Carbon fibre is the material of the moment but the new Ducati 1299 Superleggera and BMW HP4 Race which come dripping with the stuff are late to the party. A full year ahead of them came the exquisite VanderHeide V4 Superbike
Powered by an Aprilia RSV4 motor, the Dutch-made VanderHeide made its global debut 12 months ago at the 2016 Goodwood Festival of Speed.
“The Goodwood introduction was a really great stunt!” said Sjors van der Heide, 32, elder of the two Rotterdam-based brothers. Together with Rolf, 30, he was responsible for constructing this two-wheeled symphony of carbon fibre. “We didn’t have an invitation, but we went there anyway hoping to use the motorcycle as our entry ticket. We finished building it on the Monday before the Festival and made a brief test ride on it to be sure everything worked, then on the Tuesday we took it for a photo shoot in a studio, and on Wednesday we set off for Goodwood. On Thursday we turned up at the gate and asked them to let us in, but they said no – they’d sent out all the prized invitations to be there months ago, and they didn’t have one for us. But we kept on trying, and eventually we managed to meet the people in charge of the motorcycle display, and showed them the bike. That did it – we were invited on the spot! The other people in the motorcycle paddock had to squeeze up to make space for us, but everyone was very kind. We had Keanu Reeves on one side, and you were on the other. It was a nice way to meet!”
Indeed so – especially since I was completely blindsided by the appearance of the VanderHeide. For Rolf and Sjors had succeeded in constructing this amazing motorcycle over a five-year period completely undetected.
“Our father AJ is a keen motorcyclist, and for as long as I can remember, even as a child, I’ve dreamed of building my own bike,” says designer Rolf. After graduating with a combined Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration degree, he worked for Dutch supercar manufacturer Spyker, then for three-wheeler firm Carver. From there he moved to Delft-based composite specialist Lightweight Structures www.lightweight-structures.com for five years, during which he first began to work with carbon fibre as a structural material. “What I learnt from Spyker and Carver was that you need to have distinctive looks and advanced technology to build a commercially successful performance vehicle,” says Rolf, “and at Lightweight Structures I began to understand the huge potential of carbon fibre as a next-generation material that’s available today, and will be the steel of tomorrow. I felt inspired by the way these companies consistently step out of their comfort zones to ensure innovation, and as an engineer I’m fascinated by the endless possibilities of carbon fibre composites. So I set myself the target of building a motorcycle which combined all those elements, and the VanderHeide is the result. Sjors and me, we both believe that life is too short to be ordinary, so you must set yourself challenges to get the best out of yourself. Trying to reinvent the motorcycle without ever having designed a bike before may sound arrogant, but if you believe that nothing is truly impossible then you can hope to achieve something new and different.”
In 2011, Rolf van der Heide set out on his voyage of discovery to create his eponymous motorcycle, with brother Sjors responsible for its commercialisation. Initially it was a spare time project, with Rolf working on it in evenings and weekends. But with the support of his family he began working full-time on the bike.
The VanderHeide V4’s power comes from the 65º V4 Aprilia RSV4 motor. “It’s light, it’s powerful, it’s compact, and it also sounds nice, like a pure MotoGP racer,” he says. “So for us it’s the ideal engine.” Purchasing a brand new customer Aprilia from a local dealer, Rolf measured everything up and used the RSV4 mounting points as ground zero for designing and constructing the graceful carbon fibre monocoque moulded in an immensely strong single section, which comprises the bike’s chassis, fuel tank, bodywork and subframe for the seat. To this he planned to attach front and rear suspension also wholly made from carbon fibre with a conventional rear swingarm and wishbone front suspension system like the BMW Duolever design.
Having completed the outline design, Rolf then invited Dutch automotive designer Michiel van den Brink to take care of styling the bike. “I’d followed Michiel’s design work for some time, and his flowing lines and organic shapes impressed me,” says Rolf. “Nowadays when the motorcycle industry is dominated by sharp, edgy designs, I wanted an attractive appearance for the bike to complement its innovative technical design, and I felt confident he could achieve this.”
