CAFÉ RACER 76

Superior status: The new Brough gets going

Now ready to enter its production phase, the reborn Brough Superior SS100 is currently being displayed at the EICMA in Milan…

Back in January, we reported that the long-defunct Brough Superior SS100 was to be revived with a modern twist, thanks to new company custodian Mark Upham. The latest news from the company’s Austrian headquarters is that the production version is ready, and is currently being displayed at the EICMA showcase in Milan ahead of the start of production at its newly built factory in Toulouse.

Three’s company

Limited to 300 examples – 242 of which were already spoken for as of January 2014 – the 90^thanniversary tribute bike is a ground-up redesign based around a new titanium MK2 chassis, which supposedly incorporates ‘recent technological advances in the aircraft industry’. The 2015 SS100 will cost €49,999 and is available in three finishes: Traditional, Full Black and Titanium. Further information can be found at broughsuperiormotorcycles.com.

Photos: Brough Superior Motorcycles

PLAYING HOOKIE: NICO MUELLER’S KILLER CB750

A dark, low-slung Honda CB750 customized by Hookie Co of Germany.

It takes more than a run-of-the-mill Honda CB750 to get our attention these days, but this low-slung speziall from Germany is very special indeed. The stance is spot on, the lines flow with purpose, and the finish is stark and beautiful.

It’s the sixth build from Dresden-based Hookie Co., the workshop run by 26-year-old designer Nico Mueller. Nico is not the most prolific of builders—he averages one bike a year—but he’d rather do it right than do it fast.

He didn’t hang around when he saw this CB750 donor bike, though. It’s the sturdy DOHC KZ model that pushes out a solid 77 hp—largely thanks to a rack of Keihin carbs, one feeding each cylinder.

“The CB was in great condition, so we didn’t hesitate for a minute,” Nico says. Then ideas started to form. “We envisioned it being long, flat and aggressive. We took the classic creative approach, and started to draw moodboards.”

After several mockups to get the proportions of Hookie #6 just right, Nico and crew took the CB750 apart. They detabbed and cleaned up the frame, positioning the mockups and taking measurements. The frame was treated to a coat of gloss black paint—along with the motor, the wheels and smaller pieces of hardware.

Other parts were brushed, cleaned and reworked rather than painted. “To avoid losing the character of the bike, we mostly use original parts,” says Nico. “Only the handlebars, the light brackets and shock absorbers are completely new.”

The forks have been overhauled and lowered by seven centimeters. The exhaust headers look stock, but are tucked closer to the engine; they now terminate as a 4-into-1 unit fitted with a Harley-Davidson muffler. The tires are beefy Firestone Champion Deluxes, 4.00-19 at the front and 4.50-18 at the back.

The KZ model tank, which often looks so awkward with the droop at the rear, now looks just perfect—helped by the polished steel finish and the diagonal paint stripe.

The seat cowl is hand-made from two-millimeter steel, and it required three attempts before Nico was happy with the result. “Without having an English wheel to help form the curves, it took a lot of time and sweat.”

Flushed into the back is an unobtrusive LED stripe acting as a stoplight. Even less obvious is the full array of Motogadget kit—including an m-Unit V.2 to replace the fuse box, m-Switch pushbutton controls, and m-Blaze bar end turn signals. There’s an RFID ignition lock too.

Co-conspirator Johann Ruttloff made the seat using brown leather and black 14oz denim, giving it three layers of waxing for weather resistance. At the back of the seat is a little box to store a phone or mini-tools.

The headlight cap is also crafted from leather and denim, and inspired by vintage Zündapps and military BMWs.

It’s a textbook example of a modern-day Honda CB750 custom. And, funnily enough, there soon will be a book that documents the build.

Keep an eye out for it in the Hookie Co. webshop from next month.

Hookie Co. website | Facebook | Instagram | Photos by Felix Meyer.

via BIKEexif

The Royal Enfield Scrambler

We are always excited when we hear from a new custom shop because it signifies growth for the motorcycle culture we are passionate about. Having only recently returned from a month long trip in India and seeing motorcycles everywhere, I am not at all surprised to see more and more custom shops popping up.

With 1 in 25 Indians on 2 wheels there is plenty of stock in need of customization or restoration! Without further ado let me introduce you to Bull City Customs and their custom Royal Enfield Scrambler.

“Hi this is Reginald Hilt from New Delhi India. I am a fashion designer by profession and I run a buying agency for the Japanese market. I would consider myself a new kid on the block, as this is only the second legit build I’ve completed.

Motorcycles have always been a force in my family. When I was a kid I would see my dad every weekend cleaning a filter or tuning a carb on his bike. At that time I wasn’t really into the motorcycle culture.

I’ve seen bikes like Rd 350, Yezdi, Yamaha RX 100, Rajdoot, Suzuki 125 roll in and out of our place every 6 to 7 months depending on how long it took my dad to get over these bikes and crave his next indulgence. It wasn’t until after I was done with college and I started working that I really got hooked on this culture and now I feel it is my life. I started modifying bikes in 2011 and there was no looking back. We are called Bull City Customs. We believe in unity of like-minded people who follow the same passion – creating something unique!

