Image Courtesy Cor Dees Laverda Museum

As I’ve said on Silodrome before, if you want a quick ticket into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame (in the hearts and minds of motorcycle aficionados, anyway) you must build a six-cylinder machine. Nothing is quite as technologically impressive and magnificently superfluous as stuffing far more cylinders than are necessary to do the job into a contraption that is far too small to properly accommodate them. You can easily attain the power you need with a far simpler and lighter four. But fours have become so boring, so conventional, and hardly meriting of the breathless praise of us enthusiasts/bloggers.

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After fawning over multi-cylindered complexities for the last few months, I think it’s time to take a step back and return to the basics – one big piston, a sporty chassis, and no extraneous nonsense to dull the fun. Big four-stroke singles were once the mainstay of racing and road riding the world over, with road-burning thumpers from Great Britain defining the genre and dominating the poles on track, off road, and on the street. But by the 1960s more powerful twins were taking over and stealing the public’s attention away from these simple but versatile singles. The demand for more power and more speed overshadowed the once mighty thumpers, which increasingly became relegated to off-road categories where their simplicity, light weight and ample torque were an asset.

There always remained a small but loyal contingent of enthusiasts who desired a classic sporting single, a simple, nimble and punchy machine that could dice with the best in the twisties without the complexity and superfluous doohickery of the be-cylindered tire vaporizers that dominate the spec sheets and the sales charts. They longed for a bike that harkened back to the good old days of sporting motorcycles, when it was you, the road, and one big piston slinging you down the road. But these folks didn’t want something that appealed to the typical rose-tinted nostalgia. They wanted something modern, something fast, and something that wasn’t a throwback.

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They wanted a supermono: a rare category of sport bike that has all but died out today, but was in its prime (such as it was) in the 1990s. You had a surprising number of options if you wanted a big, 500cc-plus single cylinder sporting bike in the mid 90s, not to mention the Super Mono and Sound of Singles race categories to support the competition side. The Yamaha SRX and SZR, KTM Duke, and BMW F650 had you covered for roadsters, and if you wanted something more exotic you could pick up a Bimota BB1. If you were a pretentious fashionista, you’d have an Aprilia Starck 6.5. If you were suitably heeled and wanted to dominate the racetrack, not to mention make your paddock mates jealous, there was the Ducati Supermono. That's not mentioning the retro-styled Honda GB, or the rare Gilera Saturno Bialbero.

Considering the dearth of options today, you had quite a few options for fun singles from mainstream marques during this one-lung renaissance.

But this is OddBike. We don’t do mainstream. So for our example of the extinct supermono species I present the Barigo Onixa 600, the sole French entry into the category and one of the finest examples of the breed.

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Barigo was the creation of French off-road specialist Patrick Barigault (which is pronounced, as you might guess, Barry-go). Barigault got his start in the 1976 with a prototype frame built for a friend's Bultaco 250, followed by a series of off-road frames built around Honda and Yamaha engines, which the company history notes were to replace the "crack-prone English frames" popular with competitors at the time. The first production model, powered by a four-stroke Honda XL 500 motor, was introduced in 1979 and dubbed the 500 HB. Pretty soon Barigo earned a reputation for excellent off-roaders and enduros, usually built around big four-stroke Japanese singles. Competition success proved the mettle of the La Rochelle-built machines, with a win at the 1981 Tunisia Rally (noted as a "Yamaha" but in fact an XT500-engined Barigo), 3rd in the 1982 Paris-Dakar, and 11th and 12th place in 1983 'Dakar.

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By the mid-80s Barigo was well established in off-road competition. From 1984 onward the company used Rotax 500 and 600cc singles, with the odd experiment with other engines, including a Ducati-engined enduro called the F1 Desert that beat the Cagiva Elephant to the punch by a year. But there was something new on the horizon. In 1986 they were ready to branch out into the relatively new "Supermoto" category. Supermoto got its start in 1979 as a sort of mixed-skills category where riders had to alternate between dirt and tarmac sections on the same closed course. Oddly enough it started as a segment on ABC's Wide World of Sports called "Superbikers" where racers from three distinct disciplines - flat track, motocross, and road racing - would compete on a course that combined elements of all three categories. The original series was hosted in the USA until 1985, but continued in Europe where it evolved into the sport we know today.