But it was Rolf van der Heide himself who painstakingly created the carbon monocoque. Weighing just 15kg, it’s the skeleton of his bike, from which the engine and suspension are hung. It’s a true monocoque, too, with the 24-litre fuel cell integrated into the chassis structure. The engine is attached at four points either side. Since it also comprises the bodywork, Van den Brink’s styling choices had to be incorporated in its final structure, which Rolf van der Heide painstakingly created himself by hand. He had to build his own vacuum oven to cure the monocoque “There wasn’t an oven big enough in the Netherlands that we could use, so we had to make our own,” says Rolf. “It’s not pressurised, so it’s not a true autoclave, which is vacuum plus pressure. But it took us ten hours to cure the monocoque correctly, to do which you have to vary the temperature quite a bit – you have to slow it down to ensure that every molecule is completely cured. We made a lot of practice runs before we were ready to tackle the monocoque, but even so it was a critical moment, and we were pretty relieved it came out just right. Phew!”
The twin-sided carbon fibre cantilever swingarm weighs 5kg and pivots in the engine crankcases and the monocoque, working a fully-adjustable Öhlins TTX36-IL. At the front the VanderHeide V4 follows carries the wheel within a carbon fibre wishbone fork that pivots in the monocoque. Twin articulated aluminium triangular links connected via a pushrod and rocker to another Öhlins TTX36-IL monoshock. It’s set into a tunnel running lengthways through the top of the monocoque beneath a perspex cover. A short rod connects it to the rear shock, adjustable in length to alter the ride height. Steering geometry is relatively conventional, with a 24º head angle (it’s variable over a 16º-30º range) and 100mm of trail. It takes just three minutes to change the head angle.
“We use a double wishbone front suspension because you get more adjustability than with an upside down fork, and also have superior damping control,” says Rolf. “Also, instead of mounting the front suspension on the headstock, we reroute its forces towards the rear suspension. We’ve made a tunnel in the monocoque and positioned the front suspension there in line with the rear suspension, and the nicest thing about this system is that the forces cancel each other out, and this reduces stress on the monocoque and allows us to save some weight. But the most interesting thing about the front suspension is that we can adjust it any way you like. So we can give you front end dive and replicate the traditional telescopic feel, or we can give you anti-dive because we separate the braking and suspension forces – we can even make the front end lift under braking. We wanted to include all the front-end feel options to give people the opportunity to adapt to this kind of front end.”
Another piece of innovation is the rear-mounted radiator positioned under the seat. This allows the engine to be positioned further forward in the 1440mm wheelbase and results in a 51.5/48.5% forward bias for the low 175kg dry weight of the VanderHeide. It’s is stopped by twin 320mm Brembo front discs with radially-mounted four-piston Brembo Monoblock calipers, with a 220mm rear disc.
Unlike the Benelli Tornado with a similar rear-mounted radiator, on the VanderHeide there are no extractor fans to dispose of the hot air. On a streetbike this needed to be reconsidered, as when I came to ride Rolf’s handiwork at the magnificent Dutch Police Test Facility’s test track near Lelystad it didn’t take long for the potent Aprilia engine to overheat if I kept it running when stationary. That was with a secondary coolant radiator already fitted to the bike, as well as a stock Aprilia oil cooler mounted down behind the front wheel. More work was needed here – but according to Sjors it was a coolant issue that’s been fixed since my ride by simply changing to another product.
The Aprilia RSV4 engine fitted to the VanderHeide is the standard 201 bhp street version in Euro 4 compliant guise, complete with stock wiring loom, ECU, variable-length intake system, exhaust catalyst and APRC electronics package. This includes the RBW digital throttle offering three distinct riding modes – Race, Track and Sport, selectable via a switch on the left handlebar – and eight-level ATC/ Aprilia Traction Control, plus three-stage AWC/anti-wheelie control. So emissions weren’t a problem in homologating the bike in the Netherlands, although it initially failed its Euro 4 examination. Why? “It’s stupid,” says Rolf , “We didn’t have any steering lock, so when you park up you can’t freeze the steering. It’s a new rule, issued for 2016, and we prepared everything according to 2015 rules, which we passed. No problem – we already found a solution, and will re-test it to get it homologated.”
This was recently done, so the fact it’s now homologated for the street in the Netherlands will enable the brothers to market the 25 replicas they plan to construct. The bikes will cost Euro 150,000 each, with complete freedom of choice for purchasers of colour and trim – including the leather seat cover and matching leather handlebar grips. Buyers also have the option to specify a track-only version using a 230 bhp WSBK-spec racing version of the Aprilia motor, which the Italian factory has confirmed it’s happy to provide as part of its deal with the brothers to supply RSV4 engines to power the VanderHeide Superbike. The track version will come with an Akrapovič race exhaust, replacing the 4-1-2 system custom built for the brothers by former Dutch Superbike champion Mile Pajic, incorporating a pair of sweet-sounding hydroformed HP Corse Pro Series silencer cans from a specialist Italian company which makes just 2,000 high-tech exhaust systems annually.
