[MOC] 42036 Motorcycle variants

[1980SomethingSpaceGuy]

I grew up building Lego but with adulthood, I moved to riding/fixing motorcycles. I own 4 and amongst them 2 BMWs. I like the mechanical specificity of them; the flat twin, the suspension (telelever, duolever, paralever).
A couple of years ago, I had a sudden urge to build Lego again and I bought one, then two 42036 sets. I don't especially like the original model, but all the pieces were there to build my own. I started with the idea to have a paralever in the back, a duolever in the front a gearbox of some sort and an engine that would evoke BMW; in this case a longitudinal in-line 4. I didn't have much other pieces than the ones from the sets, so this is what I came up with:

With no specific parts to build on for the rear arm, it ended quite bulky, but does the job. There's a working 2-speed gearbox with foot control and the front suspension works just fine.

Since I had bought two sets, I had to build a second one. With even less pieces at hand, it had to be even simpler. I went for a Ducati hypermotard inspired theme, with a V twin and a nice rear single arm.

Both models are tough enough for kids to play with and differ substantially from the original.

And that's all for now. Cheers!

[Johnny1360]

Those both look pretty cool, good job. Then when you take into account, your parts limitations, I would go so far as to say great job. Looks like you had great fun building them plus they are tough enough to play with, excellent job. 

[1980SomethingSpaceGuy]

On ‎26‎.‎02‎.‎2019 at 2:23 PM, Johnny1360 said:

Those both look pretty cool, good job. Then when you take into account, your parts limitations, I would go so far as to say great job. Looks like you had great fun building them plus they are tough enough to play with, excellent job. 

Thanks!  

I just bought a few older bike sets to build some more.. Looking forward!

[Erik Leppen]

All this from just two sets (mostly) 

I like the color distribution of the first bike, with the red front. Doing the color right is hard enough, especially with limited parts. With this one, it just looks perfect with the duocolor scheme. I like the sideways engine and there seems to be a lot of complexity going on in that gearbox. How many gears does it have, how does it work, and what are the moving parts? I see a lot of levers, what are they for? Also, do I see correctly that the gearbox is actually operated by the left foot pedal?

I know nothing about motorcycle terminology, but I always find those one-sided suspension arms pretty cool. I'd imagine it's hard to keep it strong with the asymmetrical forces. That it becomes bulkier than you'd want to, is something you often can't get around in Lego. That's the limitation of the medium. And motorcycles are hard already because of the limited space and weird geometry.

In the second bike I like all the unusual angles going on in the frame. Also, dark gray is the perfect color - neutral, but not too dark for photographing.

The only thing you should really do next time is remove the dust before taking the pictures. Some parts are rather dusty ;)

[Johnny1360]

47 minutes ago, Erik Leppen said:

 

The only thing you should really do next time is remove the dust before taking the pictures. Some parts are rather dusty ;)

Ha just noticed that, so true, that is one of my major peeves with displaying LEGO sets too. Since I have a couple hundred sets on display dusting them has pretty much become a full time job, I pretty much dust a shelf a day but I don't mind to much, gives me a chance to play with them. Regardless still like what you have done here, motorcycles are so hard for me to get right and I think you have down a good job here. 

[1980SomethingSpaceGuy]

19 hours ago, Erik Leppen said:

All this from just two sets (mostly) 

I like the color distribution of the first bike, with the red front. Doing the color right is hard enough, especially with limited parts. With this one, it just looks perfect with the duocolor scheme. I like the sideways engine and there seems to be a lot of complexity going on in that gearbox. How many gears does it have, how does it work, and what are the moving parts? I see a lot of levers, what are they for? Also, do I see correctly that the gearbox is actually operated by the left foot pedal?

I know nothing about motorcycle terminology, but I always find those one-sided suspension arms pretty cool. I'd imagine it's hard to keep it strong with the asymmetrical forces. That it becomes bulkier than you'd want to, is something you often can't get around in Lego. That's the limitation of the medium. And motorcycles are hard already because of the limited space and weird geometry.

In the second bike I like all the unusual angles going on in the frame. Also, dark gray is the perfect color - neutral, but not too dark for photographing.

The only thing you should really do next time is remove the dust before taking the pictures. Some parts are rather dusty ;)

Thanks a lot!
The gearbox is 2-speed. With only classic gears at disposal, I'm just sliding an axle to align either one of 2 pairs of gears with different ratios. When this was built I figured I had a pair of those long black rods from the Mindstorms set left. I used 2 to connect the foot peg and mimic actual motorbike gearbox controls. It works, but would not be good enough for a Lego official, honestly.

Single arm rear suspensions indeed are not ideal to render with Legos. It of course will tend to twist. But on the less complex second bike, it is stiff enough to work flawlessly.

Yep, sorry about the dust, I thought the same when I looked at the images, but I figured it was okay for a motorcycle not to be perfectly clean. Mine never are; I rather spend my time riding them, not cleaning them 

Side panel off, details of the front suspension system and top gearbox rod sliding the stopped axle.

First speed, lever down, light grey gears are aligned.

Second speed, lever up, dark grey gears are aligned.

The top rod is hold in place by the side panel. It's rather simple in the end, but I had never seen a Lego bike with gears. Sorry about the horrid green rubber, the white one got lost as my son was playing with the model and that is the only one I have left.

 

18 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

Ha just noticed that, so true, that is one of my major peeves with displaying LEGO sets too. Since I have a couple hundred sets on display dusting them has pretty much become a full time job, I pretty much dust a shelf a day but I don't mind to much, gives me a chance to play with them. Regardless still like what you have done here, motorcycles are so hard for me to get right and I think you have down a good job here. 

Thanks! 

[RabbiT_CZ]

I like Technic motorcycles and I still don't have one. Looking on your great builds I hope Lego will release a motorbike soon. And the gearbox with working foot control is a nice detail.