MOTORIEEP R100R

Wayne Rainey won his third straight GP championship, Shakespeare’s Sister outstayed their welcome in the pop charts and BMW continued to sprinkle nostalgic glitter on their now tired R100. You guessed it, 1992, remember like yesterday don’t you. Well, it was so long ago that Marc Marquez was merely a twitch in his father’s under crackers when this bike rolled off the Bavarian production line.

It would have had the latest Japanese forks and eight pots gripping floating discs, how very modern. Maybe then, but this is now and frankly most of us are now used to proper stoppers, fat rubber and forks that don’t flex like Sergey Bubka’s pole. Thankfully custom builders are addressing this issue and fitting uprated front ends as a matter of course. Pierre from Motorieep in Paris is one such customiser adding phwooar to bikes that are otherwise overlooked, this R100 might be a mainstay among these pages but some of his previous builds utilise the more ugly of duckling donors.

The ’92 R100R donor used here was given a complete overhaul before the resurrection could begin. First to hit the recycling bin were the forks and brakes, replaced by beefy Showa RWU units with trick uprated internals. 300mm floating discs and Tokiko calipers force the chunky Dunlop Mutant into the Tarmac.

Wide LSL bars coerce the R100 into submission while switchgear and levers from a Yamaha R6 are a more svelte option than the stock clunkers. A Daytona speedo maintains simplicity and a Harley-Davidson headlamp lights the way.

With the wider clamps came the option of fatter wheels so a 17 x 3.5″ Excel rim runs up front and a 17 x 4.25″ in the rear, hence the possibility of fitting sticky supermoto Mutants. (Dear Mr Dunlop, please make other sizes, immediately).

The Paralever setup lends itself to minimal styling and this solo seat appears to levitate over the rear end and a minimal custom subframe. Pierre’s friend Stéphane from La Sellerie Cognacaise took care of the upholstery, adding Alcantara inserts to grip one’s trouser during bouts of exuberance.

The 998cc boxer engine was in fine fettle and needed only a through inspection and service before being recommissioned. The sluggish Bing carbs have been replaced by a brace of 40mm Dellortos and BMC pod filters. The stainless exhaust is Pierre’s handiwork, snaking around to one side before crossing back again courtesy of a SBK spec carbon end can. This has the makings of a fruity sounding combination. Just in shot here is the stock airbox which now contains a lithium battery by French company Solise, alongside part of the brand new wiring loom. The rest is neatly hidden away under the Beemer’s cavernous fuel tank.

As you can imagine we are sent dozens of BMWs every week and despite trends morphing all the time there seems no end to the boxer’s appeal. One thing that makes Pierre’s bikes jump out of our inbox is the physical balance he achieves. That lardy engine is now matched by wide tyres, chunky forks and a tidy rear; all adding to that “I want a go on that one” factor.

If you speak foreign or don’t mind buying a mag just for the photos, grab a copy of Café Racer Magazine, the next issue features the Motorieep Voxan Scrambler, if that doesn’t induce man noises then perhaps you’ve arrived at the wrong website.

via The Bike Shed

KITCHEN MOTO CUSTOM NOX DOMINAE

The huge volume of social media and web content available to us at all hours of the day means that the decision as to whether a bike is liked, loved or loathed can be knee-jerk and totally image based. OK, so a lot of this content is our fault but one thing we try to uncover is the newcomer. Whether young or old, seasoned rider or newbie straight from the test centre, what makes our day is to hear a story of someone overcoming some form of adversity in the mission to incorporate creativity into their motorcycling life.

Justin Tuskey is a 26 year old chef, originally form upstate New York and now tantilising palettes in Savannah, Georgia. His dad is an ex-professional motocross racer so Justin caught the bug early but it’s taken until the last few of years for him to fully embrace two wheels.

Rewind two years and buddy Brandon had bought a basket case of a CB360 and started the laborious resurrection, Justin didn’t even own a spanner at the time let alone a tool box, yet became totally transfixed by the process. He immediately went out and bought some basic tools, a load of degreaser and a non-running 1971 CB750. What he couldn’t find on the shelf was the 5 gallon drum of experience and knowledge required to get the bike going, so utilised his practicality with the assistance of online forums. 8 months later and the CB was running sweet and Justin had begun to scratch the custom itch.

