Bakker Qcs1000

BAKKER QCS1000

A MOTORCYCLING VISIONARY PERSISTS WITH HIS NOTION OF FUTURE BIKE

THERE ISN’T A LOT OF UNITY IN EUROPE THESE days, but one thing most European motorcycle designers agree on is this: There’s a future in alternative front suspensions.

That’s certainly the view of Nico Bakker, as evidenced by the QCS Mk.II, fresh from his Dutch workshop. The bike could hardly be better timed. While Yamaha’s radical new GTS 1000 has been creating headlines, Bakker has been putting the finishing touches to the bike Yamaha might have built.

Like the GTS, Bakker’s QCS 1000 is based around the FZR1000 engine. But unlike Yamaha’s big sport-tourer, the QCS is designed primarily for lightness and speed. The two machines use similar front-suspension designs and front-brake systems, but the QCS, with its aggressive, single-seat bodywork, is a giant step beyond the design position of the GTS 1000.

At the age of 46, Bakker owns two decades of framebuilding experience that includes pioneering the use of alloy frames, rising-rate rear suspension and single-sided swingarms, not to mention consultancy work for the likes of Laverda and BMW. Innovative front-suspension design is a Bakker speciality, and the QCS is by no means his first forkless design. This is the second-generation QCS, and is closely related to the more conventionally styled Mk.I version, released in 1988, which also used single-sided swingarms front and rear.

Bakker’s front-end design relies on the same principles as the Yamaha GTS’s RADD system. The key difference between the two set-ups is that the Yamaha’s uses a telescoping column to link the steering head to the suspension, while Bakker’s uses a scissors-link of the kind seen on aircraft nose wheels, with needle-roller bearings at its pivots.

The other obvious difference between the two systems is that while the GTS shock is operated directly by the main swingarm, the QCS mounts its front shock horizontally, halfway down the left side of the bike, and works it via a rod and rising-rate linkage.

Though the Mk.II’s layout is similar to that of the original QCS design, there are some detail differences: The hub-mounting points have been changed in order to quicken steering slightly, and the front-brake system is a little lighter.

With its bodywork stripped off, it is easy to see why the QCS, which weighs a claimed 419 pounds dry, is almost 44 > pounds lighter than a standard FZRIOOO. Feeding front-suspension forces away from the steering head means there’s no need for heavy, thick frame spars. Instead, the QCS frame is a minimalist construction of 25mm square-section alloy tubing that incorporates suspension-mounting points and that uses the engine as a stressed member.

At very slow speeds the bike’s steering is heavy. Once on the move, however, the bike’s steering feel is much more normal, and thanks to its extraordinary stability, its massive front brake can be used with confidence deep into corners. The QCS is stable in all kinds of corners, but high-speed sweepers are where it is really in its element, dismissing minor irregularities in the road surface without noticing them. Even chopping the power in the middle of a curve seems to make no difference to the QCS’s feeling of total stability.

Yamaha went as far as to test Bakker’s original QCS in 1988, but opted to continue its partnership with RADD’s James Parker. Nico Bakker seems happy enough to carry on alone, and with good reason. As the motorcycling world finally wakes up to the potential of forkless front ends, his QCS is a glimpse of the possible future. It’s available right now from Bakker (Nico Bakker Frames BV, Donkerweg 1, 1704 DV Heerhugowaard, Netherlands; phone 011-312207-4642), in limited numbers, for those who can afford the high prices that his low volumes and exacting standards make inevitable.

To buy a QCS just like this one will cost 42,000 Dutch guilders, the equivalent of about $23,500 at current exchange rates. That may seem expensive, but who knows, this just may be motorcycling’s path into the next century. If it is, everyday sportbikes will have followed the route that Bakker and his futuristic QCS helped blaze. -Roland Brown