Norman Hassock, telelever forks, and duolever suspensions

[postoak_imp]

I didn't want to take the 2020 Valkyrie thread too off-course so I have created this thread to discuss these "new" suspensions.

I did some reading last night and apparently these go back to the 1970s and a designer named Norman Hassock who decided to build a better mousetrap, which he did. He then tried to get BMW to buy it from him but they declined and instead built their telelever fork system. After his patent expired they came out with their own version of the Hassock which they called the Duolever. And now Honda has come out with their own version.

Lots of good photos on image websites plus some youtube videos but I am too dumb mechanically to really understand the subtleties of the designs. Wikipedia says one drawback to the duolever type (besides cost and complexity) is it does not allow room for a centrally located radiator, which makes it a good fit for the big bikes that already have side-facing radiators.

[url=https://www.hossack-design.com/]Hossack's Website

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Hossack]Wikipedia on Norman Hossack

[url=https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/conventional-vs-telelever-forks-drawing-line]Telelever vs conventional forks

I guess this is all old news if you are into BMW motorcycles.

[LongRanger_imp]

That's a good summary. The Telelever first appeared on the 1993 R1100RS, so it's been in production for about 25 years. Lots of folks don't care for them but I'm a convert, at least on certain types of bikes. On a sport bike, not so much.

My '98 K1200RS was the first four-cylinder BMW with Telelever. The bike has twin radiators and fans, each exhausting on either side of the fairing. I'm always impressed when I see how small the radiators are, but they apparently do the trick because the bike has never overheated on me.

The Duolever, which is really similar in design to the new Gold Wing fork, was introduced on the 2005 K1200S. It addressed a few shortcomings of the Telelever. Both it and the Telelever are still used by BMW today.