A UNIQUE project that GAVE Honda the BEST! The Honda ELF MotoGP prototypes and their "Pro Arm"

[@MarkACruz-rx3co]

I raced the GTS1000 in AMA SuperTeams with Brian Catterson. The bike was huge. With acceleration and deceleration it didn't wheelie or dive, the whole unit went up and down like a elevator.

[@wierdbike]

Seems like BMW R1200GS Telelever/Paralever effect

[@garyhost1830]

Thanks you so much for you comment. I love that there's input from people who have touched the machine on a video on you tube.

[@StephaneyAllinson]

I remember Ron Haslam went really well on the elf hondas and then started crashing a great deal he later revealed inan interview that he was grounding out the front swinging arm that would lift the front wheel and take him out. It was always a pleasure to watch Rocket Ron

[@SherKhan-b1kes]

I’ve been riding a 97 Vfr750f for the last 7years. I love this bike, adjusting the chain takes 10seconds while rear-wheel removal/assembly can be done in less than 2minutes. It has Elf Honda France stamped on the single-sided swing-arm.

[@carrot595]

Tamiya,......are you watching this?

[@Kneedragon1962]

It was a major project. In the '70s, there was considerable interest in alternative front end design. You can do a great many interesting things with front end geometry, if you have upper & lower arms, which you can't do with forks. Trouble is, if you make the arms wide enough to allow decent steering lock, they'll hit the ground when you lean over. Theory is nice, but somebody's got to build one of these things and see. So Elf did. Does it work? Well ~ yes it does, but it's not necessarily a whole lot better. It's more complex, it's harder to set up, it doesn't feel the same... It does offer certain advantages, like under brakes, but it had disadvantages as well, and nobody knows the first thing about setting it up or developing it. The ultimate version of it had more like a McPherson Strut, but it still had the single side swing-arm and it still had not enough steering lock. If you're going to replace teleforks, then what you build has got to be better, not more complex and expensive and almost as good. Brits today love Leon Haslam. Leon's dad, is bloke called Ron. Ron was the Rocket Ron who rode the Elf Honda.

[@heinzhaupthaar5590]

Though I generally tend to agree, it's always a bit questionable to judge parts or subsystems that are hardly developed past early prototype stage on platforms optimized for fundamentally different technology and come to general conclusions about its potential. Without the whole system "motorbike" seeing as much development as a system with different paths such as this being followed, there's no saying if it might not even be vastly superior. Or inferior. After all, path dependency is a real bit...

[@wtfftw24]

Thanks for posting. Really interesting 👍

[@marcbrasse747]

Excellent subject. A bit of additional info: The Honda Nt650GT Hawk / Bros, internal project number RC31, has a very similar but simpler singlesided swingarm. My early example carries the same plaque. It’s still a great bike for real world road use and a lot cheaper then a RC30. So what if the number is not entirely the same. It’s near enough! 😁

[@bastiancooper-queen1849]

I just discovered this channel and find it detailed and interessant.....bravo !

[@jfu5222]

I'm just old enough to remember the ELF grand prix racers, I knew then that I was looking at something special. As a side note, the most popular hub center steering motorcycle ever made started production in 1921, the Ner-A-Car!

[@davidemantovi6678]

Super cool video. Thank you a lot for your effort ❤

[@future62]

Success or not this is my favorite motorcycle

[@urdnal]

This is great! I remember seeing only pictures of these in books 20-30 years ago without much info about them.

[@wierdbike]

I glad you enjoy it🤝

[@kbearpro]

Very cool video. Love learning about Honda and the elf projects. Great job.

[@StoffelDilligas]

Having had the terror/pleasure of riding a hub centre steering bike..... It was.... Odd. No dive on the brakes, suspension still working in the corners. Took a bit of adjusting to ride them. (Yamaha gts1000)

[@rzaultra165]

The GTS is flawed, development has not yet been completed, but they have given up and run away to immediately market a motorbike that is still very basic and looks strange and doesn't connect to the rear.

