SUMISURA DEUXIEME FLAT TRACKER

The effervescent front man of Milanese outfit Moto SuMisura, Franco Augello, has been at it again.  His deep rooted passion for BMW’s boxer knows no bounds and if potential clients weren’t complete fanatics when they arrive, they certainly will be by the time they’ve been through the beer and salami fuelled creative consultation in the workshop. Check out the Milguass & Inge which were in the shed last month.

There’s always a story with Frank’s builds and this one, the Deuxieme Flat Tracker, is no different.

Wanting an alternative city ride to ‘JM’, his GS-based build, Frank needed a beating heart for the next project so England’s fine shores were scoured for an 800cc Airhead.  A chap from Liverpool had sadly died leaving behind his bike to be ravaged by the elements for many years before finally ending up in a local scrap yard.

The engine arrived in Milano feeling slightly sorry for itself, made worse by the courier launching it across SuMisura’s garage floor, smashing the starter motor housing. Inside the news was not much better so a full strip down and rebuild was required.  After painting and polishing the motor Frank sat it on the bench and stared intently, awaiting the inspiration, it came in the form of a flat tracker for Milano’s mean streets.

An R100 kickstart gets things going and an R45 35/9  five-speed box set the wheels in motion. Cone filters, heat-wrapped headers and stubby mufflers do the breathing.  The frame is a modified R45 with the rear end chopped and the battery box masked with mesh sheet. Rather than paint, the steel frame was stripped, left a bit rough around the edges and patinated before being lacquered.

Wheels were commandeered from an R65, 18 inches front and rear, wrapped in Michelin M45s. Forks are rebuilt R65 units with flat track guards to keep things clean, both practically and visually.  BiTurbo adjustable shockers suspend the rear.

The wiring loom has been re-made and hidden inside the frame tubes and wide, lazy angled flat track handlebars, capped off with bar end indicators.

The seat is a one-off in stitched black leather, canted forward suggesting racing off the lights will be a common occurrence, or maybe giving space for the prone position, left hand on the forks between turns one and two of Milano’s ring road.

The slim tracker tank is actually from a 1949 R25/3, now painted in silver with subtle pin striping, matching the handmade tail section.  The slack head angle and mesh front number board make for a racy looking ride whilst the machined from billet aluminium foot pegs, mini spot-headlights and LED stop-lamp juxtapose the rest of the bike’s classic origins.

Frank has had many offers to buy the Deuxieme but he is not a seller, the story behind the engine pulls at his heart strings every time he fires it up. I’m sure if you ask nicely Frank will build one to your spec, but be prepared for him to insist on at least a little artistic licence. See more from Moto Sumisura HERE on the Bike Shed and on their Facebook Page.

Les folles acrobaties d'un pilote d'avion dans le canal de Corinthe

A 57 ans, le pilote d'avion Peter Besenyei a volé entre deux falaises espacées de seulement 21 mètres en Grèce. 

OFFICINE ROSSOPURO GUZZI CAFE RACER

The custom world is rife with fads and fashions, but there are a few one-marque specialists taking the slow and steady route to win the race. On the east coast of the USA, Walt Siegl springs to mind for his high-performance Ducati builds. In Italy, if you want a Guzzi cafe racer you give Filippo Barbacane a call.

Barbacane aims to make his bikes “elegant and refined,” and he invariably succeeds. “It’s a bit against the trend,” he acknowledges. “It seems to be the fashion to leave bikes looking well ‘lived’.”

There’s nothing ‘lived-in’ about this Moto Guzzi 1000 SP, called Purosangue(Thoroughbred). It’s clean, well-balanced and ready for the road, a precision tool crafted for Mandello Del Lario enthusiasts. Unlike most Officine Rossopuro builds, this bike was not a commission—Barbacane built it to suit his own tastes. But before you ask, it has been sold.

The handling is a quantum leap from the 1982 original, with modified 45mm Marzocchi forks matched to Bitubo shocks. The brake system is built around Brembo’s upscale Serie Oro components, with 320mm discs and four-piston calipers. And the wheels are now lightweight spoked Borranis, shod with Metzeler rubber.

