Bike EXIF

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Bike EXIF

The world's most exciting custom motorcycles and cafe racers.

Oxblood: Urban Rider's BMW street scrambler
3/30/2015 12:01:21 PM

It's not often that a color inspires a bike build—and certainly not a color such as 'oxblood.' But that's how this BMW police bike came back to life.

After an engine rebuild in the mid-90s, it was decommissioned and put into storage for 18 years. Then Will Starritt of the London motorcycle gear store Urban Rider spotted it—and decided to press the BMW back into service.

"The idea was to explore the proliferation of the word 'oxblood'," he says. "I'd never heard that word until last year, when we saw several leather products using it as a color description—such as Roland Sands jackets."

It turns out that 'oxblood' doesn't literally mean staining leather with the blood of a beast: it's a traditional color that caught a second wind around three years ago, being a burgundy with an extra hint of dark brown and purple.

Urban Rider may focus on selling gear, but Will and his business partner Andrew are confirmed petrolheads who enjoy building the occasional custom. So they took the R80 back to bare metal and started work, with the help of mechanic Len Harvey.

The bike is now sporting one-off stainless headers, a GP-style silencer, a modified sub-frame and a one-off single seat unit built by Lee at Viking. The seat unit can be removed and replaced with a twin seat, as shown below.

Other classy details include a Monza-style petrol cap, Renthal bars, a compact lithium-ion battery, a Daytona headlight and speedometer, and a stunning paint scheme by Willy at One Off Design.

It's an elegant twist on the current vogue for 'street scramblers': German engineering with a dose of classic English style. If it gets your blood racing, you'll be glad to know that 'Oxblood' is for sale: contact Will via the Urban Rider website.

Urban Rider | Facebook | Images by Gary Margerum

 

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Bike EXIF

Advertising is hard We do it all day. Let us teach you what we've learned. Learn how the experts market their startups. Grab the free ebook. From our sponsors

 

 

Bike EXIF

The world's most exciting custom motorcycles and cafe racers.

Snow Go: Northern Lights' Yamaha HL500
3/29/2015 12:01:54 PM

Snow bikes are a great recipe for unbridled hooliganism. Take a dirt bike, fit it with a ski and a track, and hold on tight. But most are built using modern motocross machinery—and that doesn’t appeal to Orion Anthony.

Orion lives just north of Whistler in the alpine region of British Columbia, Canada—and spends a great deal of his time exploring the area by snowmobile. He’s also just launched Northern Lights Optics, a luxury eyewear collection that takes cues from early-days mountaineering and motorcycling.

"For this new brand," says Orion, "I wanted to create something to provoke a sense of adventure and freedom, with a vintage twist."

"I love touring the alpine on my snowmobile, but my sled is very modern; it has little relationship to the vintage feel of the collection. And while classic snowmobiles look cool, they are not effective for alpine touring in deep snow."

"With several companies making snow bike kits, I thought maybe I could fit one onto an old MX bike!"

After some deliberation, Orion settled on the iconic Yamaha HL500: the bike famed for being the last four-stroke to win a Grand Prix before the reign of the two-stroke began. A little research led him to Rob Phillips of Husky Restorations in New York—a renowned bike builder with a number of HL replicas under his belt. One phone call later, and Rob was on board.

For the chassis, Rob ordered a custom-built frame from FrameCrafters in Illinois. The engine is a 1979 Yamaha XT500 mill, with a Megacycle cam and heavy duty valve springs installed "to give it a little punch."

He also added his own steel-braided oil lines and modified the engine case for a shorter, steel-braided oil pickup line. The carb is a 36mm Mikuni item, kitted with a K&N filter, and the exhaust is a stainless steel, HL500-style unit with a built-in silencer.

With the HL having to run at altitudes ranging from sea level to 8,000 feet above, Rob had concerns over jetting. So he contacted Tom White at White Brothers for advice: "Tom’s the ultimate expert on these engines," says Rob. "He gave me a carb recipe that worked perfectly, only needing a slight change in needle position for different altitudes."

Moving to the bodywork, Rob fitted the tank and seat from the equally legendary 1976 YZ125. The fenders are generic MX parts, while the side covers were made from fiberglass. "Orion got a little creative," says Rob, "and we changed the side panel numbers to NL500—as in Northern Lights 500."

The original HL500 has 35mm YZ400 forks, but Rob thought it’d be best to go for something beefier—so he fitted 43mm YZ forks instead. Small modifications had to be made to the frame and forks to fit the Timbersled track and ski kit—but with the help of Arctic Cat specialists Route 99 Motorsports, the conversion went off without a hitch.

