STEVE Woodhouse, the boss man of Cyclops Engineering, was having kittens when I arrived at his house to take the pics for this feature (not in any sexual sense, you understand). You see, John Wayne and his boys were hard at work on the house next door - as they'd already managed to back a JCB through his neighbours garden wall, and were getting steadily closer and closer to his (Steve's) house, he was understandably nervous ...
  His company, Cyclops Motorcycle Engineering Limited, to give it its full title, has been in existence for a good few years now and is one of the best kept secrets in motorcycle chassis development. Y’see, Steve used to work with the man who knows more about how to make motorcycles go around corners than anyone else in the world - Tony Foale. He and Steve were in partnership for five years before Tony disappeared off to Spain to live in the sunshine, and Steve's continued to build weird-looking, but unspeakably trick, motorcycles ever since.
  It’s all based around a little unit down at the end of a godforsaken track in deepest Kent - a little unit where wonders of steel and aluminium are crafted. Okay, so his love is hub-centre steering (more of that in a mo'), but he can make up just about anything in metal that your little bike desires. At the moment, he's building a Spondon-style frame in two inch alloy tubing to house a ZX10 motor with YZF750 running gear (hi Tintin), as well as making up a hugely chunky extended swingarm for another ZX10 and creating a very clever (and much lighter and stronger) one-piece chassis for an EXUP-powered grasstrack outfit ('one-piece' as in a single chassis incorporating the frame and sidecar as a single unit, not a frame with a chair bolted to it). Frames, subframes, swingarms, yokes, fuel tanks, tailpieces- if you want it made in metal, he can do it.
  In fact, his replacement frames for Suzuki GSX-Rs are sex on a stick. They're a very butch version of a Ducati-style trellis, as you can see in the pictures of it that are hereabouts, and allow you to just unbolt all the needed parts from your Gixer (engine, forks, swingarm, wheels, brakes etc) and bolt them straight into your new stiffer and much sexier trellis frame. Priced at just £1200 for the steel version and just £1800 for the alloy one, they undercut some of the big names' products quite dramatically too. And while he's started off doing just Gixer frames, he'd be quite happy to make them up for different engines too.
  But, as I said, his main love is hub-centre-steering and this is where it all gets really interesting to Streetfighters readers. You see, while the benefits of HCS are well-known, what all the experts seem to forget is that HCS bikes also attract pub carpark crowds like Tracey Coleman holding a sign saying 'Lick Me' whilst covered in warm chocolate sauce. In fact at a time when usd forks are starting to be seen as passe, having a funny front end on your bike may just be the next bike thing ...
  There are two ways of going about this -either you can have your frame converted to take the HCS set-up or you can have a new frame made that'll be purpose-designed to take your engine. Looking at the former idea first, Cyclops Engineering can take your frame, remove the conventional front end and throw it over the hedge (or give it back to you, whichever you like), and then replace it with a very simple design that, including a new wheel and a tyre, comes in at a very reasonable £1750 inc VAT.
  But the way he's going to be heading is the replacement frame kit - it's going to be a complete replacement kit (wheels, suspension, brakes, bodywork etc) that you just unbolt the engine from your bike and bolt it into the new one, and at around £6,500 for what is a very very unique bike, it's not terrifically expensive either.
  The design for the chassis is based around the blue bike you can see here, but the main frame will run round underneath the motor, not along it, and everything else will connect to it - the front suspension (and wheel) off the front of the frame, and the rear suspension (and wheel) off the rear - including the rear subframe and the smaller subframes for the petrol tank and steering head.The first of these new frames is under construction (it's the weird upside-down-coffee-table-without-a-top shaped wotsit) and looks at the moment a little rough as Steve had only finished it the day before and hadn't had time to cosmetically finish it. What surprised me is the lightness of it - while it might look like something that fell off the Forth Road Bridge, it actually weighs very little indeed. In fact, Steve reckons the whole chassis, without the engine or ancillaries, will only weigh about 10lbs, yet be incredibly rigid and strong. If I'd been able to wait another few days, he would've been able to tidy it up for the pics, but as time and magazine deadlines wait for no man, you'll have to wait until next month to see the finished product.
  In fact, you'll be seeing quite a lot of the build-up of the first new bike as it’s actually mine: Cyclops Engineering have been entrusted with building the Streetfighters Project 2000 bike - a 'Bloodrunners'-inspired 1428cc turbo/nitrous GSX-engined Katana-styled headcase of a bike that'll have single-sided swingarms front and rear, 200 section tyres at both ends and a wet weight of around 163kgs too. Trick? Mate, you haven't heard the half of it ... He’s aiming to have the bike as a rolling chassis for the NEC, so watch this space.

Words and pics: Nik Samson