Is there anybody out there?

No, it's not a left over section from Saddam's super gun. That huge lump of metal will turn into a steering head in the hands of my new best friend "Indiana Jensen" – a really skilled, local fabricator that I came across by chance, after giving up on sourcing a frame from the states. I wrote to every firm I could find that manufactures or sells frames for flat trackers, but no one was interested. Most didn't even bother to answer my emails. The rest were luke warm at best. Go figure.

I knew from the start of the build that I wanted a radially mounted front brake. Not because it was needed, since the bike will be pretty light, but because it just looks more "factory" without a mounting adaptor between the fork leg and the caliper. That ruled out the "standard" R6 right-side-up forks that are very popular among flat trackers, since they don't accept a radial caliper. After measuring quite a few modern upside-down forks I found that those mounted on modern Suzukis are a little bit taller than most, and crucially: they are available with a black coating on the fork tubes (I like black). After a couple of days of watching eBay, a perfect pair from a 2007 GSX-R 750 showed up on the US eBay. The price was very reasonable and when the UPS-man dropped them off at my door, they turned out to be just like advertised: MINT! I purchased a new set of bearings/races and had the new steering head (see last post) milled to accept the new upper and lower races. I will probably have to revalve or tune the forks to suit the lower weight of my bike. And machine new yokes/triple clamps to get the ground trail just right. But more on that later.