Impression Uno TL 1000 S

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Impression Uno TL 1000 S

Impression Uno TL 1000 S
Werner’s Fifth

Werner Koch has been building motorcycles for as long as he can remember. The jack of all trades of the MOTORRAD test team who is sick when a machine does not work as it should. Or he thinks how she can. The man who will then stop at nothing when it comes to people and materials. His fifth major project: the Uno TL 1000 S. Suzuki technology in a home-made tubular space frame. Because the TL-V2 is the hottest two-cylinder that drives around and deserves a decent chassis.

Annette Johann

05/05/2000

The key. Away again. Simply rummaged. Stupid. “I have no idea how that could happen.” Werner grins a little embarrassed. The key, the logbook, the red number – something is always missing. Werner knows, I know, everyone knows. Monday morning, bright sunshine and a long-planned trip for the Uno TL 1000 S. “Then we’ll just close it for a short time, no problem.” Improvisation is everything. Too bad that Werner’s car is at home and he now has to go to Hockenheim to test it. But maybe the spare key is in the toolbox, in the garage, right behind the door. In my mind I’m already blowing everything off. But the toolbox is a direct hit. Unfortunately the battery is empty. “Uh, Werner …” Not a big deal, he says, it’s easy to push. If necessary, his wife would like to help. Bye! Anyone who has built an entire motorcycle doesn’t bother with such trivialities. I’m looking for a jump starter cable.
The bright day has already passed the best hours when I stand in front of a beautiful black motorcycle in Werner’s courtyard and look for the battery. Not easy with a do-it-yourself construction, which essentially only connects the fittings, tank, wheels and swing arm with the series Suzuki. A cool racing hump arches over the said battery, in front of it a steel tubular space frame with struts, as thick as children’s arms, spreads out. At the front, a dainty Aprilia 250 panel closes off, supporting the TL 1000 instruments, including their formerly elegant-looking support plate in carbon imitation with empty drill holes, a little without reference in front of the disheveled interior view of the panel. Does not matter. Bagatelles. Similarities to living TL 1000 are neither accidental nor intentional.
At some point after the tenth screw, the fourth cotter pin and the last loosened retaining rubber, I finally discover a helpful little Bowden cable next to the rear wheel and the seat cushion falls towards me. I am in. Now turn on the power and ?? my head almost flies away. What trumpets out of the Schuhle exhaust bags into the Stuttgart residential area at the push of a button is simply crazy. A little illegal, logo, but just a little. Just so that the construction workers turn their heads and the neighboring cat backs away three paces. Not the full bass of a Ducati, not even the bright brass of the standard system – somewhere in between. Tenor maybe. In any case, it fits the engine, which gets straight to the point. Reacts to the smallest bursts of gas. Starter cable off, hump on – off you go.
Jesus, what a seat height! Rear and spring base up to the stop, any damping turned down, handlebar stub clamped in low – »grad ?? right for d ?? Rennstreck «, Werner’s favorite vote. Everything bone-hard and bone-dry, directly without end. Everything can be felt, every joint in the asphalt, every stray split stone. “Feedback” is what Werner calls it. Of course, things are also softer, but he wanted “to get all that unnecessary spring movement out of the motorcycle,” he explains later. That’s right, it’s out.
I carefully thread my way through the city traffic, while the thing paddles over lane markings and manhole covers like a Ferrari on the home straight. Then a free stretch and the machine is in its element. The engine answers all gas commands almost digitally, pushing forward with relish and highly motivated, arrowing the speed scale up to the red end. A few tiny, blue handlebar weights try touchingly, but in vain, to get the vibrations of the supporting engine under control. Feeling is the order of the day on Werner’s box. And respect. For example, in front of the huge lever on the top right. The brake. A handle that looks as if, with its sheer size, it would even teach a container ship the point of braking. With an xx-PVM pump and the Tokico six-piston calipers of the old GSX-R 750, the motorcycle decelerates as if a barn door slammed. Bang and the thing is! Completely controlled, precisely metered – feel what you are braking. Werner did not save.
