DEEP DOWN DAMAGE

You’ve fixed up your fairings after a spill, but what about more serious damage?

Technical

A simple crash, but what damage lies beneath?

JHSRACINGOWNER/BIG CHEESE

James Holland runs JHS Racing in Keynsham, and he is our go to guy whenever we need a bike looking at. JHS Racing was set up in the mid 1990s and has since expanded as its reputation has grown. The workshop deals with everything, from scooters to superbikes. Having built and worked on race Suzuki SVs and Triumph 675s James has a wealth of knowledge with these bikes, but elsewhere James’ knowledge is as extensive as it gets. So from tyre fitting to MOTs, from dyno work to suspension, James really does do it all. And here he is, passing on his years in the business to Fast Bikes readers!

We had a new R1 in the other day, helping the customer repair it after a trackday stack. Not a big tumble, but a tumble nonetheless. He picked the bike up thinking everything was fine, carrying on with the rest of his trackday – as 99 per cent of people probably would having spent a chunk on tracktime.

Some frame damage is more obvious than other knocks…

The bike comes into us, we look at it and find this nasty great big crack in the rear wheel. Oh. We’ve seen cracks in wheels before, generally on accident-damaged machines on the road, where they’ve hit something solid, but nothing like this. All these new wheels are very lightweight (particularly new R1 wheels, which are probably the lightest on any mass produced bike) and that crack will only get worse. The thing is, you can’t fix them as they’re magnesium-type wheels. It’s scrap, simple as… Inside, it’s like a honeycomb so it might be even worse if you look internally. If it does collapse, it doesn’t bear thinking about…