[@StoffelDilligas]

@@rzaultra165 totally flawed But I've ridden one. And can say I had the experience

[@saderuscz]

i have pleasure with Italjet Dragster XD

[@nathanmay3658]

Just did a video with Iconic Motorbikes of a Tesi 3D. So weird to watch the suspension work. And yeah, that no dive feeling is certainly odd. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oF7Tf6aof5Zkbq8si=Qgi0n6z0Lh5q5XSG

[@pablodechaves]

Thanks for these videos!

[@bransky]

Nice job! I had a Honda hawk for many years. Nt650. Great bike.

[@shallowcaster]

I had a Hawk as well. Fun bike!

[@rcfanaticdublin]

The ELF ProArm on Honda bike's looked Amazing...I had several JDM NT400/650V machine's from the late 1980's in the early 2000's....they were Very popular with Despatch rider's here in Ireland in the Mid 90's to the Early 2000's.

[@adr1uno638]

There is also the "BUT" bike from Olivier Chevallier that Eric Offenstadt drove, it has a strange front pivoting swing arm and full aluminium frame

[@ATomRileyA]

Interesting stuff

[@argentosebastian]

@7:20 the Gopro 😂 The system is called Center Hub Steering or CHS. There are a few production motorcycles using this system. The ones I remember are: Yamaha GTS1000, Gilera CX 125, and if you want the good stuff, Bimota Tesi and (Ducati) Vyrus.

[@dr.jiIIaIicecooper2587]

Vyrus is not a Ducati

[@argentosebastian]

@@dr.jiIIaIicecooper2587 that is why I put it in parentheses. It's Vyrus and uses a Ducati engine.

[@manoliswec5674]

nice vid. you could also mentioned the 1984 nsr 500 which was design with some elf innovations and unfortunately failed

[@nicknelson9450]

A very approximate command of the English language and no motivation, it seems, to use the tools which are now so easily available to check and correct it.

[@ztoon13]

07:41 Guy Coulon in the background! (chief mechanic at Tech3 motoGP team)

[@dr.jiIIaIicecooper2587]

I see Sammy Hagar in background wearing Elf shirt.

[@cokvandenheuvel4769]

Racebikebuilder and constructor nico bakker (netherlands) built beautiful bikes for racetrack and even street with elf in thought in the eighties. He wanted to improve on tesi 1 d from bimota. Bakkers qcs bike was used by yamaha for their gts 1000. I had the privilege to own both these machines an i saw the collected elf machines at partsupplier cms. Beutiful stories...

[@deano1873]

What did they say about Vincent motorcycles.... solving engineering problems that no one else knew existed.

[@teamgonzo9289]

Enjoy this very much!!! 👍

[@wierdbike]

Thank’s a lot🤝

[@cedhome7945]

Anyone living in Bristol in the late 70s and early 80s would have seen lots of quazar's on the road as they where built there

[@RabbitStu-M7UTS]

Future proofing your video with the phrase the 80’s of the last century is pretty proactive.

[@westwater73]

1980s

[@kimeldiin1930]

At Paul Richard the year before the release of the RC 30 Honda took three rolls of photos of the Nicco Bakker ISR single sided swing arm bike ........But the RC 30 with the same bock was more compact than the ISR Bakker ....(I have that one)

[@fswiftgti]

Good content, shame about the poor voice over and some innacuracies...

[@wheelie63]

well done .............thx. wb

[@PaulG.x]

3:55 I don't think the Yamaha TZ750 was ever employed as a part time decorator at Renault

[@Amboman4]

Moto Guzzi had a very similar single sided swingarm in 1950 on the Galletto 160.

[@quietknight8250]

I think that was the monobraccia? I'm bound to have the name wrong but roughly similar.

[@rzaultra165]

it's not an aluminum pro arm, it's a regular single side.

[@Amboman4]

But, the design is very similar, even down to the eccentric chain adjustment. @@rzaultra165

[@aerocynix]

Hi man! How can I contact you?

[@michaeldesilvio221]

I would have incorporated Dan Gurneys Alligator design.

[@stevegabbert9626]

0:46 Who was that going around in a short sleeve shirt and no gloves?

