DUCATI 900SS BY EL SOLITARIO

When a Ducati 900SS rolls into a workshop for a big-budget overhaul, it usually leaves a few weeks later looking just like it did when it rolled off the production line in the 90s. But not this one: only the most eagle-eyed Ducatistas would recognize it, with the engine cases being the giveaway.

The builders at the Galician workshop El Solitario march to the beat of a different drum, and a very seductive beat it is too. ‘Petardo’ means firecracker, and El Sol’s latest custom is an explosive celebration of two-wheeled mechanical complexity.

When pushed to describe Petardo, El Solitario main man David Borras calls it a reaction against the current trend for minimalism. He doesn’t believe in hiding the paraphernalia of a bike, so all the “organs”—like the switches, pumps, regulator and hoses—are on the outside. “We wanted to embrace the veins and arteries that move the body!”

Curiously, it works. The panel of Stack gauges on the tank is mesmerizing in the metal, reminiscent of the interior of a Group B rally car. As well as speed and revs, you get readings for lambda, exhaust gas temperature, volts, and oil pressure. The cabling and hoses snaking around the engine invite you to explore the machine. It’s easy to imagine the forces at work inside.

The effect could have been busy and disjointed, but it’s not. Finished in shades of black and raw metal, Petardo looks like a prop from a Fritz Lang or Christopher Nolan movie.

Fuel is carried in a 10-liter jerry can at the back, and propelled to the engine via an external pump and dry-break lines. The heavily modified frame is actually from a 600SS, with a blueprinted 900SS motor shoehorned in and hooked up to a sinuous, custom-fabricated stainless steel exhaust system. The bodywork is hand-beaten alloy, contrasting with black chrome and powder coat elsewhere.

At every point in their career, a motorcycle builder creates a masterwork—the machine they will be remembered by. This is El Solitario’s finest hour, and by their own admission, “Excessive in capital letters.”

Head over to the El Solitario website for more images—all shot by Kristina Fender. Since these studio shots were taken, Petardo has been upgraded with Desmosedici Öhlins forks, a custom Öhlins shock, and a full brake system from ISR.

Check out the Bike EXIF Google+ page for a stunning image gallery of the bike in its latest incarnation, being ridden in anger.

via BIKEEXIF

Time for racing -- MotoGP™ 2014 hits Qatar

The stunning setting of the floodlit Losail International Circuit in the desert of Qatar once again hosts the opening round of the MotoGP™ World Championship as Marc Marquez, Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa get set for battle against their premier class rivals. 

Minimalist, functionalist: The influential designs of Dieter Rams

Being a lifelong fan of the Porsche 911 (not very original, I know), my favourite story about Germany's celebrated industrial designer Dieter Rams concerns the fact that he, too, is a long-standing admirer of Zuffenhausen's rear-engined rockets...

It might be an urban myth - and I'm sure we'll hear about it if it is - but Rams was supposedly once asked by a journalist why, of all the cars available to him, he chose to drive a 911. With a degree of surprise, but little emotion I expect, he is said to have responded: "Quite simply because it is the most efficient means yet devised of travelling from A to B in the shortest possible time."

The 10-point ethos

On reflection, Rams would obviously drive an early 911 because it seems to fit almost perfectly with his famous 10-point design ethos (briefly, a good design should be: innovative, useful, attractive, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough, not 'over designed' and - this is where it goes a bit wrong - environmentally friendly). Well, nine out of 10 isn't bad.

As well as his choice of cars, something else I've always admired about Rams is the fact that he isn't just a designer who can draw nice shapes. He knows how things work and how to make them, too.

Heritage of carpentry

He is said to have become interested in design as a result of watching his carpenter grandfather and initially followed him into the profession as an apprentice, before completing his studies at art school and taking a job with Frankfurt architect Otto Apel.

Within a couple of years, however, Rams had been recruited by Braun which, at the time, specialised in audio equipment and slide projectors - and had recently launched the electric shavers for which it became especially famous.

Braun and beyond

By 1961, Rams was Braun's chief designer and the firm's products had became instantly recognisable due to their uncluttered, almost austere appearance, user-friendly controls and robust engineering. Indeed, I recently saw someone using one of the company's distinctive, orange-coloured KSM2 coffee grinders which is still going strong more than 30 years after it was originally purchased.

The fact that it is still in service will come as no surprise to Rams, who has always regarded obsolescence as a crime. Sadly, today's throw-away society would have us believe that such sensible thinking is completely out of date. 

But didn't they once say that about the 911, too?

To find out more about Dieter Rams and his work for Braun, we highly recommend the book 'Less and More - The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams' published by Gestalten Verlag. 

‘66 Little Honda P25 – Chicara Nagata

Think of the wildest inspiration you possibly can for a custom bike build. Go on – anything at all. Anything. An aircraft? Done. Hot rods? Done to death. Animals? Architecture? iPhones? Done, done and done. So what happens when you get Chicara Nagata, one of the world’s greatest custom bike builders, and give him an open brief to design a security camera? This happens. And no, we can’t quite believe it either…

Here’s the man himself, Nagata-San. “Last year, there came to me a request from a security equipment manufacturer to create a surveillance camera for them. The president of the company wanted a security equipment such that has never been seen in the past and everything was for me to decide – from idea generation, designing, to working model manufacturing.”

“The deadline had been set on the 3rd of March, prior to ‘Security Show’, which is Japan’s largest exhibition of security and safety equipment which took place this year at Tokyo Big Site from the 4th of March.”

“As soon as I accepted the request, I tried to come up with any novel idea for a security camera, but in vain. My own image about ordinary security camera kept me from having bold and free imagination. Security cameras are usually installed in the ceiling or the walls and they are unrecognized by passengers.”

“How about a security camera which can’t be ignored? I then tried to imagine the shape of a mounting bracket for the body of a camera. What kind of object; shape, color, the way to be installed do I really want?”

“What nobody creates but me is the one which has tires and an engine! I would like it for real riding! The motorcycle security camera came into the world this way. I was very thrilled with this idea and the excitement made me create it original as a security camera and unique as a motorcycle.”

“This work is suitable to be installed in museums, entry hall of a building, hotel lobby and stores, etc. Of course, this can run swiftly in town!”

via PIPEBURN