Rob’s work wasn’t done though: he also built up a swing arm, wheels, rear shocks, and everything else Orion would need if he ever decided to convert the ‘NL500′ for dirt use.

When all was said and done, Orion dragged the NL500 along to Milan for the MIDO Eyewear Show, and his first visit to the Italian Alps.

"Riding into the Alps on a throaty sounding HL500 beast of a snow bike was over the top. But the highlight of the day was pulling up in front of Ristoro Pasini, the alpine restaurant and bar. The reaction from the people sunning themselves on the patio was priceless."

Visit the Northern Lights Optics website to see a video of the NL500 in action | Husky Restorations | Images by Claudio Bader

 

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Bike EXIF

Advertising is hard We do it all day. Let us teach you what we've learned. Learn how the experts market their startups. Grab the free ebook. From our sponsors

 

 

Bike EXIF

The world's most exciting custom motorcycles and cafe racers.

Action! Vimeo launches The Greasy Hands Preachers
3/27/2015 11:00:34 AM

This weekend, the definitive film about the new wave custom scene is released to the public.

Following its premiere at the San Sebastian film festival, The Greasy Hands Preachers is going global with Vimeo. From Sunday you can stream and download the 90-minute documentary—and you can pre-book right now.

Shot on Super 16, Greasy Hands takes viewers all over the world, with stopovers in France, the USA, Scotland, Spain and Indonesia. The cast is a roll call of big name builders: from American-based heavyweights Roland Sands (above left) and Shinya Kimura (right) to controversial Europeans El Solitario and Blitz Motorcycles.

It’s the work of producer-director team Clément Beauvais and Arthur de Kersauson, which is a stamp of quality in itself. They're best known for the brilliant Long Live The Kings—an elegant, elegiac mood piece that made our list of motorcycle films worth watching.

The Greasy Hands Preachers is a celebration of manual work, seen through the lens of motorcycle enthusiasts who have found their way to a happy life. “A biker crossing a beautiful landscape is an image that conveys the idea of freedom,” say Beauvais and de Kersauson. “However, the mechanic who builds and repairs this bike is perceived as proletarian with dirty hands.” It’s a perception that the duo have set out to overturn.

It’s also an idea that resonated with the high-ups at Belstaff, BMW Motorrad and Motul, who offered sponsorship to fund the film. A further $100,000 came from a successful Kickstarter campaign—a sure sign of appetite on the public side too.

Watch the full-length trailer below to get a taste of The Greasy Hands Preachers right now. To stream or download it in full, head over to the official Vimeo On Demand page.

Enjoy.

The Greasy Hands Preachers on Facebook

 

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'79 Honda CB750K – Faisal Malik
3/27/2015 7:45:10 AM

Go on, admit it. At some point in your riding history, you've probably fantasised about your bike being able to fly. Any why wouldn’t you? Given the right set of curves, weather, and traffic (or lack there of) it's probably the closest thing you can get to flying without getting all John Denver with things. And if Hollywood is anything to go by, it’s not just us bikers who dream of going one better than a wheelie, either. But why stop there? Why stop with air? This is exactly what Faisal Malik did when looking for some inspiration for his latest build, this very sleek-looking CB750K.

"Christopher Nolan's 'Interstellar' was the main inspiration for me," says Faisal while speaking to us direct from his Karachi launchpad. "That, and the bikes coming out of Hookie Co. in Germany." Faisal was looking to create something which looked like it could not only hop from one country to another, but from one star to another. His hunt for a decent frame and engine started in October, 2014. "A good friend named Anas Khan, who is also an encyclopaedia of motorcycle knowledge, helped me identify a near match. I agreed to his choice but only under one condition; that he himself would supervise the build in terms of quality and performance." Naturally, he agreed and the project took off from there.

The motorcycle they uncovered was a fairly stock '79 Honda CB750K. Stock, except for one small addition. It was powered by an '82 CB900F motor. "It hadn't been on the road for about 3 years and it was sadly leaning against a wall in a local workshop."

"We stripped it down until only the frame was left, and started the long process to build it up again." The two then selected a workshop – in this case the locally based Zeeshan Motor Services. Familiar with Zeehan’s work, they knew he was always ready to take on new challenges and was full to overflowing with passion for custom bikes.

"Anas and Zeeshan got really excited when I discussed my idea about building a café racer. 'Yes! It's time for me to build something like that!' Anas said, after I gave him the brief." Then, after about 200 hours of solid work and even some dreaded reworks, Faisal finally got what he was wishing for. What you see before you is the first custom bike we’ve ever featured from Pakistan, and if the feedback it's been getting is anything to go by, it’s got quite a few other international fans, too.

