TLS Design webpage

[RichardTL]

I'm not sure how many guys were aware of the effort that went into designing the TLS. It was not done as per most Japanese bikes, i.e. by a committee, but by one individual-Kiyoshi Katagiri. He also designed the new VFR800.

Reading through this site I see effort was put even in to the colours of the original TLS to see what looked best.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/tl1000s/item/indexe.html

TLS design room

[rzarobbie]

Isn't that a great webpage.. I have it in my favorite places!

[Wondertwin]

Funny it never mentioned anything about the rotary damper. I think if they designed the swingarm to pivot in the cases, they would have had plenty of room for a longer swingarm and a standard-style shock. The only reason I can see why is that they said the bike was designed around the engine, which kinda makes sense... Designing while constrained to fixed elements usually leads to weird solutions. Buell's underslung suspension is another good example of this happening...