Monday 6th December, 2010
Every now and then a bike comes out of left field, and this one was spotted by designer Luca Bar. When I saw the images, I immediately tagged it as the product of one of the big Japanese workshops, but no—it’s a backyard build from a US enthusiast. This machine is a 1971 CB450 that gained a new lease of life when current owner Scott Halbleib got his hands on it. He stripped it down to the frame and motor, and turned it into a bobber-style custom. Scott was inspired by the Japanese Gravel Crew style, and used a tank and exhaust system from Benjie’s Café Racer to get the aesthetics right. According to Scott, “The project took ten months and quite a bit of $$$. It was done the night before the Mods vs. Rockers show—it won Best Rocker and Best in Show—and took home the Best Jap Bike from the Beatersville show the following day.”
Sony DSC-P93 | 1/250s | f/2.8 | ISO 100 | Focal length 7.9mm
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Saturday 4th December, 2010
There are many good motorcycle columnists, but few great ones. And Peter Egan is undoubtedly one of the all-time greats. Like all the best writers, he knows how to tell a story—and his stories capture the almost indefinable magic of motorcycling better than anyone else. If you’ve read Leanings, the paperback collection of his best columns, you’ll know what I mean.
What was the first motorcycle you bought with your own money? It was a beat up old 1952 James-Villiers 150 2-stroke, bought for $50 with my lawn-mowing money when I was 14. The mixture screws were missing from the carburetor, so it barely ran. I quickly sold it to a guy who thought he could machine some mixture screws and I used the money for a down payment on a brand new 1964 Bridgestone Sport 50, bought from our local hardware store. I suppose that was my first real bike because it ran and you could go places on it. I have one now, exactly like it, in my workshop. Read More »
Friday 3rd December, 2010
Did you know that the world record for a motorcycle sold at auction is $551,000? It was set in 2008 by a 1915 Cyclone board track racer. But that record might be broken on 15 December, when George Brough’s prototype Brough Superior SS 100 goes under the hammer in New York. This machine is the evocatively-named Alpine Grand Sport variant, and it’s tipped to go for between $600,000 and $700,000.
The 1,000cc V-twin Brough Superior SS 100 was guaranteed to do 100 mph, and in 1925 George Brough himself won the Austrian Speed Trials on this very bike. (More images here.) It was prepared by his Chief Engineer, Harold “Oily” Karslake, and tweaked for high-speed competition in the Austrian Alps. Brough added large Rexine panniers for overnight gear, two tool bags below them, and had the motor tuned for competition at altitude. The Alpine Grand Sport also includes an isochronous Bonniksen speedometer—with timing facilities—and is longer and lower than the standard SS 100. George Brough’s success in the trials led to Austria becoming the second largest market for Brough Superior, and Brough kept this particular bike as his own personal transport for a year, before selling it to a prince in India.
Much as I love motorcycles, I’m not sure any machine is worth more than half a million dollars. But if you’re going to pay that money for a bike, this is probably the one to choose. [With thanks to Chuck Squatriglia. More on Wired Autopia and The Vintagent. ] Read More »
Thursday 2nd December, 2010
The custom motorcycle scene is driven by fashion as much as any other. Over the past couple of decades we’ve seen the rise of the ubiquitous CB750 custom, followed by the SR400/500 and Kawasaki W650. But now I’m starting to wonder if the next trend will be repurposed old sleds like the Honda Gold Wing. They seem to be popping up everywhere, and some of them are quite intriguing. Here’s one built by Texas-based Ric Becker, who sells and restores tandem bicycles for a living. In his spare time, Ric likes to build faster machines—like this 1976 GL1000. It arrived at his door as a gift from a customer who didn’t want to see the bike go to waste: although it had only 23,000 miles on the clock, it’d spent several years outside, rusting away. Ric spent the next seven months working on the bike, doing all the restoration and modifications himself—apart from the new seat and tail unit, which are aftermarket items. The exhaust system uses GL1200 headers feeding into Harley-Davidson mufflers but the paint scheme and logos are Ric’s own designs. “I tried to capture a production 1950s-60s look,” he says. Ric’s bike is now the front-runner for the Bike of the Year competition at the Naked Gold Wings club forum: you can see the build in more detail on this thread. [Thanks to Richard Mattrass.] Read More »
Wednesday 1st December, 2010
I spent most of last Saturday at Australia’s top custom shop, Deus Ex Machina, as one of the judges of the inaugural “Boundless Enthusiasm Bike Build-Off.” There were over thirty bikes in the yard, with chrome and paintwork glinting under the unseasonably hot sun. Before the judging officially started, I wandered around incognito and checked out the bikes. Four machines immediately jumped out at me, and of those four, just one appeared to meet the primary judging criteria: “Making the most with the least”. That bike was Much Much Go, built by industrial designer Nick Eterovic. And by the end of the day, Nick had won not only the First Prize, but also the People’s Choice award. Read More »
Tuesday 30th November, 2010
This Sportster-based custom will be one of the few signs of genuine originality at the AMD World Championships Of Bike Building next year. Designed by Bernard ‘Buck’ Massart of the French custom motorcycle shop VTM, it’s built around a Harley-Davidson Sportster engine. The SpaceSter looks like a motorcycle designed on a CAD system, but apparently the cladding was all shaped by hand. Oil is stored in the frame and the flow of the styling is inspired—particularly the fins behind the engine. The front upside-down fork is from a Yamaha YZF-R1, attached to an 18” wheel, and if you look closely you can see the vent for the exhaust on the lefthand side. If you can read French, there’s a PDF feature of the bike from Wild Motorcycles here. Details are otherwise scant, but I have a good feeling about this machine. Do you think it will win? Read More »
Monday 29th November, 2010
For a hundred years, motorcycle designers have been toying with different ways to connect the front wheel to the frame. And there’s always been someone trying to make hub center steering work. The machine you’re looking at here was probably the first attempt: called the Ner-a-Car, it was designed by American Carl Neracher during the tumultuous years of WWI. After the war finished, production began in factories in England and the USA, with a seven-year run finishing in 1928. It’s an extraordinary piece of engineering innovation, and the steering was just one of many elements that broke the mold. The Ner-a-Car also had an infinitely-variable friction drive transmission, a foot-forward seating position and a perimeter frame chassis similar to that of contemporary cars rather than bicycles. Around 16,000 Ner-a-Cars were built, and there are just over 100 remaining today, in various states of roadworthiness. This particular machine is for sale for €12,500 (US$16,500) at the Dutch vintage motorcycle dealer Yesterdays—which seems like a remarkably small price to pay for such a rare and innovative motorcycle. It’s certainly cheaper than the modern-day counterparts produced by Bimota. [For a full history of the Ner-a-Car, check out Ken Philp’s somewhat ramshackle but informative website.]
PS: Looking for a Christmas gift? Check out the 2011 Bike EXIF motorcycle calendar. On sale now, with high-quality photography of the world’s most beautiful custom motorcycles.
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