"It took a lot of research and effort to source the various parts from around the globe. We made no compromises on quality and reliability of the machine, which is in accordance with our guiding principle that "out in space, a rider shouldn’t have to worry about break downs and reliability." So true – last time we checked there was a distinct lack of breakdown services willing to venture into a 2.7 degree Kelvin vacuum.

"This is my third transformed café racer and easily the most expensive build. In Pakistan there aren’t many cafe racers around. So, apart from my passion, this is also a humble attempt to promote the culture of café racers and customized motorcycles in our country." Gotta love that.

[Photos by Saqib Malik]

 

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Video: 'Coste Contemplation'
3/25/2015 7:11:43 AM

It’s probably fair to say that we don’t post as many bike videos as we used to. With the possible exception of a Shinya or Hazan, we’ve seen more than enough Canon 5D footage of beardy guys making sparks in garages. Hell, this year’s One Show video has even started taking the piss.

But then, just when we think we’ve moved on, we’re blindsided by something so beautiful, so deft and so original that you feel as if a veil has been lifted from your eyes. Introducing 'Coste Contemplation' by Thibaut Grevet. It’s a short piece featuring French photographer and motocross freak Dimitri Coste, who also happens to be the brother of Jerome Coste, the founder of Ruby Atelier. And it’s amazing.

[Found on Nowness.com]

 

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Bike EXIF

Advertising is hard We do it all day. Let us teach you what we've learned. Learn how the experts market their startups. Grab the free ebook. From our sponsors

 

 

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The world's most exciting custom motorcycles and cafe racers.

The Black Douglas: A Two-Wheeled Morgan
3/25/2015 12:01:32 PM

Fabio Cardoni is a man after our own hearts. “Steel is more beautiful than plastic, and simplicity is more appealing than complexity," he says.

Sig. Cardoni runs The Black Douglas Motorcycle Company, which makes the vintage-styled machine you see here. Called the Sterling, it's the two-wheeled equivalent of a Morgan car: a coachbuilt vehicle with the charisma and craftsmanship of a bygone age.

Regular readers may recall that we covered Black Douglas a couple of years ago. We're revisiting the company because the Sterling has been developed into a significantly better bike, and there's now a dealership network on the way.

There are already showrooms in the UK and Italy, with Germany and Austria set to open soon. Australia is next in the queue, and there's a kit version of the Sterling available for the USA.

To develop the Black Douglas, Cardoni brought on board a prototyping company owned by an engineer well known to both Ducati Corse and Yamaha Motorsport. Together, they've 'industrialized' the Sterling for production, creating the Mark 5 version.

"It was difficult and expensive," says Cardoni, "but also fun. Especially when you're trying to convince a racebike specialist that you need a girder fork." The forks are no longer bought in from an outside supplier: they're hand-made from 7075-aluminum alloy, and individually machined on lathes.

They're also a little shorter, with one degree less rake to sharpen the steering response. And there's now a discreet adjustable shock absorber that improves the movement of the forks.

The tank is built using 'Peraluman' alloy, bent and welded into shape. You get a choice of two engines: a 125 and a 230, with a 400 on the way. The engine components are produced in Taiwan but assembled in the Italian factory.

The other upgrades are mostly in the detail—improving build quality and the riding experience. The tires are slightly chunkier, the seats are handmade in-house, and the electrical wiring is wrapped in cotton, vintage-style.


The exhaust is now catalyzed, and the Black Douglas has passed homologation tests in Europe. "We can now stamp our own frame numbers, and offer a two-year warranty," says Cardoni.

Right now, he's working on homologation for Australia and Japan. Next will be EPA compliance, so that built-up bikes can be sold in the USA.

"We're also working on a wicker wood sidecar and other extras such as different handlebars, headlights, seats, fuel caps and more," says Cardoni. 
Also on the slate is an Italian designed and built 350cc engine, which will equip a premium model to be called the Sterling Imperial.

We'd happily take the current Mk 5 Sterling, though. Tipping the scales at just over 100 kilos, it's considerably lighter than its predecessor, it brakes better, and the riding experience is smoother.

Prices start at €4500 (around US$5,000) for the kit bike, or €8750 (US$9,600) plus taxes for a fully built-up machine.

That's the kind of money some folks pay out to modify a stock bike. The Black Douglas order book is full for the next couple of months, and we're not surprised.

Now, where did we put those plus-fours?

The Black Douglas Motorcycle Co. website | Facebook | Instagram

 

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