Barbacane is not afraid of CNC work to create new components, and for this bike he’s designed a custom mount for the rear caliper and a new engine mount. He also designed the minimal exhaust system, which was built by MASS. Despite the straight-through look, concealed baffles in the end pipes reduce the sound to acceptable levels.

Adding to the super-clean look are a compact battery, a clever rewire that hides the electrics behind the left-hand side panel, and discreet hand controls originally designed for custom Harleys. The engine and frame have been refinished in matte powder, leaving just the tank to provide a splash of color.

Fine work from a master at the top of his game. Visit the Officine Rossopuro website to see more exquisite Guzzi cafe racers, or hit up our Archives.

via BIKEEXIF

EMPORIO ELABORAZONI BRIGANTE

It’s been a little while since we heard from Dopz and the crew at Emporio Elabroazoni Meccaniche in Rome, but the boys are back with a new build, and they’re back in a big way with this stand-out custom CB400N, which has been given the moniker Brigante, which pretty much translates from the Italian as Rascal.

The bike follows the EE philospy of recycling and reusing original bikes and parts to give them new life and “new dignity”. We like that. It sounds kinda noble, and this bike does have a noble look about it.

“The donor bike was a Honda CB400N. We worked on the idea of doing a very short bike using and old mopped Piaggio Ciao seat.” The frame was shortened and reinforced to accommodate the stubby rear end with new shocks. The indicators were built in to the chopped ends of the frame to keep the seat clutter-free, while the rear LED light fitting is cleverly integrated into the cross bracing in the sub-frame that supports the seat spring.

The wiring was simplified and tucked into the frame tubes to keep it clean, but the guys are not fans of the empty rear subframe trend. “We do not love this trend of the empty hole from side to side under the seat, so we had fun reworking an old Kawasaki filter to hide the battery and fuses.” This is mounted to the left side with a round painted panel.

On the opposite site to the battery there is an old hip flask fitted – which isn’t there to sip by the roadside while you wait for the RAC, it’s actually for your tools – so you can fix it yourself and get home in time for a beer with your mates.

The tank is from an old Gilera, which has been re-worked to fit the frame. The Piaggio Ciao seat was recovered in leather, and the same leather was use to make a belt to affix the tank. The machine-gun exhaust is from a Triumph Scrambler which has been chopped and split into two exit pipes.

The rest of the mods include bates style light with a yellow lens, upgraded brake master cylinders, aluminium footrests, a flat handlebar, hand made fenders and a host of parts too numerous to list. The colour scheme was inspired by the original Gilera tank which has been graced with the Emporio Elaborazini spanner emblem, made from two opposing Es.

It’s a classy looking bike in its red & gold livery, with a clipped, truncated look, and it adds nicely to the range of builds from Dopz and the crew. There are plenty more builds from Emporio Elaborazoni on The Bike Shed Emporio Elaborazioni pages or you can check them out on their own Website.

Max Hazan's 1996 Royal Enfield Bullet 500

by Graham Hiemstra in Design on 14 June 2013

The former airplane and boat builder's artistic take on custom motorcycle design

With a background in building airplanes, boats and even custom furniture, Max Hazan has an endless list of references to pull inspiration and ideas from. Through this varied experience Hazan has found motorcycles to be his be all and end all in terms of artistic medium. Using a range of materials, Hazan's custom designs achieve a beautiful balance between mechanical art and functional machine. A stunning example of which is his recently completed 1996 Royal Endfield Bullet 500.
Rarely seen outside of India, the Royal Enfield is a rare find in the first place. And this one has been custom built from the ground up—from frame to every single lever and linkage—over a span of two solid months. It's something really special. While each detail is impeccable, nothing demands the attention quite like the solid wood seat. Referencing boat and furniture building techniques, the hardwood seat acts as both a beautiful place to sit as well as a rear fender, embodying the functional sculpture concept.
For more insight into Hazan's design inspiration and execution, as well as a closer look at his 1996 Royal Enfield Bullet 500, see Hazan's recent interview with industrial designer Dave Mucci for his motorcycle and design blog Moto-Mucci.
Images courtesy of David Hans Cooke and David Browning

A Royal Enfield helped create the cafe racer image

A Royal Enfield featured in newspaper's "Shock Issue."