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Supermoto machines are generally converted single-cylinder motocrossers. Slap on some asphalt-appropriate wheels and tires, firm up the suspension, upgrade the brakes - bam: supermoto machine. Factory offerings didn't really hit the market until the 1990s, only really coming into vogue in the 2000s after the sport was reintroduced in the US following its European education. Before then most competition machines were converted by riders or specialists. That is, with one notable exception: Barigo introduced the first factory supermoto machine, powered by a 558cc air-cooled four-stroke Rotax mill, at the 1986 Paris motorcycle salon. Dubbed the Magie Noire ("Black Magic"), it proved to be a machine well ahead of its time. The chassis and bodywork looked like a modern dirtbike, but the running gear was aimed at the asphalt, featuring three-spoke composite alloy wheels with tubeless tires. Dry weight was 265 pounds, with up to 55 hp on tap via an optional factory hop-up kit. To avoid confusion (or copyright issues, depending on who you ask) with a Lancome perfume of the same name the bike was re-christened the Tanagra. Despite good press and a fair share of interest it was only produced in extremely limited numbers, supposedly less than 10 examples. It should be noted Barigo was always a tiny manufacturer, having no more than a dozen employees at any given time - mass produced they were not.

In 1992 Barigo introduced the SM 600, which continued the formula laid out by the Magie Noire/Tanagra but with the added bonus of being produced in quantities that exceeded a single digit. By this time Gilera had built the first mass-produced supermoto in the form of the 1991 Nordwest, but aside from the thumper from Arcore the SM really had no peers. It also bested the Nordwest in power with a claimed 61hp from a liquid-cooled 599cc Rotax engine, and was lighter than the Italian at 290 lbs dry. Journalists sung praise for the well-sorted chassis and flickable nature of the SM (in spite of its long 60 inch wheelbase) and instant punch of the Rotax engine, which made equivalent singles from the Japanese seem lazy in comparison. Not much of a surprise given that most 500-600cc singles were (and still are) big enduros and trail bikes, not flyweight road carvers that inspire hooligan tendencies.

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With a stout alloy frame, nimble handling and a punchy motor, it wasn't much of a stretch to imagine the SM as a good base for a single-cylinder sportbike. That was the genesis of the Onixa 600 - take the SM 600, bolt on some lower road-oriented suspension bits, wrap it in a full fairing - bam: instant supermono. The result was much more than a simple tweak of an existing model, and performed better than the sum of its parts - the Onixa ended up being one of the best road going supermonos that never was.

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The Onixa was unveiled in prototype form at the 1993 Paris Salon and garnered a fair share of attention. The SM 600 frame was unchanged, but the running gear was more road oriented. The swingarm was shortened more than an inch. Wheelbase was now around 56 inches. Suspension was as you'd expect from a sporty European middleweight  - 40mm inverted WP forks at the front and a WP monoshock at the back. The rear used a straight-rate mount, unlike most modern sporting bikes that have a rising-rate linkage to give more progressive springing. Wheels were 17 inch composite items in magnesium from Technomagnesio. Up front was a single 310mm disc gripped by a comically oversized Beringer 6-piston caliper. A then-fashionable stacked "shotgun" exhaust added some visual weight to the left side. Everything was wrapped bulbous black bodywork. A large solo-seat tailsection hid the dirtbike-style subframe and underseat fuel tank. Oh, and it appeared to be hunchbacked due to a massive hump-shaped dummy fuel tank that was nearly as tall the windscreen.

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The, um, unusual proportions weren't for purely aesthetic reasons (thankfully) - there was a pragmatic reason for the butt-ugly gas tank. You see the SM shared one characteristic common to most dirtbikes - a tiny fuel tank. Fuel range was in the double-digits. Fine for an uncompromising hooligan mount but not ideal for a road-oriented sport bike that might be called upon to ride farther than the corner store. So Barigo extended the cell up from under the seat into the traditional location above the motor. One problem: the twin-spar frame was extremely tall and arched over the top of the engine's already high cylinder head, which meant that the new fuel tank had to be stuck way up into the rider's face. They also saw fit to throw a dummy cover over the assembly with a pair of vacuum-cleaner - erm, "ram air" - intake ducts funneling air from above the headlamps down to the airbox. It created an ungainly looking creature that appeared as tall as it was long, like the ungodly lovechild of a mutated flatfish and a RC30.

