"The Street" 500cc & 750cc All-New Entry Level Bike from H-D

The Street 750 from Harley-Davidson

In a quest for a new generation of younger buyers in both the United States and the emerging markets of India and China, Harley is introducing a new entry-level street bike, the "Street", their first entirely new model in years. The Street is designed to be a city bike, with suspension, engine response, and clearance optimized for urban settings, especially the rougher streets of Indian and Chinese cities.

The Street's "Revolution X" engine is a water-cooled 60-degree V-twin in both 500cc and 750cc displacements. The 60-degree layout allows a lower tank and seat height even with a greater road clearance than that of Harley's traditional 45-degree plan.

Bikes will be manufactured in both the US (Kansas City) and India. American made bikes will ship to the US, Canada, and Mexico; the Indian made machines will ship to the rest of the world. The 750 model has been made available first in India, where it went on sale last month. The 500cc and 750cc models will both be available when it goes to market in the US this spring.

In the US the 500 model will be priced at $6700 and the 750 at $7500. Read more about the Street at H-D's website here.

Deus Ex Machina "Boundless Enthusiasm Bike Build-Off"

2010 First Place Winner "Much Much Go" Honda CB250 Custom

We just learned of the Deus Ex Machina custom bike build shop's Boundless Enthusiasm Bike Build-Off. The latest was held this past October, and the team at Deus says it's now officially an annual event that they'll be hosting. The build-off was a distributed, global event held at Deus's shops in four nations: Sydney, Bali, Venice, CA and Milan, Italy. Over 200 bikes were entered.

The first and foremost guiding rule for entrants is, "Create the most with the least." The second and third rules say, respectively, that all entries must run and stop under their own power... "these are motorcycles, not art installations" as the Deus team puts it. The fourth and fifth --- final --- rules are about ingenuity, originality, and creativity in conception and execution, such as use of repurposed parts, handcrafted parts, and so on... it's not about picking items from catalogs. This is the bike build-off for the rest of us, the little guys and gals.

2013 5th Place Finisher, Backyard Customs Honda

The cool Honda CB250 that we alluded to in our previous post, the Much Much Go by Australian industrial designer Nick Eterovic, is pictured above. It took First Place in 2010's build-off. You can see the October build-off's top twenty bikes here. Our favorite is this little Honda cafe racer from Indonesia's Backyard Customs pictured to the left here.

We are very happy to hear that starting with October 2013 build-off Deus is committed to making this an annual event.

Chappell Customs Yamaha Star Bolt Bobber

Chappell Customs Bolt Bobber

We've been posting here about Yamaha's rollout strategy for the new Bolt V-twin: They gave ten prominent custom bike shops a Bolt to see what the builders would make of it. This is the second in a series of posts about each bike that began with the Roland Sands Design street tracker. Today's post is about the Chappell Customs bike.

The Chappell Customs Star Bolt build, a bobber, is complete now. The monoshock rear end they've designed will be available as a kit. It will require some frame cuts, but is a bolt-on affair, so no welding is required. The shock was specifically designed for the Chappell Bolt by renowned SoCal motorcycle aftermarket suspension shop, Works Performance. The kit will also include the custom seat and subframe you see here. The chin spoiler will also be for sale soon.

Custom Monoshock Rear End

Check out the Chappell Customs blog for a series of posts about the build, including some videos of the shop action.

H/T to BikeEXIF blog.

Roland Sands Yamaha Bolt Street Tracker

RSD Yamaha Bolt Street Tracker

The new Yamaha Bolt is a 58ci aircooled V-twin with bobber styling aimed right at the Harley-Davidson Sportster (see this recent Cycle World comparison test). As part of its rollout strategy, Yamaha shipped Bolts to a number of America's top custom bike shops to see what builders would do with it.

Among those prominent builders is pro roadracer turned custom bike designer and builder Roland Sands of Roland Sands Design (RSD) in Southern California. The street tracker you see here is his answer to Yamaha. Sands saw the Bolt as an natural conversion to the street tracker he'd been wanting to build for a while. He says that off the showroom floor the Bolt is lighter and better-handling than the Sportster.