My wife Naavika, who is also a designer, has designed a range of graphic tees for bikers and also handles the marketing of the biker merchandise we plan to introduce in about a month or so. A friend Henry, who we met at one of our bike build meets, now helps us out with logo designing, branding, 3d sketches etc.

This is a 350 cc Royal Enfield Machismo 2003 AVL Engine 5 speed. The bike went through a complete over haul. Outside a garage I used to visit for my bike work it used to be tied with chains to a lamppost on the ground with a bent chassis and a broken front suspension.

I built this bike for my wife as she was always complaining she couldn’t sit with me on my bike because I had turned my bike into a single seated Bobber. About 4 months ago I picked up this bike and decided to build a Scrambler. Firstly I sketched a few options. After the design bit was over, it didn’t take me much time to work on the modifications as I knew the scrambler would suit her profile and I felt the Royal Enfield had the perfect frame work for it as well .

The most recent of Bull City’s two-wheel custom work, manages to transform one of the world’s most popular motorcycles into a custom dream machine worthy of any garage. The Royal Enfield has been toyed and tampered many times before. It’s an old favorite to work with; being one of India’s biggest selling motorcycles for over three decades. So you’d think that the platform might just have been exhausted. If so we have pushed the boundaries to create a classic thumper with a streamlined, modern edge.

The challenge we faced was achieving that comfortable scrambler posture of the chassis of a Royal Enfield. It was a good decision to use that filler above the tool box to achieve that horizontal position in line with the bottom line lines of the fuel tank.

We love the way the tool box looks now with the mesh work, making it look really light and cool. Our favorite though is the way the tank turned out to be really boxy whilst still maintaining the consistency of the lines from the T at the front to the seat at the back.

The grips on the bars also turned out to be really cool, I managed to get a pair of old grips and blend them with these brass weight’s at the end of the grips to match the clutch lever and the brake lever.

The paint job is fairly simple the tank, tool box and the head light is a wine brown matt finish and the black you see on the engine, wheels, handle bar and the mesh on the tool boxes are powder coated.

We would term this build to be a Street Scrambler. We have taken this bike out to the foothills of the Himalaya’s recently and it handles pretty awesome.

We at Bull City feel there is tremendous scope with customization in India and are currently working on 4 other projects that we hope to be completing in a few months.”

Royal Enfield Scrambler build Spec:[one_fourth last="no"]
Fuel Tank:
Risers:
Handle Bars:
Grips:
Leavers:
Head Light:
Custom Front Wheel:
Custom Rear Wheel:
Custom Fenders:
Battery & Toolbox:
Forks:
Seat:
Rear Shock:
Carburettor:
Air Filter:

like them on –
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[two_third last="no"]
22 Litre Custom built Fuel Tank
Custom built T with Risers
Pro racer Handle Bars
Brass Customized Grips
Brass Customized Break & Clutch Leavers
Aluminium Old School Fog Lamp Head Light
Dunlop 120 mm \18 Inch\80 mm Wall
Honda CBZ with Dunlop Monster Tyres 130 mm \ 18 Inch \80mm Wall
Sheet metal Front & Back Tyre Hugging Fenders
Sheet metal Battery and Tool Box
Single Seat with Springer’s
Telescopic35 mm Forks 130 mm Travel
Rear Gas Shock absorbers 80 mm Travel
32 Mm Mikuni Carburetor – 140 Main Jet \ 25 Pilot Jet
K&N Air Filter

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Tracing Icelandic roads between glaciers and volcanoes

Rumbling volcanoes, hissing geysers, yellow-white sulphur vapour between black rocks – there are few stranger places on Earth than Iceland. Photographer Stefan Bogner has toured Iceland’s roads with his camera…

It is amazing that in this primeval world there are any people at all. And even more absurd is the fact that they have actually built a road through this land of hostile glaciers and volcanoes. Route 1, or the Ring Road (Hringvegur in Icelandic) is 1336km long and was completed in 1976. Most of the road is paved, seeming rather like a river of cool lava that winds over a barren landscape of lichen- and moss-covered mountains. But the Icelandic people themselves don't seem entirely to trust their road network: on the way from the airport to Reykjavik, you see monster-sized off-roaders with studded, chest-high tyres and blinding searchlights on the roof, crawling like prehistoric creatures through the wasteland. On the gravel roads in the uplands, they are the only means of transport. However, off-road driving is forbidden: officially because of the risk of erosion, but we suspect it’s also because high-spirited elves and trolls make mischief here.

Buy the book, book the flight

For his new book Epic, published by Delius Klasing, Munich-based photographer Stefan Bogner – best known for his magazine Curves – tracks the Icelandic roads. The result is a series of photographs that are refreshingly different from the countless coffee-table travel books on Iceland, because here the roads aren’t hidden but instead become the focus of attention. Browse the images and you can easily imagine how the photographer climbed out of his car, pulled his hat down to protect his ears from the icy wind, positioned himself in the middle of the road and clicked the shutter. The images under the lead-heavy Nordic sky are so powerful that many who buy this book will surely book a flight to Reykjavik.