Having spent three days side by side each other at Goodwood 2016 it was an honour to become the first person other than Rolf himself to ride his bike.
The VanderHeide V4’s voluptuous carbon monocoque doubling as bodywork leads you to subconsciously expect it’s going to feel wide and slightly bulky to sit on, but that’s the complete opposite of what awaits you. The bike feels slim and relatively compact. The spacious-seeming seat positions you quite high up at 830mm but you feel ensconced within it rather than perched on top. The slightly rear-set and not overly high footrests were perfectly positioned for my stature and the fact that the monocoque isn’t too wide, so I could put both feet on the ground at rest. The brothers insist that each bike will be made to measure for the purchaser, so sir or madam must have a fitting to get measured up for the bike he or she is buying. The beautifully shaped screen delivers pretty good wind deflection, but I didn’t like those leather grips – they’re much too slippery.
The flat, one-piece handlebar gives a slightly leaned-forward sporting stance that isn’t tiring – it just feels natural, without excessive weight on your arms and shoulders. Straight in front of you sits the relatively small but data-packed MoTeC C125 full-colour TFT dash with multiple pages and an array of ten warning lights running across the top of its aluminium housing. This is a good place to be – especially with the clear perspex panel running lengthways along the ‘tank’ that covers the front Öhlins shock you can see in plain view. You can’t watch it working without taking your eyes off the road and looking down, but you can see the upper link of the wishbone fork rising and falling all the time. There weren’t too many bumps at the billiard-table Police test facility, but the well-dialled in suspension at both ends ironed out what few there were.
Less ideal was the VanderHeide steering, and this was a pity. After riding and racing many alternative front end designs down the years, this is the one that gets my vote as the next step up from the telescopic fork. But I probably rode the bike too early in the its development cycle. Instead of being able to trail-brake late and hard into a turn without fear of the fork freezing, there was a disconcerting sense of instability when entering a turn at low speeds up to around 60kph/40mph. The steering felt rather nervous, even loose – and this was made worse by backing off the throttle once committed to a turn, plus any attempt to trailbrake into the apex was fraught with instability. But strangely, completing your braking in a straight line, then accelerating into the apex of a bend almost eradicated the problem, leading to the conclusion that the problem was one of weight transfer.
Holding the front wheel between my knees and wiggling the handlebar soon identified the problem. There was too much lateral movement, indicating either too much play in the suspension links, or an insufficiently robust front end structure. The steering geometry figures are quite conservative, so I doubt it’s the fact that there isn’t enough trail, which can produce the same effect. But now that the bike is street legal the Van der Heide brothers will be able to undertake some serious testing, clocking up the miles in pursuit of the ideal setup. BMW had dozens of engineers and copious test riders working on the Duolever front end but Sjors and Rolf just have themselves. Is there anyone out there prepared to help them out? Steady on….form a line!
When that happens and they get it right, this will be an exquisite motorcycle for a lucky few to purchase. It is stunningly beautiful and built to a superlative level of manufacturing quality. Just look at the way the carbon weave has been so painstakingly directed, or the svelte shape of the front fairing with the small ellipsoidal headlight as its focal point. It’s the product of two brothers who are passionate about its creation, and have succeeded in translating that passion to the product itself. Now they need to complete this prototype’s dynamic development, and resolve the handling problems I experienced. That done – and it will be, because the front end is a proven quantity – they can then hope to attract the 25 customers they say they need to get signed up and under deposit before they can commence production.
“The bike that we showed at Goodwood and you’ve ridden today is the pre-production prototype which we’re dynamically developing into the production bike,” says Sjors. “We don’t have a target date for starting production, because we really need to sell the first 25 bikes up front to be able to fund production. As soon as we have the necessary facilities, we expect to be able to produce a bike every two to four weeks. We are accepting pre-orders, and we can tailor the bike to each customer’s needs – each one will be subtly different one from the other. But to get started, we must find those first 25 customers.” Log on to VanderHeide at www.vanderheidemotorcycles.com if you want to be one of them.
Euro 150K for a limited edition, individually numbered, two-wheeled work of art? Are there two dozen people out there prepared to support a motorcycle visionary like Rolf van der Heide by purchasing one of his mechanical masterpieces? We shall shortly find out….
Photo credit: Kel Edge