Sands made surprisingly few changes from stock. There are the 19" Sun gold-anodized Sun wheels laced-up by Buchanan's Spoke & Rims of Azusa, CA and shod with Dunlop flattrack tires. A fiberglass seat assembly was designed and fabricated at RSD, as was a custom stainless steel exhaust system with carbon fiber tip. The stock handlebars and risers were replaced with RSD Step Moto bars and Nostalgia risers, finished in what RSD calls its "Black Ops" finish. The stock headlight was replaced with a Piaa projector-style headlight mounted on the left side of the engine.

This radical transformation of the Bolt's looks was accomplished with no welding or cutting. The only metal that was touched was some minor cleanup of the tank seams before painting.

Check out a couple of our previous posts featuring RSD, this one about the RSD Technics Sportster and this one about the RSD YouTube channel.

H/T to BikeEXIF, jump over and see their post about the RSD Bolt.

Ryca Motors Suzuki S40/Savage Bobber Kit On the Market Now

Ryca Motors RR-1 Hardtail Bobber

Ryca Motors of Whittier, CA was started a few years ago by Casey Stevenson, a NASA engineer who left the agency to pursue a passion for building cafe racers based upon the Suzuki S40/Savage 650cc thumpers. We featured Ryca's low-cost cafe racer kits in a post here last year. Now we've just seen this cool hardtail bobber kit for the Suzuki, the Ryca RR-1.

Stevenson points out that the S40/Savage has been available from Suzuki for over twenty years, and there are a lot of good, clean, low-mileage S40's available in the used-bike market.

The kit is very complete, with hardtail assembly, peanut tank, a solo saddle, steel rear fender, taillight assembly, reverse cone muffler, and more. There is a raft of optional Ryca parts available, too, such as a front fender and sidemount taillight/license plate holder.

Note that the hardtail assembly bolts on to the Suzuki's frame; no welding required.

Check out the extensive customer bikes gallery at Ryca to get an idea of the cool builds riders are making with Ryca kits. Also note that Ryca has now branched out into Sportsters with a cafe racer kit for 1991 to 2003 Harley Sportsters. (That will be the subject of a later post, I think.)

See See Motorcycles of Portland, Oregon

See See Smoking Seagull 1

The crew at See See Motor Coffee Company in Portland, Oregon built this brutally elegant, Yamaha-based cafe racer, the Smoking Seagull 1. We previously featured a See See Motor build, a Honda CR-250-based cafe racer.

The See See Motor Coffee Company is both a custom bike shop and a coffee shop, located at 1642 NE Sandy Blvd. in Portland. Thor Drake of See See is the creator and organizer of The One Motorcycle Show, an annual event that has become a resounding success, pulling attendees and exhibitors from all over the country and beyond.

See See Motor Coffee Company

Check out the gallery of See See bikes here. Check out their Tumbler blog while you're at it.

BikeCraft Spring 2013 Issue on the Newstands Now

Sbay Motor Company "Jerry" Custom

I picked up a copy of the Spring issue of BikeCraft magazine yesterday. As we've come to expect from Dave Edwards and the crew there, it's filled front to back with gorgeous pics of custom bikes of all brands, from mildly customized daily riders to way over the top professional builds, like the Sbay Motor Company's "Jerry" muscle bike you see to the left here.


Also featured was an elegant and refined Sportster-powered cafe racer from Asterisk Custom Cycles of Japan, the "Avanzare."

Asterisk "Avanzare"

Check it out, there's something for every moto fan: bobbers, cafe racers, brat bikes...

Dues Ex Machina Builders and the Kawi WS650

Deus Ex Machina WS650 Custom

Thanks to the crew at Deus Ex Machina, I am falling in love with the Kawasaki WS650... at least as the basis for all kinds of cool customs. For example, the bobber they call Le Gicleur Noir that you see pictured here.

