The Yasujiro Speedbike, released at Eurobike 2012 is not just another concept bike. It’s a new bike concept. A new riding concept as well, known as Asphalt Gravity.
Have you ever experienced the feeling of riding down in the Alps or the Pyrenees, especially on the Tour de France stages roads ? Riding down on asphalt is a matter of keeping the speed, and being focused on pure lines. It requires good skills and concentration to keep on the edge of the perfect line. As pure cyclists, we also like climbing those prestigious gaps before to ride them down. But we also dreamt of a pure asphalt downhill bike... That’s the reason why, we created the Speedbike.
The inspiration of the Speedbike comes from the 50cc racing motorcycles from the 60’s to the 80’s. These amazing bikes where incredibly small, and suffered form a lack of power. They were very difficult to ride efficiently because the horse power was available on a very tight RPM zone. With those bees on small tires, the only way to go fast was to keep the rotating speed of the engine in the 500 RPM range of full power, and to draw very nice lines to avoid loosing speed. It was pure state of the art of piloting !
Our idea of a downhill bike was close to this kind of motorbike because of its dimension. The idea was also to be able to lay down on the bike, in order to gain speed in straight sections. For that reason, we placed the rider on the rear wheel, which didn’t allow us to use any transmission system. But the fact that there was no other way to get fast than counting on the gravity force was perfect for us. It means that you have to keep concentrated on your lines. If you get out the one and only perfect line, you get punished ! Concerning the wheels, we tried to keep as close as possible to the diameter of the 50cc bikes. We also wanted to make it as compact as possible, but with a good stability. All these reasons drove us to choose 24’’ wheels. The front end has to be quite stiff : we decided to use a tapered headset system, with a downhill fork double crown. The rider can adjust his position with the 1/2 handlebars, and a multi position foot pegs system. Brakes : we decided to use MTB DH brakes. With two ø 203 mm disc brakes, we had no doubt about braking efficiency...
Finally the idea was just simple : a frame, a saddle, two wheels and good brakes. What else ?
Maker’s high skills
For Yasujiro, the Speebike is also an opportunity to show the know how of the brand as a steel frame maker. Look at these long bended tubes : building the Speebike required very good skills. And the welding is just perfect.
Team and partners
If the original idea of the Speedbike comes from Yasujiro’s european rep, Jaycee, all the people at Yasujiro enjoyed it and the decision has been made instantly to produce a prototype. Almost everything has been made specifically by Yasujiro : from the frame to the fork blades, including foot pegs, handlebars...
The design of the frame follows Jaycee’s first rough sketches, but it has been developed with Antidote Solution, an engineering company, which also handled the technical management of the project once the parts have been built.
Many partners also joined the project. Since months they all keep it secret ! And all share the same enthusiasm.
- Shimano : downhill brakes.
- Facs Moto : fiber glass saddle.
- Asterion : wheels.
- Schwalbe : Big Apple tires.
- Bos MTB : fork double crown.
- Spank : Subrosa grips.
The rider
The very first rider of the Speedbike is Serge Nuques, one of the best french motorcycle riders, also known as the Knight of Groland, a famous french TV show. Serge has begun as an enduro rider, then switched to road rally racing, when the French Moto Tour made its come back in the beginning of the century. He won the Moto Tour three times. He also have been selected to race the famous Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man. With all his experience, Serge is certainly one of the fastest rider in the world on open road. He can be incredibly fast, but always safe. He’s crazy enough to seek new insane challenges, which are part of his reputation. He’s been very enthusiast about the project as soon as we showed him the very first sketches.