Kickstarter funding for Owen Motoworks R1100, R1150, and R1200GS motorcycles

[R1100purist]

Hello All,
My name is Owen Lloyd and I am president and chief designer of Owen Motoworks. My first product is a folding light bar for the R1100GS, R1150GS, and R1200GS motorcycles. I am trying to raise funds for prototypes using indiegogo.com and would love if you guys weigh in on my design and if you feel compelled, donate to my Indiegogo fund so I can get these Owen Motoworks Lightbars to market as fast as possible. If you are not familiar with indiegogo.com, they are a crowd funding website that allows entrepreneurs to raise small amounts of money towards completing a product and bringing it to market.

Eventually I plan to sell Owen Motoworks Lightbars on Advrider.com in the vendors section, but since it is a product for the GS, I wanted to give the GS forum a heads up and a opportunity to support me.

Click here to fund these Lightbars!


Thanks All!
Owen Lloyd

(Dear Mods, if this is an innapropriate section to post this sort of thing, please move it to where you believe it belongs. Thanks)

[rfbarker]

Any teaser photos available to post here while waiting for the kickstarter link to become active?

[krellheat]

Linky would be good too.

[R1100purist]

So far the only physical model is made, well, out of wood...thus the kickstarter to get some funds and start machining prototypes out of aluminum. I have the final all AutoCADed out though and ready for production. I have a video that has me explaining it though, the link is here:

http://vimeo.com/53801555

and the password is: owen

Thanks for you interest!

[pcwirepro]

Do you get full range of motion @ the front wheel with them retracted? Make em tough so I can hang my feet up there.

[R1100purist]

Originally Posted by pcwirepro

Do you get full range of motion @ the front wheel with them retracted? Make em tough so I can hang my feet up there.

Haha! Very funny on the foot rests...I won't condone that sort of use, but the goal is for them to be very tough anodized 6mm thick aluminum.

And yes you do get full motion with the front wheel/forks as there is a large amount of clearance the way they are mounted. Good question.

[precarious]

Interesting idea. I think breakaway mirrors are a great idea. Why not lights? They're more expensive, after all. I had something of a folding bar on my Strom. It saved the lights in a couple of falls.

How are the joints made up? How do they stay rigid at high speed? Bear in mind, these are GS riders; some people have 7" or larger diameter lamps. That's a lot of wind-catching area. Aluminum may bounce/vibrate, too. I haven't had good luck with aluminum light bars.

If that becomes a problem in testing, maybe you could have a spring hold it in position. Also, maybe a shape on the end of the lightbar to guide it in the right direction would help guarantee it folds in correctly. Like a half-moon horn on the end of the bar.

Just my musings. Good luck! If it pans out well for you, I hope you develop it for other makes, too. The fall down test video will be the proof

[R1100purist]

Well first an update, Kickstarter after giving my the go ahead months earlier, are giving me a bit of grief and they are now calling it an automotive project (I told them to go ask a motorcyclist how they like their automobile)...BUT if they don't work out I will most likely link to indiegogo.com, which is another site that is far more flexible. After all, these sights are just a forum for collecting funding...the real product will be sold here on Adv rider in vendors and in other popular BMW forums.

To respond to other questions and musings now:

The joints consist of an M8 bolt and nut paired with a detent ball and matching track that will "preload" the joint and keep it fixed at speed, but with a consistent push...say with a bush, tree, ground, or other obstacle...they will fold.

I did a few mock ups and I will say that people can use there giant lamps located underneath the bar, however they may lose several degrees of rotation in an impact situation, as there is an upper limit on how much can be tucked under that front fairing/beak area...especially on the wider R1200GS. However, and this is a big however, I have found that you really only need about 30-40 degree of inward deflection before other stuff would start hitting the ground/obstacle and you will have other worries than your aux. lights getting scraped up. For example after 30-45 degrees, your cylinder heads, tank, and the other usual suspects will be taking the lions share of the impact.

The end of the lightbar will be radiused to encourage rearward rotation/deflection...however I also saw value in enabling it to rotate forward as well in case their is a more unusual crash situation. Again the goal here is to protect the light bar breaker bar of a lever from torquing your front frame and oil cooler in an impact. Protecting the lights themselves is an important but secondary bonus.

Good musings and let me know if there are more everyone!

Originally Posted by precarious

Interesting idea. I think breakaway mirrors are a great idea. Why not lights? They're more expensive, after all. I had something of a folding bar on my Strom. It saved the lights in a couple of falls.

How are the joints made up? How do they stay rigid at high speed? Bear in mind, these are GS riders; some people have 7" or larger diameter lamps. That's a lot of wind-catching area. Aluminum may bounce/vibrate, too. I haven't had good luck with aluminum light bars.

If that becomes a problem in testing, maybe you could have a spring hold it in position. Also, maybe a shape on the end of the lightbar to guide it in the right direction would help guarantee it folds in correctly. Like a half-moon horn on the end of the bar.

Just my musings. Good luck! If it pans out well for you, I hope you develop it for other makes, too. The fall down test video will be the proof

[precarious]

Well played, sir! I look forward to seeing more. I think I'm going to be a GS owner soon, so I'm looking forward to some innovative stuff

[pielet97]

I don't think one axis will be enough to prevent damage. If I wanted something like that, I'd design a RAM ball mount type pivot point.

[R1100purist]

Originally Posted by precarious

Well played, sir! I look forward to seeing more. I think I'm going to be a GS owner soon, so I'm looking forward to some innovative stuff

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I hope to supply you with some of those accessories down the line.

[R1100purist]

Originally Posted by pielet97

I don't think one axis will be enough to prevent damage. If I wanted something like that, I'd design a RAM ball mount type pivot point.

You raise a very good point and something I didn't think about until I saw the bar mounted and realized that the single axis pivot is really all you need to get these things out of the way...because if you are deep enough that you need more axis of deflection than other stuff is getting fairly wrangled as well! This light bar is designed to prevent a little to medium oops from turning into a total disaster. In my kickstarter right up I have the whole philosophy laid out in full (still delayed). Much of that philosophy though can be summarized by the acronym KISS though...although the ram ball type could potentially be simplified as utilized on this sort of thing.

[Lensgrinder]

Originally Posted by pielet97

I don't think one axis will be enough to prevent damage. If I wanted something like that, I'd design a RAM ball mount type pivot point.

Agreed,
With one axis it will work fine for impacts involving forward motion, but a tip over will snap it off, unless it is angled slightly rearward which would make it necessary to aim the lights inward to compensate.

[R1100purist]

One has to remember that standard light bars do not even have provisions for a single access rotation and you do not here of them snapping up as much as you hear about them rotating around the Y-axis. If all of a sudden I start getting snapped up light bars in the mail from disgruntled customers, I will rethink this design, but until then, I am confident that my design is the simplest and most robust solution to this problem...and will be judged as a high quality light bar in its own right.

I am really appreciating the feedback though! Keep them coming.

Originally Posted by Lensgrinder

Agreed,
With one axis it will work fine for impacts involving forward motion, but a tip over will snap it off, unless it is angled slightly rearward which would make it necessary to aim the lights inward to compensate.

[R1100purist]

Alright guys the link to the fudning site indiegogo.com is here:

Owen Motoworks Lightbars funding page

Help me get these Owen Motoworks Lightbars off the ground! Easy as using paypal! ADVriders will have first crack at these guys when they go into production.

Thanks,
Owen Lloyd
Owen Motoworks