The Royal Enfield motorcycle roaring out of the front page of Britain's Daily Mirror on Feb. 9, 1961 helped plant in the public mind the image of leather clad demons risking their lives — and yours — on the open road.

"Suicide Club! — it devours 130,000 members every year!" the headline shouted.

"The paper focused on the Ace Cafe in particular and featured some of the regular visitors," author Alastair Walker wrote in his book "The Cafe Racer Phenomenon."

In 1964, the British movie "The Leather Boys" followed the Daily Mirror line. Again shot largely at the Ace Cafe on London's North Circular Road, the movie depicted motorcycle racing that started right out of the parking lot.

News coverage of Mods and Rockers chasing one another around British seaside resorts in 1964 connected the dots for a worldwide audience. I saw the Mods and Rockers go at it on the television in my house at the time, and I lived in Los Angeles!

The Suicide Club Royal Enfield still frequents the Ace Cafe. Francois Thomas photographed it there and posted a photo of the bike with the Ace's Mark Wilsmore on Flickr.

Royal Enfield Constellation WUL 798, proudly on display at the Ace Cafe.

Wilsmore identified it to him as the very same motorcycle shown in the newspaper, and it still bears the pedestrian slicer WUL 798, as in the paper. The 700cc twin-cylinder Constellation is rusty now, but easy to imagine in its days of glory.

I photographed the motorcycle at the Ace myself while in London in September to see the new Royal Enfield Continental GT.

Cafe racers old and new, they make a nice pair.

The Suicide Club Constellation with the new Royal Enfield Continental GT.



Suicide Club Royal Enfield; does metal remember?

via royal enfields site

Drop Au Van, Liberty Walk Meet Citroen!

There are little hidden treasures of automotive culture wherever you look in Japan. Sometimes they’re right in front of your eyes and you don’t even notice them. This Citroën H Van is a good example; I must have probably seen this van three times, if not more, sitting outside either the Liberty Walk shop or the LB Works garage.

With so many crazy widebody exotics and Kato’s kyusha rides sitting around the place, the little van was something my brain just didn’t acknowledge. It happens, trust me. But then, after seeing it sitting in the back of some of my shots, I made a mental note that next time I would be back down in Nagoya, I would at least have to do a little spotlight on it.

You can probably call these H Vans the French version of the VW Kombi; I know it’s a rather loose comparison, but you get what I’m saying. They’re a little bit bigger, were mainly built for commercial use and didn’t even come close to matching the popularity of the rear-engine Vee-Dubs. But it’s precisely this that makes Liberty’s H Van so special: its rarity. You hardly see these things in Europe, let alone in Japan, and this one has been given the Kato touch with a full flat-green coat of paint, air suspension and wire mesh wheels that look like they came off Snoop Dogg’s Coupe de Ville!

The story behind the van is pretty simple: it was once used by a mobile food vendor and once up for sale, Kato-san came across it and bought it straight away seeing the potential in it. Once customized, it was used a few times at Liberty Walk events and meets, as it’s great for carrying stuff around in style. Unfortunately, with all the projects Kato has been up to these last couple of years, the Citroën hauler has been left sitting in front of the LB Works workshop awaiting its much needed overhaul to bring it back up to usable condition.

I just find these sort of vehicles to be little glimpses of a bygone area, when vehicles were put together with so much simplicity and curious touches. Like a lot of cars back in the days, the H Van is equipped with suicide doors, which actually make it so easy to swing your body into the driver’s seat.

Check out the door handles. If they were all polished up, they wouldn’t look out of place in a period home and those hinges as are agricultural as they come. It’s these small details that help give these older vehicles character, and there are plenty more to be found in the interior.

