Basically what he built was a tweak bar. Tweak bars are what chopper guys in the 70's use to keep their extended front ends from flexing.
Does it work? well some of the larger 70's superbike racers used to use extenders to the triple clamp to keep their front ends from flexing (you see this most on kz900s and kz1000s) during cornering so there is some thing to it. basically you are giving the bike the rigidity of a really short front end without changing rake or trail, meaning the tubes are less likely to flex and when they do they flex in unison. However it does not work as well as well as a real foke brace which attaches to the sliders since the sliders are the more dynamic part of the front end. In addition a tweak bar can have the effect of causing the sliders to flex out of alignment more since they are now having to absorb more of the cornering flex.
Personally I think on a street bike a tweak bar is useless, or worth less than a real slider brace because road surfaces tend to be rougher than track surfaces and that extra flex give you a little extra suspension effect. On a race bike it would make more sense because it would be used in conjunction with a slider brace. Your friend made his out of an old bottom clamp which to me is a heavy lump of shit. In my opinion it sounds like it is more weight than it is worth.
Does it work? well some of the larger 70's superbike racers used to use extenders to the triple clamp to keep their front ends from flexing (you see this most on kz900s and kz1000s) during cornering so there is some thing to it. basically you are giving the bike the rigidity of a really short front end without changing rake or trail, meaning the tubes are less likely to flex and when they do they flex in unison. However it does not work as well as well as a real foke brace which attaches to the sliders since the sliders are the more dynamic part of the front end. In addition a tweak bar can have the effect of causing the sliders to flex out of alignment more since they are now having to absorb more of the cornering flex.
Personally I think on a street bike a tweak bar is useless, or worth less than a real slider brace because road surfaces tend to be rougher than track surfaces and that extra flex give you a little extra suspension effect. On a race bike it would make more sense because it would be used in conjunction with a slider brace. Your friend made his out of an old bottom clamp which to me is a heavy lump of shit. In my opinion it sounds like it is more weight than it is worth.