Also check out their Moto Grigio WS650 cafe racer.

Coker Tire Company for Bobbers & Old Skool Bikes

Coker's Beck Diamond Tread

If you're building an old skool bike, like a bobber, a vintage reproduction, or a boardtracker, be sure to check out the vintage reproduction tires from Coker Tire Company. My favorites are the Beck Diamond Tread pictured here, and the classic Firestone Deluxe Champion.

Katee Sackhoff's Classified Moto KT600 Custom

Katee Sackhoff's KT600 from Classified Moto

This bike is yet another sterling example of why I love the work of John Ryland and his crew at Classified Moto in Richmond, Virginia. This Honda XL600-based bruiser was commissioned by actress and motorcycle enthusiast, Katee Sackhoff. Katee first came to wide public attention, of course, in the role of Starbuck in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica SyFy Channel show in 2004.

Indulging in a bit of wordplay, Classified Moto has dubbed this bike the "KT600."

Once again Ryland has displayed his talent for transforming a plain vanilla bike into a unique and awesome work of two-wheeled art... with performance, to boot.

Starbuck and Bike

Sportster Bobber Seen at the Portland Maker Faire

Ballsy Sportster Bobber in Portland Today

I saw this cool, ballsy-looking Sportster Bobber at the Portland Mini Maker Faire today. Had to take some snaps to share it with you here. Thought this one showed it to best advantage.

The custom pipes are wrapped with high-heat ceramic tape.

Hammarhead Industries, Minimalist Bikes Brought to You by a Neuropsychologist

Hammarhead Jake Pine Triumph Scrambler

So, you think you've made a big change in career direction somewhere along the way?  Well, it's safe to bet that James Loughead's got you beat when it comes to doing a career 180... He's absolutely gotta be the only guy on the planet with a PhD in neuropsychology who builds custom bikes for a living. And excels at it, to boot.

James takes a minimalist approach, building stripped-down customs, often in a matte-black finish, at his Hammarhead Industries shop in Philadelphia. His Jack Pine scrambler, a modified Triumph TT100, that you see here got a lot of great press and rave reviews when it debuted recently. It's available for $16,500 a copy.

James also rebuilt a Royal Enfield Bullet as an EnerTrac powered electric cafe racer, and dubbed it the Volta 102. It looks like a classic GP racer of the Sixties, high-tech and retro at the same time. You can have one for $18,500.

You can see some bike builds at the Hammarhead video channel that James maintains.
You can read more about the Jack Pine special in a recent piece by the crew at BikeEXIF. Several good, high-res pics there with lots details concerning its construction. Also check out this Hold Fast interview with James we've embedded here.

BikeCraft on the New Generation of Custom Motorcycle Builders

Cafe Racer Dreams Ossa

If you are wondering what is happening in the world of custom bike building now, I highly recommend an informative and thoughtful article in the new, first edition BikeCraft magazine, titled "The State We're In." This lengthy piece features interviews with outstanding members of the new generation of bike builders from shops around the world. Of course the article is also embellished with a dozen great shots of their bikes. I'd recommend hustling down to your local newstand to pick up a copy for just this one article alone.

The folks at BikeCraft see that we are at the end of the era of "billet and bling," which is being replaced by a new aesthetic that favors a simple, clean look for low-cost, daily riders. What I find very cool is all the creative work that is in many cases being done with the most unlikely bikes, such as the Kawasaki WS650 or the Yamaha XS750... we're going way outside the old parameters of the world of Harley-Davidson V-twin based customs:

Wrenchmonkees Honda CB750 Cafe Racer

"Over the past five years, a new wave of custom builders has come through, swapping glitz and glamor for matte powdercoat, dark paint and slick retro graphics. Custom frames and raked-out forks are notable by their absence. These guys are rebuilding Japanese and European bikes from the '80s and '90s, and turning them into stripped-back fun machines."

We've blogged here already about some of the featured builders, such as Shaw Speed & Custom and Spirit of the Seventies, both of the UK, and Classified Moto and Falcon Motorcycles, both in the US.   

