Who’s Got the

Big Hammer?

Testing and Modifying

Keeping everything local, we got permission

to test the bike on farmland close to the

workshop.

HERE was a pond nearby, but there

was no run-up and it wasn’t really

suitable, so we dug a trench about 50

metres long and lined it with plastic sheeting.

Then we pumped some water from the pond,

giving us a few centimetres in the trench. It was

deepest towards the middle in order to help

give me a nice, shallow entry on the bike.

T

Hugh Hunt was on hand to show me why the

angle of entry was so important, and together

we rolled spinning toy wheels down a piece

of gutter pipe to see which type of tyre might

best skim the surface and what angle the

pipe needed to be in order to send the wheel

furthest up the trench before it sank. Basically,

we proved what we already knew – we needed

a tyre that would maintain thrust by paddling

through the water and we needed as flat an

entry angle as possible. If the front wheel hit

the water coming in too steep, it would plough

straight in. I might get a bit of a bounce, like one

of Barnes Wallis’s bombs, but the bike would

start doing what Graham Davis described as

‘porpoising’, bouncing out of the water as lift

was generated by the planing surface, but then

smashing back down again. Each downward

splosh would rob me of forward thrust and I

would struggle to stay in control. Balancing the

throttle to try to keep moving forward would be

impossible with the rear wheel bobbing in and

out of the water.

184  hydroplaning motorbike

Above: Attempting to kick-start the Suzuki after it had

been dried out following one of its trips to the bottom

of the lake.

The blokes on the internet videos had found

out all of this by trial and error. They quickly

realised that they needed a smooth, flat entry

into the water and that they needed as long

a run-up as they could get in order to hit the

water at pace. Once I had climbed into my old

racing leathers and given the Suzuki a couple of

runs on the grass down the length of the trench

to warm her up, I started to wonder if we had

allowed enough of a run-up for me to build up

speed. Graham reckoned I needed to be doing

around 45 mph, and the Suzuki was no slouch,

but what gear should I be in when I hit the

water to make sure that the rear wheel was

turning at the right speed? Graham reckoned

that we were now into the ‘trial and error’

phase ourselves, ‘one third science, one third

black arts – and the rest is up to you!’