The Typhoon

The Imperial Collection is restricted by one rule ‘design without compromise’. The bike is developed organically as the build progresses without a predetermined layout or time scale. The result is beyond limits, without compare, just pure motorcycle.

This is the very first of our Imperial collection The Typhoon.

The Typhoon from Old Empire Motorcycles on Vimeo.

Transumanza - offroad BMW F800GS across Italy

ANTONIO’S DR650 TRACKER

António is a graphic designer & communication design teacher from Faro, on the south coast of Portugal, which should mean he knows a thing or two about how to make inanimate objects look good and proper. As a result he has combined his love of motorcycles and bicycles with a new venture, The Bike Type, which he hopes will encourage two wheeled mobility in Faro.

This Suzuki DR650 tracker is António’s first motorcycle build, and his toe is now firmly in motorised waters.

The oh so familiar story, a perfectly usable motorcycle left to oxidise in a dusty corner of someones garage. A cousin in Porto turned out to have such a bounty lurking and didn’t need too much fiscal persuasion to part with it. António always dreamed of building a café racer but the DR is fairly lofty steed and dictated the route towards a tracker. With a design mapped out a search for parts could begin.

Plastic might be a revolutionary material but it rarely justifies a place on a shed-built motorcycle. Despite gaping gaps left behind, mass produced plakky panels and body work are perhaps the easiest part of a bike to remove in a quest to add a personalised touch to a build. So, António removed all the extraneous parts and stripped the bike to the frame, causing chaos in his workshop. We’ve all been there, planning and method replaced by enthusiasm and a complete haystack of redundant, mass produced crap.

Once the frame was free from clutter and blessed with a fresh coat of paint reassembly could begin. A Suzuki GT250 fuel tank was sourced from a breakers and united with some fresh paint, and the all important logo. Another breakers yard yielded the muffler, it’s from a Honda but answers on a postcard as to which one.

Luckily craftsman are still plentiful in Faro so António fabricated a seat base and took it to a local outfit to be upholstered. It’s good to see comfort finally making a more frequent appearance on the subframes of customs in recent months.

A mini speedo and similarly diminutive indicators ensure some legal requirements are met whilst a generic chrome lamp differentiates the front end from the DR’s original angular unit.

The forks were refreshed with new oil and seals, gaitors suggesting a degree of off road desire, even if the trimmed down front mudguard hints otherwise.

Tarmac biased rubber is a rare feature on street trackers these days but I’m sure António has a blast drifting the tail out on Faro’s cobbled thoroughfares.

If you want to see more photos from the build process click here otherwise António’s Facebook page is a resource for Faro residents to get together and talk bikes, maybe over a few bottles of Sagres.

via The Bike Shed

BACKYARD BUILD: DAVE LEHL’S HONDA CB550

We get quite a few emails from readers asking why we focus so much on pro customs, and not backyard builds from talented amateurs. It’s partly because pro builders push the envelope more often, but it’s also because it’s much harder for amateurs to hit the sweet spot—which is a well-crafted build and fantastic photography.

This Honda CB550 from Colorado-based Dave Lehl ticks both boxes. It helps that Dave is a photographer by trade, but he’s also got unusually good taste—knowing what to change, and what to leave alone.

Dave is a true shed builder: a self-taught mechanic who built the CB550 by trial and error. “I have what I call ‘creative ADD,’” he admits. “If I don’t have at least one fabrication project going on in my life, I go crazy. I’ve built bicycles, flipped condos and done home remodels—and I was dying to try my hand at building a bike. “

At that point, Dave’s father discreetly stepped in. He hit the pavement in his hometown of Pueblo, looking for a 70s street bike that had seen better days. And when he came across a 1978 non-running Honda CB550, he snatched it up for $500 a week before Christmas.

“On Christmas morning he gave it to me under a red tarp in the garage,” says Dave. “And by noon I had the fairing, windshield, racks and air box off.”

Since this was Dave’s first bike, he was cautious about what to cut off or modify. But over the next two years he tore it down and removed all the unnecessary tabs and the center kickstand, and ground down and recreated the worst of the factory welds.

“I also took the exhaust off and sold it to a guy in England for $400,” says Dave, “which knocked the total investment down to $100. I then got rid of the 19″ front wheel and laced an 18″ rim to the hub to balance the bike out.”

Dave then made a new seat pan, which hides a recessed battery box. There are few wires to be seen, and that’s how it likes it. But it’s the ultra-slim taillight that attracts the most questions. It’s tucked under the new seat unit, and above the rear fender, which is a modified wheel cover from a 1931 Ford Model A.

The rest of the CB550 is a classic home build: Dave did everything except for the paint, upholstering and wiring. To finish it off, he’s fitted clip-on bars, new shocks, new levers and new cables. And despite the shoestring budget, it looks just great.

Dave’s now been bitten by the bug, and next on his list is a 1979 Kawasaki KZ650. “This one should take a few months rather than years, though,” he says.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for it.

Dave Lehl website | Facebook | Instagram

via BIKEexif