The H Van was a little part-borrowing exercise, so most of what you see in there was taken from other Citroën production cars like the Traction Avant – things that included its engine and transmission. The engine sits right in between the passengers and drives the front wheels. The air suspension controls are laid out on the passenger side of the dashboard and lift only the front wheels; the rear just sits plain low.

The rear opens up with a main gate that swings upwards and a pair of little doors below it – perfect for what the van was used for in one of its previous lives! In fact it still has a ventilation opening next to the high-mount French number plate. For the time being, it’s doubled up as a little storage unit, most of the cargo space taken up with a variety of things from old tyres to boxes and spare parts.

The corrugated panels are what really make the H Van instantly recognizable, a then easy and cheap way to make a flat sheet of metal more rigid without added strengthening. It’s probably the last vehicle you would expect to find in Japan, or at Liberty Walk for that matter, but its charm and potential were obviously too much for Kato-san to resist. Let’s hope it’s put back on the road soon; it’s already got the overfenders and the right sort of stance so it can really wear the LB Works name with pride!

Dino Dalle Carbonare

Nürburgring record-hunters at dawn: Porsche 956 and 918 Spyder

To photograph a current record-holder at the Nordschleife is a rare opportunity. Stefan Bogner had two in front of the lens: the new Porsche 918 Spyder and Stefan Bellof’s Porsche 956, for 30 years an unbeaten record-holder at the ‘Green Hell’…

                        

The lap time that Stefan Bellof set in the Porsche 956 on 28 May 1983 is unbeaten to this day.

It’s hard to believe, but the lap time that Stefan Bellof set on 28 May 1983, in the Porsche 956, is unbeaten to this day: 6 minutes and 11.13 seconds. Neither the driver nor the team had expected to achieve this incredible result, in qualifying for the 1,000km race. But the phenomenal Group C racing car with its 630HP six-cylinder turbo boxer engine, and a racing weight of just 850kg, managed the near-impossible – even the average speed of more than 200km/h is still regarded as the fastest ever measured on the Nordschleife. No wonder: the Porsche 956 and its evolution version, the Porsche 962, are arguably the greatest endurance prototypes in history.

Meet the legends

You don’t come across such legends every day – and certainly not at the place of their greatest victory. The Munich-based photographer and creator of ‘Curves’ magazine Stefan Bogner  was at the Nürburgring when, shortly before sunset, he came across the Rothmans-liveried 956 in the paddock. An English collector rebuilt the record-breaking car, chassis number 007, for Bellof’s former teammate, Derek Bell, to drive at the Avd Oldtimer Grand Prix in the summer of 2013 – the 30^th anniversary of setting the lap record. And now it's back there. Having seen the car in the paddock, Bogner convinced the owner to bring the Porsche back to the track next morning for his photoshoot – with none other than Hans-Joachim Stuck at the wheel. 

But Bogner has another ace up his sleeve: the Porsche 918 Spyder. On 4 September 2013, Porsche works driver Marc Lieb recorded a lap time in the hybrid supercar of just under seven minutes – which enabled the 918 to hold the title of ‘fastest production sports car’. The record car in Martini livery is also at the Ring, and joins the 956 on track. The asphalt is wet from the rain, the fog hangs low in the woods, but the sun occasionally breaks through. Bogner is enthusiastic about the unearthly atmosphere of the ‘Green Hell’, hanging out of the camera car to capture the very special moment.

An unforgettable moment

In companionable harmony, the two record-breaking cars – the legend of 1983 and the world-leading sports car of 2013 – peacefully enjoy a joint victory lap on the Ring. But the spectacle is soon over: by 8:30, the Porsche duo is back in the paddock, the fog has lifted and the sun dries the asphalt – free to welcome the next challenger for the Nordschleife lap record.

