BMW R NINET CUSTOM BY UCC

After building bikes for nigh on 20 years, Unique Custom Cycles has a reputation most builders would die for. The Swedish company is known for its traditional chopper and drag racing builds, but its latest project—nicknamed The Stockholm Syndrome—is very different.

UCC’s Ronna Norén and Gordon Roth like a challenge, and a few weeks ago BMW Motorrad dropped one right into their laps. They were given just five weeks to revamp a BMW R nineT, to enter into the famous Norrtälje Custom Bike Show.

For 35 days, Norén and Roth barely slept. But as you can see, the result was worth it. ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is a clean and rakish roadster, the naked cousin of Roland Sands’ faired Concept 90 bike. And despite the tight timeframe, this R nineT is rammed with high-end Swedish engineering.

The forks and triple trees are new, built in collaboration with Tolle Engineering. The brake system was designed with the help of ISR, and features radial 6-piston calipers grabbing 320 mm fully-floating disks. The ABS sensors are retained, and on the custom handlebars is an adjustable ISR master cylinder. Öhlins got into the act as well, providing a custom shock and steering damper that we’ll probably see in production soon.

The bike is also a showcase for UCC’s own fabrication skills. The frame has been cut and raked a few degrees, and fitted with inserts from Perka Nyström of Plebs Choppers—the legendary Swedish motorcycle club that includes BMW Motorrad head designer Ola Stenegärd amongst its members.

The super-sano tank is a cut and modified R nineT original, matched to a custom seat from Stitch Sweden and a hand-made rear subframe. The exhaust system is newly fabricated from stainless steel, hooked up to a Burns muffler, and even the oil cooler is a UCC custom part.

Despite the clean, classic looks and extensive modifications, all the R nineT electronics are retained. Norén and Roth spend a lot of time working with modern Harleys, so they are comfortable negotiating their way around ECUs and wiring looms.

‘Stockholm Syndrome’ was entered into the Custom Class of the Norrtälje show, which meant it had to be ridden to the event. “We had 96 km of tiny country roads to ride, and there were no incidents at all,” the UCC boys report. “The Custom Class is one of the biggest classes, so we were up against 45 to 50 bikes—mostly Harleys. We didn’t think we had a chance because of the Harley domination in that class, and some of the experienced Harley builders were judges. That’s how it works at this show, and we thought the judges would not see what we’d put into this build.”

UCC did not take the outright trophy, but came in second. Which for a modern-style café racer in a sea of choppers, is a win all the same. And the build got a tick from Ola Stenegärd too. “Very clean, very Swedish somehow. Beautiful proportions with a lot of trick trademark UCC details and technical solutions. The wheel combo and overall stance is one of the best I have seen.”

“At the show, we had nothing but positive reactions,” says UCC’s Ronna Norén. “The one comment we heard most was ‘I can imagine having one of these’.”

We could imagine that too.

Images © Jenny Jurnelius. Head over to the UCC website or Facebook page to keep track of new builds from Ronna Norén and Gordon Roth.

via BIKEexif

Rally Poland: Une envie de pierogi / a yearning for pierogi

Au nord de la Pologne, Mikolajki et la région des Grand Lacs de Mazurie accueillent le Rally Poland, qui réintègre le Championnat du monde des Rallyes WRC après cinq d’absence, en remplacement du mythique Rallye de l’Acropole.

Une fois n’est pas coutume, je tenais à parler de mon attachement pour ce pays, la Pologne, que je découvre enfin à 40 ans passés. A l’entre-deux-guerres, mon arrière-grand-mère Senia, son mari et leurs deux filles avaient quitté Cracovie, à pied, en quête d’une vie meilleure, une vie de mineur, à l’Ouest.

Le charbon français l’a rendue veuve, mais elle n’a jamais voulu quitter cette cité minière devenue glauque après la fermeture de la mine. A 90 ans, Senia était encore une femme joyeuse et pétillante, qui nous parlait de la Pologne en préparant despierogi. Sa fille, Marie, a aujourd’hui le même âge et les ravioles polonaises régalent encore toute la famille…

Après Varsovie, la route 61 traverse un pays sans relief, de cultures, d’élevage et de forêts. Les villages, au nom que seule Senia aurait pu prononcer, se succèdent au fil de cette route monotone qui mène à la Mazurie, au nord de la Pologne, la région des Grands Lacs.

