Conrad Gets It Up Again With a Viagra Hard-Tail

Conrad gets it up again Viagra Hard-Tail with a

“If you ever wondered what a Christmas Elf gets up to in the summer well this is your answer; We build bikes for charity” It takes a certain type of mindset to create an adaption for someone with a disability. The adaption must not only work efficiently, but it must also suit the person themselves, their riding style and lifestyle. This is quite a difficult hill to climb.

One of the best adaptions was featured in the last issue of Open House, where Conrad Evans (of Wozwolf Rally Club) helped build a trike for Chris, with some astounding engineering solutions that others had completely failed to come up with.

Well, after completing this masterpiece, Conrad had a thought (I say thought, to normal people it was more of a brief moment of insanity).

‘What about building a bike that would suit a large number of disabilities without the need to replace anything on the bike?’.

Most people would have left that thought there, but not Conrad.

So it was that a Yamaha XV750 Virago would donate its life to become an astounding engineering experiment, and end up being a stunningly gorgeous bike with mind blowing adaptions.

“This XV750 Virago chop/bobber whatever you call it (I call it Viagra since it’s a hard tail) is a one-of-a-kind build with lots of special features for almost any rider with or without health problems” I can’t emphasize how beautiful this bike looks. The paint job (by Café Racer in Sheffield) is candy blue with a pattern in the paint that is hard to see on the pictures, it’s one of those that looks different depending on the angle you are looking from.

It’s easy to see that Conrad has not scrimped on any aspect of this build.

Conrad sent me a list of everything he’s done, but to be honest if I put it all in this magazine, there would be no room for anything else!

The adaptations alone are astounding.

Conrad explained; “It has 10 custom buttons on the bars, these work the same both sides so if you have problems with your hands, you can decide which set to use. Start, left indicator, high beam, right indicator and horn.

He’s stripped the entire bike back, covering everything possible in ceramic Cerakote (which I had to look up!) and powder coating everything else. What he couldn’t coat, he replaced with stainless steel. The only thing I could recognise from the donor bike was the engine and the top frame spar, everything else was made to measure.

The left and right throttle controls are interchangeable just lock the one not used.

Custom forward controls made from 8mm steel fitted with two side stands that if used at same time make for easy maintenance.

It has no rear brake pedal, well surprise, the foot boards are the brake pedal., The very unique bit is that you can decide if you want left gear, right brake. Left brake and left gear. right gear and right brake or even left brake and right gear. It takes less than 5 min to change it over by moving a few locking pins. The foot plates are multi spline so can be set up for comfort and have a heal guard to hold your foot in place, handy if you have a prosthetic limb.

The gear leaver is adjustable for length and you could also make it a foot clutch with a few brackets and a cable”

He’s even created a manual to go with it.

You may be thinking ‘Oh it’s easy when you have a workshop and all the tools’ or some such. However, Conrad works from a shed in his garden, which makes it all the more astounding.

Now it’s finished, Conrad has put the bike up for sale. Anything made over his costs will be donated to The National Association for Bikers with a Disability and the Air Ambulance. As a special one-off custom, this bike would be worth a lot of money. But with the addition of the adaptions he’s done, it puts it into another league. He’s asking for offers over £4000, which I consider a steal.

Has he managed to create a bike that covers every disability? Well, no, of course not. There are far too many types of disabilities out there to cover every one. However, Conrad has managed to cover the most common disabilities, and as an experiment in what is possible I believe he has broken a lot of boundaries.

Every now and then, someone comes up with something that really alters my perception of adaptations. This bike is certainly one of them.

I look forward to seeing the Christmas Elf’s next project.

Vic

If you are interested in purchasing this bike, contact me (openhouse@thenabd.org.uk) or the office and we’ll pass it on to Conrad.

Conrad has uploaded a few videos on the bike to YouTube, and also has a photo diary of the build on Facebook.

• https://youtu.be/suq5zIa2vXs • https://youtu.be/mvO5SJGSAaI • https://youtu.be/8d8bqj_sxcs