At the end of the article, author Chris Hunter conveniently gives a list of websites for all of the builders interviewed, plus a few more, under the heading, "Leaders of the Pack: New-Gen Bike Shops." For your convenience, I've included all of those links below.

Deus Kawi WS650 Streettracker

Cafe Racer Dreams, Spain
Hammarhead Industries, Philadelphia
Blitz Motorcycles, France
Classified Moto, Richmond, VA
Deus Customs, Australia, Bali, & Venice Beach, CA
Wrench Monkees, Copenhagen
Officine Rossopuro, Italy
Roland Sands Design, SoCal
Spirit of the Seventies, UK
Shaw Speed & Custom, UK
Falcon Motorcycles, SoCal

BikeCraft Magazine Issue No. 1 Has Hit the Newstands

So-Cal Triumph Featured in BikeCraft

 BikeCraft magazine is here at last... bobbers, cafe racers, streettrackers, oh my. I just bought a copy of issue numero uno, Summer 2012, and I love it already... great photography, excellent writing, and lots of bikes... in this issue alone, more than a dozen innovative and novel customs from across a wide spectrum of brands. 

Dave Edwards, editor-in-chief of Cycle World  for many years, is at the helm of this new quarterly from Mark Barnett, publisher of the now-defunct Barnett's Magazine (which I really liked and bought on a regular basis). The design and layout of the mag reminds me very much of Cycle World.

The Triumph streettracker pictured here was one of the very cool featured bikes. It was designed and built by the legendary designers and craftsmen at So-Cal Speed Shop for Champions Moto, the first in a limited production run of ten bikes.

Harleyton 45 Featured in BikeCraft

At the other end of the spectrum, there was a great piece about Englishman Nick Roskelley's Harleyton 45 Cafe Racer, a Harley 45ci flathead in a Norton frame. 

I've been eagerly awaiting the debut after seeing the preview of BikeCraft at the back of the now-defunct  Barnett's Magazine final issue. It's better than I hoped for. Check it out at your favorite newstand now, or get setup with a subscription online for $14.99 per year (four issues) at their website.


Update: Actually the Champions Moto Triumph will be a limited production run of twenty bikes, not ten... my mistake

         

Classified Moto Virago Cafe Racers & Customs

Classified Moto XV920 (Photo by Adam Ewing)

Classified Moto of Richmond, VA works wonderous transformations upon the likes of the Yamaha Virago, and other seemingly unlikely machines. I like the way they present themselves and their mission:

Classified Moto is a tiny workshop in Richmond, Virginia (USA) that specializes in affordable alt-moto customs and random creative expressions.

Classified Moto founder John Ryland has an interesting, inspiring story to tell, especially to those of us who have taken the hit in this crummy economy:

Change comes in all sizes. New pair of shoes — small change. New career/business/lease on life — extra large change.

One year ago last week, I got my walking papers from the ad agency where I worked for 11 years. It was like being punched in the face and knocked into the next room. Only the room was full of sweet motorcycles and some of the coolest people I’d never met.

What could have been a disaster of super-sized proportions, instead opened the door for Classified Moto, which might go down in history as the luckiest company on the planet.

From the day I got laid off and set out to make my living in the motosphere, I’ve had something to be psyched about on an almost daily basis — one of our bikes in a magazine, a killer road trip, an email from one of my heroes, a project wrapped. There’s a kind of constant gratification for us at Classified, and we’re trying our best to keep it going.

Interesting thing is, John says he wasn't really all that interested in motorcycle's until just a few years ago.

By the way, the Yamaha XV920 pictured here was created for director Sunny Zhao's experimental film, Reciprocity.

Check out their blog here. Also very interesting is the blog of founder John Ryland. And keep your eyes peeled for a Classified Moto feature at Cafe Racer TV Season 4.

UPDATE: Check out this Vimeo video that features the build of Classified Moto's famous lamp from recycled motorcycle parts.

