Skidplate for the Trials Bike

I have a short list of additions/changes to the Trials bike, in preparation for the next event on September 26th. Two of those things have been checked off to the to-do list as of this morning, as shown below:

I moved the front brake lever to the left hand side of the bars. I found it difficult to operate both the throttle and front brake at the same time when I was needing to really push/pull on the bars for tight maneuvers.


I wanted to build some sort of skidplate. As it happens, I had an old krusty Trail 55 frame in the junk pile that has a Honda Accessory skidplate. After a good cleaning with a brillo pad, it actually shined up quite nicely:


The upper mount simply clamped over the main frame downtube:


The rear of the skidplate mounts to the bottom of the engine case where the footpegs mount. It is rather beefy, with a tubular perimeter and a 1/8" thick plate across the bottom, featuring an access hole for the drain plug:


Next up is a new kickstand (the original one I built is useless) and a new carburetor and intake manifold setup.

C'