A 250 kilomètres de la capitale, c’est la destination-nature des varsoviens, amateurs de pêche, de voile, de randonnées, de cueillette…. Ici, quelque 60 lacs sont reliés entre eux par des rivières et canaux. Mikolajki se situe sur l’un de ces bras reliant le lac Talty au lac Sniardwy, le plus grand, 113 km².

Avec son port de plaisance et ses innombrables campings, hôtels et luxueux resorts, Mikolajki est un village de vacances. Le parc d’assistance et le HQ du Rally Poland se trouvent à un kilomètre du centre-ville, dans un immense complexe hôtelier de près de 700 chambres comprenant un parc aquatique, un centre équestre, un casino, une patinoire et son propre port de plaisance !

Malgré la pluie et les 12°C, il flotte donc comme un parfum de vacances sur ce rallye…

This week’s Rally Poland takes teams to Mikolajki and the Masurian Lake District in the north of the country. After a five-year absence from the world championship, it has replaced Greece’s Acropolis Rally on the 2014 calendar.

I have a strong family link with Poland which I am visiting for the first time this week as a 40-something-year old. Between the two World Wars, my great grandmother Senia, her husband and their daughters left Krakow, by foot, in a bid to find a better life – that of a miner – in the west.

French coal made her a widow but she never wanted to leave the now gloomy mining town that became her new home. At the age of 90, she was still as perky as ever and her eyes always lit up whenever she talked about Poland while making pierogi. Today, her daughter Marie has the same age and the delicious dumplings she continues to make remain a family favourite.

Highway 61 heads north out of Warsaw across an expanse of flat land given over to farms and forests. The villages have names that only Senia could have pronounced and follow on from each other with monotonous regularity along this road which eventually leads to Masuria and the region’s famous lake district, around 250km from the capital.

It is a favoured spot for fans of fishing, sailing and hiking and boasts some 60 lakes which are linked by rivers and canals. Mikolajki sits on one of these waterways which runs from Lake Talty to the biggest of them all, Lake Sniardwy (113 square kilometres).

Mikolajki is a booming tourist attraction with a harbour and countless campsites, hotels and luxury holiday resorts. Rally Poland’s service park and HQ are located about a kilometre from the centre in a huge hotel complex which boasts almost 700 rooms, a water theme park, riding stables, a casino, a skating rink and its own harbour!

It’s raining and the temperature is just 12°C, but there’s a distinct holiday air about this rally.

Goodwood Festival: Alister McRae to drive official Toyota Hilux at Goodwood

Former British rally champion Alister McRae will drive an official Toyota Imperial Rally Team Hilux with support from Overdrive Racing at the "Goodwood Festival of Speed" on June 26-29.

The Scot, who now lives in Australia, will drive one of the South African-built cars on the Goodwood Rally Stage, where he lines up alongside a glittering entry of rallying legends from the present and yesteryear to drive a wide range of legendary and modern rallying machinery.

Alister, 44, is the son of five-time British rally champion Jimmy McRae and the brother of the late 1995 WRC champion Colin McRae. After cutting his rallying teeth in Scottish club and national events, he went on to become an integral part of the British rallying scene and won the BRC title in 1995 with a Nissan Sunny.

His WRC debut came at the 1992 RAC Rally and he went on to represent the Subaru, Hyundai and Mitsubishi works teams at the highest level on 78 occasions, winning five special stages. Alister has recently competed in the FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship with the Proton team and has also had a couple of forays into the gruelling Dakar Rally.

"Alister has been working at the top level of rallying since the early 1990s and we are delighted that he will be driving one of our Toyotas at Goodwood," said Overdrive team director Jean-Marc Fortin. "The Toyota Hilux has become a potent force in the FIA World Cup this season and we have already notched up three outright victories in Russia, Italy and Egypt.

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