Falcon Motorcycles, Ten One-of-a-Kind Customs

Falcon Motorcycles Vincent, "The Black"

Falcon Motorcycles was founded in 2007 by Ian Barry and Amaryllis Knight with a very specific mission: They would design and build "ten unique machines without compromise" based on  "ten unique British [motorcycle] engines," each with a racing pedigree. Each bike would truly be one-of-a-kind, never to be duplicated.

Falcon Motorcycles Triumph, "The Bullet"

Their first bike was "The Bullet," based on a Triumph Thunderbird pre-unit construction twin engine, which gained fame as the bike that Marlon Brando rode in The Wild Ones. It immediately caught the attention of the custom motorcycle world and enthusiasts all around the world, putting Falcon Motorcycles on the map.

Three of the ten are completed now and sold: "The Bullet," "The Kestrel," and "The Black." Seven are planned and still available as of this writing. Go to the Falcon gallery to see info concerning the remaining seven project bikes.

Cycle Source Magazine, Cafe Racers & Bobbers

 Cycle Source magazine is one of our favorite bike mags... real grassroots stuff, featuring daily-rider bikes built the little guy, usually the owner-rider, not just the big-name custom bike builders and the big corporations. We really like the down-to-earth attitude. Also, the design and photography is excellent.

Cycle Source got its start as a free publication in Pittsburgh, PA back in 1997. Eight years later, after expanding somewhat on the East Coast, editor Christopher Callen took it national. 

If you like retro and vintage stuff, you'll like what you see in each issue of Cycle Source... bobbers, cafe racers, board trackers, etc. They've also got a great website and blog where they showcase cool bikes, parts, and cycle news, so you don't have to wait by the mailbox each month to see the cool stuff they feature. They are on Facebook, too.

You can sign-up for a subscription here at their website. You can also pick-up a copy at your local Barnes & Noble bookstore if you want to check it out before subscribing.

Another cycle mag you might like: A few weeks ago we did a post about another favorite of ours, Cafe Racer magazine.

The Factory Metal Works Brit Bikes & Parts

The Factory Metal Works "True Vintage" Triumph Bobber

The Factory Metal Works specializes in vintage Brit custom bikes, especially bobbers, and the design and fabrication of parts for builders, including repops frames and complete hardtails for Triumph and BSA motors.

Their work has gotten plenty of notice over the years. For example, the "True Vintage" 1973 Triumph bobber you see here was featured on the cover of Cycle Source magazine's Dec. 2011 issue, and in the Jan. 2012 issue of Back Street Heroes mag in the UK.

They've got a great lineup of partners around the world who carry their parts. TFMW also has a lineup of apparel for men, women, and "the rest."  


              

Cleveland CycleWerks, New Motorcycle Manufacturer

Cleveland CycleWerks Cafe Racer

Cleveland CycleWerks is a motorcycle design and manufacturing startup with headquarters in Cleveland, OH. Design and prototyping is done at their Cleveland shop. Parts are manufactured, they say, "all over the world," and final assembly is done in China.

They have a handful of low-cost, small-displacement bikes now in several styles; cafe racer, bobber, naked streetfighter, and standard. Looks like they've got about thirty dealers in the US, and a few overseas, including Japan. They're also touting their financing program.

Their cafe racer, the "Ace," and bobber, the "Misfit," have an MSRP of $3195. Prices on the standard and the streetfighter, the "Hooligan," are not announced yet.

BSA Cafe Racer of CCW Exec Scott Colosimo

Don't know what to think of this outfit and its bikes. Did some googling and found this article at BIKEEXIF, which featured the the awesome BSA that belongs to Scott Colosimo, the executive who runs CCW. We will be keeping an eye on CCW to see how they do.

Shaw Speed & Custom's Sportsters

Shaw Sportster XLST3 Scrambler

Shaw Speed & Custom in the UK built this awesome Sportster scrambler. For you Sportster fans, they've got quite a line-up of Sporty-based customs.

Check out their Big Twin customs, too.

Tip of the hat to the folks at BIKEEXIF.