Stefan Bogner’s new work, ‘Tracks – Nürburgring Nordschleife’, is a veritable bible for the ‘Green Hell’. The book is published by Delius Klasing and includes impressive photographs of the track, detailed elevation profiles and overviews of each section, and a foreword by Hans-Joachim Stuck. More information at www.delius-klasing.de.

Into the Great Wide Open

Staghead Moto is a collaboration between John Christenson and Nick Huber to document the craft and scene of fine vintage motorcycles. We seek to promote the lifestyle around vintage motorcycles through art, blogging, riding and modifying vintage bikes. In 2013 Staghead Moto founded and sponsored the traveling art expo 'Oil&Ink Motorbike Print Expo' with pop up galleries in NYC, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and at the Moto GP in Austin Texas.
Into the Great Wide Open from Staghead Moto on Vimeo.

Long-lost family: Harley-Davidson Aermacchi RR350

Harley-Davidson is synonymous with heavyweight V-twins and burly Hells Angels, while few are aware of the successful road-racing outfit the company ran in the Seventies. This 1974 RR350 is a stunning example from the lesser-known back-catalogue of the legendary American firm…

Around 25 RR350s were built over a three-year period (1974, '5 and '6) at the firm’s Varese factory in Italy, acquired following the full takeover of Aermacchi, the ailing Italian aircraft/motorcycle manufacturer. They were built for one thing and one thing only: road racing, incorporating what were then high-tech features, such as double-disc front brakes and a six-speed transmission. 

On top of the world

In this case, the old adage of ‘if it looks quick, it probably is’ couldn’t have been truer – the RR350 won Harley-Davidson the 1976 350cc Grand Prix World Championship. Walter Villa, the unassuming yet ruthless Italian, won four races that season to seal the title, while also contesting (and winning) the 250cc formula series aboard a similar, if less powerful, Harley. Despite this particular bike’s lack of precise competition history, it’s in fantastic condition, having benefitted from a restoration some years back.

These stunning photos were captured by US-based photographer Nick Keating, whose father incidentally owned and sold the RR350 pictured, among several other classics sold through his business, the Keating Wheel Company. The next time you see a lumbering Harley-Davidson, spare a thought for the dainty Italian thoroughbreds that once ruled the world. 

Photos: Nick Keating

Many classic Harleys can be found in the Classic Driver Market.

Yahya Al Helei spearheads UAE's attempts at Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge glory

UAE hopes in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge next month will again be pinned on Yahya Al Helei, who is seeded tenth and will be looking to add to his impressive list of finishes in the event.

Al Helei’s son, Mansour, drives one of 12 Nissan Patrols entered, as do fellow Emiratis Nabil Al Shamsi, Nooh Buhamid, Matar Al Mansoori and Ali Al Kitbi, Lebanon’s Emil Khneisser, and Saudi’s Ibrahim Al Muhana.

Fresh from his success in the inaugural UAE Desert Championship which saw him clinch the overall cars and buggies class, Emirati Ahmad Al Fahim competes in a Powertec Storm buggy built in Dubai.

Spain’s Nani Roma will defend his drivers’ title as fellow-countryman Marc Coma chases a record eighth bikes victory in the event.

This year’s two Dakar Rally winners are in a line-up of 108 competitors from 32 countries announced today by the rally organisers, the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE.

With the 24th edition of the Desert Challenge also forming the opening round of this year’s FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship for bikes, Coma tops the list of 61 seeded riders from 22 countries.

Among his biggest rivals will be new KTM team-mate Sam Sunderland, the talented young Dubai-based rider.

Sunderland was on course for a superb Desert Challenge victory last year before a time penalty collected for a basic technical infringement dropped him to third.

“We’re very happy with the size and quality of entries, and we have all the ingredients of a classic event,” said ATCUAE President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the FIA Vice President.

“Whether it’s their first Desert Challenge or they’ve been here many times before, all competitors face a big test. It doesn’t matter how many times you do this event, you have to prepare thoroughly and have maximum concentration from start to finish.”

Taking place under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge begins with a super special spectator stage on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, on 5 April.

printemps