Just right for the 128 hp that he read on the temperature curve on the test bench printout. He said he had tinkered with the cylinder heads a bit, in his workshop in the basement, with an old dentist’s drill. It’s great. In this magical room behind the washing machine, the bicycles and the heater. There, where Werner’s collected works saw the light: Bikes like the Yamaha R1 that has mutated into a tourer, the all-rounder created from an XV 535, the enduro single in the racing suspension and and and. Creations that let him get lost there for weeks like in a Bermuda triangle, forgetting angry editorial colleagues and exasperated editors-in-chief. Your loyal friend in such hours is then Sam. Sam from Unterschellenbach and owner of the chassis company Uno. He faithfully implements Werner’s ideas again and again with frame gauges and welding equipment in real pipe work. Also in November 1998, when Werner turned up hopefully with a damaged TL 1000 in tow and a head full of clever plans that no one in the editorial office wanted to hear anymore. Together they removed the engine suspension points, drew a new frame layout with 20 millimeters more wheelbase than the series, a 67 degree steering head angle and an engine almost two centimeters further forward. So they wanted to put an end to the notorious buoyancy of the light Suzuki including the dangerous banging of the handlebars. Then instead of the problematic series rotary vane damper, a central spring strut was drawn and commissioned from Technoflex, and Sam was able to get down to the sizzle of the pipes.
Six weeks later, on New Year’s Eve 1998/99, Werner and Sam turned the first test laps in Spain. The motorcycle was 16 kilos lighter than the production TL 1000 S, drove quite well back then, but did not yet work perfectly. What then followed was the endlessness of fine-tuning. “I have removed and dismantled the fork ten times, and repeatedly fitted different shims until the thing responded optimally,” recalls Werner. The new, directly hinged strut also posed problems. Because of the limited space, it had to get along with a sparse commute and a correspondingly hard spring. But this was the only way to use the original swing arm. And that was important because the two were already thinking about offering an affordable frame kit as a kit for frustrated TL1000 owners.
I’m gradually giving up respect for the UN. Nothing is going slowly. She is an extreme athlete. Needs a certain speed to whistle weightlessly around the corner. I almost crawl into it, become one with it, experience uncompromising contact with the road. A pure driving machine. Only when the roads go bad does the second life of Werner’s suspension set-up begin. The UN lashes out naughty, buzzes over bumps, punches with the rear, and even twitches the handlebars once despite the small steering damper. Actually, she would have failed, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I have already fallen for it. Curve after curve, hill after hill flies away, I am completely absorbed, have hardly a clue where I am. Her idiosyncrasy and extremes become more and more familiar. In the meantime, feeling every muscle that is doing any holding or supporting activity, I still continue as if hypnotized. The day should have 100 hours. The suspension kit costs 6500 marks, around 10,000 a used TL 1000, I catch myself doing the math.
But now the UN has to go back, the key in the mailbox. A little note. “Dear Werner, it’s a shame that the mega-perfect TL hasn’t come out that you wanted to build with Sam. But that doesn’t matter! I think your car is cool! Bye.”

Technical specifications

Uno TL 1000 S
Technical specifications

Engine: Suzuki TL 1000 S two-cylinder four-stroke 90 degree V engine, electronic intake manifold injection, bore / stroke 98/66 mm, displacement 996 cm3, compression 11.3: 1, output 94 kW (128 hp) at 8500 / min. chassis: Steel tubular space frame from Uno, rear frame, swing arm, original TL 1000 S wheels, fork with modified tuning, Technoflex strut, brakes Suzuki GSX-R 750 built in 1999 / PVM. Chassis data: steering head angle 67 degrees, caster 88 mm, wheelbase 1420 mm. Weight 204 kg. Price frame kit: 6800 marks including shock absorber. Sales: Suzuki Speer, 72770 Reutlingen.

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