[@willyjimmy8881]

😅what it proved is that traditional design makes more sense. It might've started out unique but the more graditional elements that was reincorporated the faster and more competitive it became. Yes, it led to some innovations and that's great, but it's just another weird idea in the end.

[@earlebird4262]

ESL?

[@redchthonic]

What has the RC30 got to do with this. Great bike but none of the parts used on this bike.

[@wierdbike]

Watch this one more time, please

[@MattSomethingOrOther]

*Steering

[@peterfitzpatrick7032]

Such a shame the industry stuck with standard forks with all of their drawbacks... I'd love to see some F1engineers have a go...but without electronic control, proper mechanical engineering...

[@quietknight8250]

De Cortanze and a British designer/engineer involved in the project, whose name escapes me, were F1 engineers. As has always been the norm when 'experts' from the car world move into the motorcycle sphere to teach the 'philistines' how it's done, they find themselves at a loss as to why their logical and advanced designs ultimately fail. The routine is always the same, it starts with an observation of the current state of motorcycle development, usually in racing since that's where limitations are constantly being challenged, then the recognition that the designers are going about it all wrong because 'that's not how it's done with cars, and we're really smart'. Just look at the attempt with the Elf to lower the centre of gravity - 'that's what we do with cars, y' know' - very good for reducing frontal area but little else. Then the was the highly rigid chassis, another car 'innovation', these two factors among others combined to provide a bike that was admirably stable until it crashed because the riders had no feedback from the bike, they couldn't feel how the tyres were working, so they were either slow or, as I said, crashing. The issues all stem from the fact that motorcycles are not simply a car with a couple of wheels missing, as the car guys almost always believe, they are a dynamic device in a way that makes no sense to car inspired sensibilities, as evidenced by the long list of car designers shattered egos.

[@peterfitzpatrick7032]

@@quietknight8250 as someone who rode bikes for 15 years, I understand what you are saying... but I also know that tank slappers from rubber frames and fork stiction are a thing... there are better ways to do things, I'm a retired engineer myself and even as a young man, I thought the design of motorcycles left a lot to be desired after all, they did in fact started with bicycles with engines strapped on...😂 I rode a Gold Wing for 10 of those years and loved the shaft drive setup and the low slung fuel tank combined with the flat four to bring down the c of g... useful if you tip it over... ever try to lift a 4 stroke watercooled inline 4 with double overhead cams ? ... 😣 For me, "innovation" should not be just bolted-on electronic controls such as ABS, launch control or "active" suspension... but thats just me... Happy New Year btw ! 😎👍☘️🍺

[@WarrenHobb]

I'm named after Phil read R.I.P.

[@mikeyerke3920]

This would be good with a human voice. I couldn’t watch the whole thing.

[@danielescobar7618]

Why do automotive engineers/designers always think they can just jump into motos when they get bored or flunk out? Ans that they always seem to come up with hub centric steering and fail on the same points. Absurd assumption that bike engineering is a lower easier form of sports car engineering

[@mochabear88]

Neat

[@davidatkinson3887]

0.25 "engine under the tank" c'mon man!

[@wierdbike]

Tank under the engine, i sad… i guess…

[@milolouis]

per h? Are you a robot voice. It's per hour and I doubt any human would not know that..

[@wierdbike]

Per H.

[@denniseaton8136]

"Steering"...."weird".....

[@miketran4289]

Long gone are the days of Honda being innovative. They've been the most boring and consistent motorbike makers in the last 15 years and this is why no one buys their bikes anymore other than the Minimoto range. Honda is now like Suzuki, boring AF and no one cares anymore. The future right now is with European makers like Triumph and KTM. Honda has no future.

[@stuartburton1167]

No one buys Honda's !! Almost 1 in 3 of the bikes sold worldwide are made by Honda

[@mauricecanney7472]

Bimota Tesi

[@Team-fabulous]

Interesting video but absolutely no need for the daft heavy metal music...... Why!?

[@wierdbike]

Love doing things like this.

[@michaeldesilvio221]

I love the music.

[@Team-fabulous]

@@michaeldesilvio221 fruit