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Building The Varnator Streamliner
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| Brain Romano raced the
Rotator Frankenstein at
the WHPSC races in Battle Mountain, in various configurations, and
decided he wanted to go faster. This page shows the construction of the Varna clone
that Brian Romano
and Steve Delaire were building for Battle Mountain 2005, and then Jason
Erickson purchased and finished for Battle Mountain 2007. |
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Pictures and text by Brian Romano
Here are some photos of the
new Varna-tator Varna clone. The frame is chrome moly steel but is pretty
light. The frame is quite simple and it will be possible to remove it
from the body for training purposes. The transmission is a nexus seven
and the bike is the usual front drive layout. Steve Delaire built this
bike very simple and the frame is of course the usual Rotator quality
craftsmanship. |
| The frame by itself very short
and is capable of qualifying for a USCF time trial with the upright
guys. I plan to take it out there and see what I can do with it just for
fun. The bike with the body mounted may be able to run in some events
that do not have any sharp corners as well as being capable of decent
speeds on SR305. |
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When I saw the Vector trike
streamliner pull up in front of the mall near my home in Santa Rosa at
the
age of nine years old I never would have thought that I would be racing
the same streamlined bikes 27 years later. The owner of the Vector let
me sit
inside it, I guess it made an impression. |
| Close up up the Shimano Nexus
7 speed hub.
You can click on all of these pictures
for a higher resolution view.
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Close up of the giant
mid-drive / step up gear. |
| A very simple rear end completes
the bike. |
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This streamliner was built
from Joe Kochinowski's Varna "varnowski" molds. Steve and I
built the body in a hand lay up. Steve taught me how to work with carbon
for the first time when we built this body. |
The bike frame and wheel are
being narrowed in the rear end at this time. The frame will sit back
about three more inches when it's done. I sat in the mold once and it
seemed cavernous. There was obviously
plenty of room inside with arms outstretched in a forward
position. |
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The chance to train on
this and then race it is a really exciting idea to me. There may be
plans for a more advanced thin skinned body if we can ever get
those molds again. |
| The Varna shell is molded in 2
parts. Top half and Bottom half. Here, the bike sits in the bottom
of the molded shell. |
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The shell is constructed of
four layers of carbon lined with two layers of Kevlar. The Kevlar acts as a
liner to protect the rider from carbon shards in an impact. |
4/5/05
I am also
interested in a set of Simpson harnesses from a racecar if I can make that work
somehow. |
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The rear end has been narrowed and a short axle monocoque solid disk rear
wheel has been added.
The rear end of this frame is now very narrow.
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The rear tire now reaches as deep into the fairing as possible with plenty
of room on either side. |
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The rear wheel appears to sit in the fairing by itself due to the extremely
low frame. This frame is a low rider for sure!!
The frame now sits back several inches from where it was previously.
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| Unfortunately,
Brian never made it to Battle Mountain 2005, and sold all his
streamliners. Fast forward to
2007, when Jason Erickson purchases the Varnator and finishes the work that Steve and
Brian started. This next section
contains pictures and text by Jason Erickson |
| The first thing I
did when I got the bike was adapt it to my trainer. I added the Teflon
chain guide as a temporary fix to chain derailments. I also added the
seat, with Duct tape of course. |
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Test fitting the Bike. By this time I trimmed the two
halves.
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| Notice anything different? This is a 24 inch frame that
more closely copies the Varna. I was trying to decide which chassis
would be less work to get operational.
Looks like the original chassis works out
better.
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Exploring Q-factor. In order
to fit my large feet into the bike, I used the following combination of
parts. The cranks Steve/Brian used are re-tapped old road cranks and are
slightly less then 150mm. They are narrower than euro-lite black widows.
I also ended up swapping the original 110 Shimano bottom bracket for a
Ritchey 107. And I purchased some shoes 1 size too small.
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| Trying to get reference points
to align the frame to the fairing. |
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Test fitting. Much time was
spent cutting sanding and test fitting. I am still not happy with the
fit. |
| Do I fit? |
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Bonding the joggle which
aligns the top and bottom halves of the fairing.
Later I "unbonded" the joggle. |
| Adding the rear mount, very
early in the morning before driving to the
2007 Casa Grande 1 hour
TT event at the Nissan test track.
The CG event had already started...
See pictures of Jason at the CG event
event at the above link. |
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Home from Casa Grande. |
| Before
Battle Mountain 2007 I broke off
the seam and added a few more layers to the joggle with a cheap venture
vacuum pump. The event had already started...
I also added reinforcements and a couple of
plies to the seat. The seat was a broken and delaminated seat from UNR
that was very dry wet layup. |
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I changed the gearing for
Battle Mountain which luckily worked with chain guides I had made up for
V-Clone, then I hacked together some gear charts.
Before Battle Mountain, this is the only method I could find for the
cockpit with two brakes and not hitting the top of the fairing. The
cable lines are really smooth.
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| This pictures is from a video
of my run at Battle Mountain 2007.
Now on Youtube under WHPSC07.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBdfBqE70
If anybody has photos from Battle
Mountain they would like to share email me at:
jerickson01 AT gmail com |
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