About Tony Foale
Tony Foale B.Tech, M.Eng.Sc, C.Dip.A.F.
Tony is a professional engineer afflicted with a life long passion for motorcycles.
From his mid teens Tony Foale has ridden in road-racing, moto-X, enduros and trials events. With a natural instinct for building a better mousetrap he constructed several of his own motorcycles, both engines and chassis. With a scientist’s curiosity, during the 1960s. he developed mathematical models to provide him with an understanding of motorcycle behavior in excess of that to be found in the literature of the time.
In 1973 he succumbed to his passion completely and started a business in England making complete chassis etc. for racing machines. Many of these were highly successful, winning several championships in various countries. The range of machines built included championship winning sidecars as well. In the early 1980s. Tony began a project to improve upon the design of front suspension systems for motorcycles. This culminated in the construction of about 20 road machines featuring these ideas, named QL (Quantum Leap) and the Q2. During the design phase for these machines he embarked on a series of experiments into the fundamentals of steering geometry. These experiments are detailed in his 1984 book “Motorcycle Chassis Design” , the 2006 book “Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design” and in some of his numerous magazine articles.
Unable to further tolerate the English climate he moved to Spain in 1987 and has acted as a consultant on various vehicular projects, specializing in chassis and suspension design. He has written numerous technical articles and was technical editor of the US based “Motorcycle Consumer News”. He was involved in setting the syllabus for a degree programme in Motorcycle Engineering at the University of Swansea and was also responsible for the motorcycle content of a masters degree programme at the Modragon University in Spain.
After a 30 year layoff Foale returned to racing in 2006, competing in prestige classic racing events in the USA at Daytona, mid Ohio, Loudon and the Barber raceway, Winning the AMA national 500cc grand championship in 2009 and a USCRA championship in 2013.
From 2008 to 2010 he lived in New Hamshire, USA to take a 3 year position as Director of Advanced Product Development with the Segway company. Whilst in the USA he raced with the USCRA many times at Loudon. Even returning many times up to 2017.
Now resident back in Spain Tony is available to give seminars on motorcycle dynamics and similar topics, either to privately or club arranged events, also to race teams and design departments. Although semi-retired he is willing to consider interesting consulting commissions.