Fast forward in time and Justin’s tinkering looked to be in jeopardy as he moved to a house that didn’t have a garage, a persistent problem for many of us. And this is what distinguishes Justin from the many, he used the house as a garage. The kitchen, dining room and living room became the workshop, now full of work tables, vices, a polishing station, electrical work bench, drill press, tool boxes, spare parts, shelves and new parts. There are 5 bikes out back, under the roof overhang and another 5 in the spare bedroom (some jerk in the past had converted a perfectly good garage into a bedroom, what’s with people!)

Justin sounds like our sort of guy “Work with what you have inside your means. Don’t make excuses, make bikes instead.”

This bike,  Nox Dominae is Justin’s first café/restomod, the name loosely translates from Latin to “lady of the night” which turned out to be quite apt, “I spent many hours burning the midnight oil in preparations for this mistress to see the road. I picked up the bike from a buddy in North Carolina for a really good price, running  and with a title. It looked decrepit. Someone before my buddy tried to make a café racer out of it but failed pretty miserably and then left it outside for a few years. It ran really well though surprisingly.”

Justin’s buddy Omar Portigliatti, and Italian jeweller, proved pivotal in with this build and together they went from contemplating a quick paint, service and sell-on to the more in depth project seen here. The low mileage motor was good and tight  so a soda blasting and re-paint saw it ready to go again, with the addition of a trick, transparent points cover. Whilst dealing the mechanicals all bearings, seals and perishable parts were replaced.

Owners of CB750s will be fully versed in the trials and tribulations of tuning these engines to run properly with pod filters, they work better with the original airbox, period. Justin left this in place and utilised the side panels to shroud a custom battery box and tool roll holder. Practicality and custom bikes, surely not. The cleaned carbs provide the perfect mixture to the engine, jetted correctly for the Cycle-X 4-2-1 race exhaust, which according to the guys sounds fantastic.

The engine might have been in fine fettle but wiring in the 1970s wasn’t renowned for being particularly resilient to the elements, nor slimline. Justin started from scratch and made a completely new loom, hiding the guts of it in the tail hump, including an air horn to alert idiot road users, should the race exhaust’s decibels not be enough. A modern bucket houses the Truck-lite LED headlamp and the cockpit has been relieved of the clunky ignition. A dedicated ignition circuit utilises an LED idiot light in the headlamp bucket and starter button recessed into the headstock nut, for a completely keyless set up. It took Justin a while to figure out how best to incorporate this without blowing fuses, but it’s turned out to be one of the most rewarding parts of the build.

Car nuts among you might have recognised the paint colour, yup, that famous Shelby GT500 ‘Eleanor’ or Pepper Grey Metallic as it’s called on the can. The spray booth was of course one of the corners of Justin’s house and from here the finish looks pretty good. To give the more mundane components an individual touch Omar spent hours engraving intricate patterns into usually overlooked parts.

There’s a stack more other work carried out but in this case the grit and determination of the builder is what we wanted to shine through. Justin says “I am pleased with the end result. The bike is an absolute monster. The clubmans sit low, and as you ride you can really feel the road as it zooms by. The sound is incredible with the 4-2-1 exhaust, and it inspires near redline shifting. It gets plenty of looks everywhere it goes, and someone asked me what model Honda it was because they didn’t see it at the dealership. I told them it was from 1978 and their jaw just about dropped. Sorry pal, can’t buy it. Gotta build one.

Justin has not only proved that you don’t need a mega-workshop in order to build a stunning bike, but also given us an idea for a t-shirt design. “Don’t make excuses, make bikes instead”.

via The Bike Shed

Snapshot, 1953: The mad scientist of Goodwood

We’re wondering what magic potion this chap is cooking up, beside the track at Goodwood in 1953…

The potion will give racing drivers a super-power of sorts; in the test tube is high-octane petrol, the hot topic of the Picture Post reporter’s research into new fuels. Following scientific breakthroughs in the 1930s and 1940s, higher octane fuels were introduced to raise the compression rates of aircraft engines, thus improving their performance. Following World War II, such research went into improving the performance of racing cars, instead – today, even super-unleaded fuel for road cars is typically 95 or 98 RON. 

Photo: Ronald Startup/Picture Post/Getty Images

Classic Driver’s extensive coverage of the Goodwood Revival 2015 is kindly supported by our friends at Credit Suisse. You can find an overview of all Revival 2015 articles here.  

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