway.

DefTrap wrote: Tue Feb 17, 2026 9:57 am I've done the odd 500 mile day on my old Bros and was relatively fine - you get off it often enough to fill up the piddly tank anyway.

If i had any common sense at all I'd use my old hawk- it's done the event twice with absolutely no bother and I've felt fine after a couple of days. Seems I'm not wired to make life easy for myself. Derp!

Hats off to you James- LDC is a big challenge in itself, but that's some project! (and one of my favourite ever engines )

@hawkati How does the "£300 qualifying rule" for the bikes work in practice? Is it really loose or is it rigorously policed?
Presumably your bitsa is built from stuff you had accumulated in the shed, so is that effectively £0? What about additional parts to make it all work?

Watched all of the Youtube updates last night, you're as mad as a box of Tortoise Good on you, and the bike looks pretty cool.

DefTrap wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 10:49 am @hawkati How does the "£300 qualifying rule" for the bikes work in practice? Is it really loose or is it rigorously policed?
Presumably your bitsa is built from stuff you had accumulated in the shed, so is that effectively £0? What about additional parts to make it all work?

Heya - it's a £600 limit now thankfully- practical sportsbikes did so much to popularise old shitters that everything has gone horribly up in value. Things like my bike qualify by being in the spirit of the event - over budget but far far more of a challenge building the bloody thing. It's a bit more than fresh battery, clean carbs and pump the tyres up!
So there's always a handful of bikes that aren't budget - but the riders are still doing a thousand miles in one day and more importantly are raising money for cancer research, the reason why the event exists at all.

Speaking of which, the CR giving pages have gone live this morning, and a bunch have already set their pages up - including moi. Have a rummage, throw a bit of money at the cause, share it anywhere you likes? Cheers!

https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/ ... lenge-2026

Oh - to add, extra expenditure is allowed for tyres and brakes - essential stuff to hope for a safe event. Let's face it, it's not a race (it is) but anyone getting plastered across the landscape would wreck the event entirely for everyone, not just any poor bugger that crashes so it's aimed to ensure people can do the event with as little danger as possible....for a budget bike event. Wibble!

Functioning now it's warmer and slowly but shirley getting on with all the tedious fiddly stuff to actually make this function...

Digging the hushed Attenborough voiceover tones.