Voodoo Vintage Custom Bike Frame Builders Kits for Boardtrackers

Voodoo Vintage Model 6 Frame

Voodoo Vintage offers frame kits for custom bikebuilders, including several models with a boardtracker theme. The Model 6 frame shown to here is said to be a known fit for Yamaha XS650, Honda CB350 and CB360, Suzuki LS650, and "many others."

Follow the link above and you will find a download button for detailed specs in Adobe pdf format for the six frames featured, including the Model 12 boardtracker for Sportster and Buell powerplants.

Lotus C-01 Hyperbike, Limited Edition

The Lotus C-01 200hp futuristic superbike was designed by Daniel Simon, the designer of the Light Cycle in the Tron reboot. Only 100 will be built. The pricetag? $137K.

The C-01 is in fact created by two German motorsports firms, the Kodewa autoracing team and the Holzer Group. They licensed the Lotus name and logo for this special project.

Check out also the C-10 article at Wired.

Indian Scout Cafe Racer from Analog Motorcycles

We've been really impressed with the work of designer/builder Tony Prust, proprietor of Analog Motorcycles, as he's developed the last couple of years or so that we've been aware of him and Analog. Now we've just seen this classic, elegant Indian Scout cafe racer at the Bike EXIF blog (one of our all-time favorite motorcycle blogs, by the way). Impressive. Check it out.

Bike EXIF has featured a number of other Tony Prust bikes in the past. I liked this 1971 Triumph 250 based scrambler, it's especially nostalgic for me because my first bike was a 1971 250 in the street model configuration.

How to Build a Cafe Racer

Honda CX500 Cafe Racer

Charles Tregolan is a professional car designer by trade. In his spare time he designs and builds his own bikes. He's written a set of guidelines for cafe racer builders at the Bike EXEF blog.

The guidelines tell the builder how to scale and set the parameters of a cafe racer to give it a professional look; how to size and place the tank relative to the engine and crankcase, how to set the fork distance, where to set the limits of the seat length relative to the rear axle, and so on.

He uses the Honda CX500 cafe racer you see here as a real-world, guiding example. If you have an interest in building, or plan to build a cafe racer, check out his article.


  

High-Tech, Lightweight Brake Rotors for Harley-Davidsons

Matrix Brakes Disc on H-D

I stumbled across this company, Matrix Brakes, while doing a bit of research on an advanced materials type metal-matrix composites (MMC). They make brake rotors and brake pads for Harleys from an MMC material that is a mixture of aluminum and a ceramic, Silicon Carbide (SiC). The claimed advantages are much lighter weight than stock (1.9lbs vs. 4.9lbs) and greater stopping power. The lighter weight of the rotor is a reduction in unsprung weight, so that would improve the ride and handling of the bike.

They also make carbon-kevlar brake pads.

You can read more about their technology in a slide presentation here. They are also looking for qualfied dealers, you can apply here.

Triumph Flat Track Blog

70's Triumph Flattrack Bike

I just found this blog dedicated to Triumph flattrack racing. A lot of cool pics, but hate to report that the most recent posts are from 2010. Nonetheless, if you are a Triumph fan, check it out for a lot of pics of vintage and modern Triumph flatttrack racers and racing photos.

Triumph Hurricane Tribute for the New Millennium from Vicente Design

Vicente Triumph Millennium 900 Hurricane Tribute

Designer Jean Francois Vicente created this beautiful tribute to the Craig Vetter designed Triumph Hurricane X75. He started with a Triumph 900 Adventurer. The composite body work and triple pipes are of his own design. I think it captures the look and spirit well in modern technology. You can read more about it at the Kneeslider blog.

You can read more about Craig Vetter and the Triumph Hurricane at his Craig Vetter Hurricane pages. You will also find links there to a gallery of Hurricane pictures and a listing of Hurricane articles.

1973 Triumph Hurricane X75

Flying Merkel Tribute Build, Part 2

Reproduction of  Historic1913 Flying Merkel

Terry, the builder of this tribute to the legendary Flying Merkel boardtrackers, has sent me a link to his very extensive gallery of pics he took of the build-in-progress, step-by-step. If you want to build a bike of your own, there's a lot you can learn by studying these.

The Flying Merkel pictured to the left is a replica built by builder Chris Cutler. Tip of the hat to The Vintagent blog for this one.

Aether Motoped Survival Bike, Complete with Crossbow

Black Ops Edition

Never thought I'd want a moped, but I could be persuaded about this one: The Motoped Survival Bike from Aether, the riders apparel company.

Flying Merkel Tribute Build

Flying Merkel Boardtracker

This guy at BTRbuilder.com started a Flying Merkel tribute build in 2010. He started a thread that logs his design and build efforts here at ADVrider.com forums. That link is to the first entry in the thread. He's posted a lot of pictures at in each entry, documented the project in very good detail. If you're interested in doing any kind of custom bike build yourself, you will find this educational.

There is only a landing page at BTRbuilder.com, but he does have an email address, and says he has boardtracker parts and plans available. The Facebook page, BTRbuilder, is apparently gone... I can't get to it.

Completed Merkel Tribute Bike from BTRbuilder

I have sent a note to the email address given there, info@btrbuilder.com, asking if he still has parts and plans available. I will update here if I get a response, whether or not it's positive or negative. Stay tuned.

Update 8/25: I got a reply from Terry, the designer and builder at BTRbuilder. Here it is:

I do have parts and full scale printed templates of the Merkel I built but I haven't decided if I'm going to put together a full set of plans yet. I'm still trying to see where the interest is and for the most part it seems that people want help on building there own idea of a boardtracker and don't necessarily want to build the same bike I did. I'm currently building a complete bike for a guy that saw the Merkel but wanted something different.  My main goal right now is just putting myself out there to help people with whatever they want to build.  Sometimes it's me building something for them and sometimes it's just me giving advice to help them do it themselves.

You can contact him at the email address given above, info@btrbuilder.com. He has also sent me links to pics of two other projects, and I will upload a couple of pics of them in separate posts.