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Even if it wasn't exactly pretty, the concept seemed sound and the project went ahead. In 1994 a bright-red pre-production model was made available for flogging at the hands of journalists 'round the Bordeaux Merignac race track. The magnesium composite wheels were replaced with Marvic aluminum items, the swingarm had some added bracing, and a few detail changes distinguished the red machine from the black prototype show in Paris, but aside from that the machine was more or less as promised - a full bodied large-bore supermono with a highly tuned Rotax heart. The WP suspension and Beringer brake remained, while the chassis benefited from an adjustable rake that could be varied between 24 and 28 degrees.

The engine was a liquid-cooled 97x81mm 599cc double-cam mill with a four-valve head, the same engine that was used in the SM, counterbalanced to mitigate the usual big-single vibrations. Claimed power was 61hp at 8000 rpm and 42 lb/ft at 6000. Like all Rotax singles of the era the transmission was a five-speed. Ignition came via three spark plugs, induction through two 36mm Dell'Orto carburettors.

Why three plugs? Spend any time researching four-stroke tuning and you'll learn that one of the most important elements of performance (that is consistently overlooked) is combustion - specifically the propagation of flame fronts through the combustion chamber. Ideal flame propagation comes from turbulent mixture being swirled past the ignition source(s). Multi-plug heads in large combustion chambers (like in, say, a big-ass 600cc single) introduce multiple ignition sources to start multiple flame fronts and better burn the fuel mix. Modern pent-roofed combustion chambers with shallow included valve angles and large squish bands are also important, as they have less volume to ignite and introduce turbulence when the piston compresses the charge into the chamber, squeezing it from the squish zones around the edge into the centre where the spark plug resides. Moving mixture burns and propagates flame better than stagnant mix sitting in large pockets, like you'd get in a old fashioned cylinder head with a wide valve angle and a domed piston. Nowadays multi-plug heads are as much about emissions as they are about ensuring good combustion - the better the burn, the less hydrocarbons that come out the dirty end. Of course everything is a compromise - you can't go sticking a dozen spark plugs into a cylinder head without taking much-needed space away from the valves and squish area, or getting into the way of the intake, exhaust and coolant ports in the heads.

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Back to the Onixa: Testers noted the counterbalanced engine was smoother than expected, if not completely free of buzziness.  Handling was notably good, easy to manoeuvre with good stability, and power very useable as long as you kept it over 3000 rpm to bypass the driveline lash. The single front disc might not have looked like much, but the huge six-piston Beringer caliper had no trouble stopping the lightweight machine. Really it would have been a shock if it didn't perform well - dry weight was around 320 lbs, and the Onixa benefited from a shorter wheelbase and steeper rake than the SM that spawned it. Top speed was around 125 mph.

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There were a few criticisms leveled against the Onixa. The big one was the odd appearance, which was either described as handsome or horrifying depending on who was writing the review. The tall tank raised the centre of gravity considerably, while intruding into the rider's space - you couldn't tuck in behind the windscreen with the humpback jutting in your face. It gave a new benchmark for the "dog fucking a football" riding position - at-speed shots made it look like a body-coloured airbag was going off in front of the rider's chest. And the five-speed gearbox was pretty old hat for a modern supersport, even if the motor had a broad spread of torque.

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Barigo hoped to build 300 Onixas a year, with more on the horizon if they were able to secure a police contract for a roadster variant dubbed the GT 600. The GT used the same frame and engine as the Onixa/SM, but had fully-faired dual-sport styling, Onixa running gear, and integrated luggage. Completing the lineup was an enduro based on the same platform dubbed the 600 E. This was in addition to the SM 600 that was already in production. Two GT prototypes were build along with one E before the police contract fell through and the project was cancelled. Without enough funding to setup series production the Onixa was shelved after only three machines were built - the black prototype (which was disassembled after the 1993 Salon), the red development tester, and a blue pre-production machine. Rumour had it that the red machine may have had as much as 71 hp due to some factory fettling - was it a specially-prepared ringer passed off as a "pre-production" machine to unsuspecting journalists? Was the tuning done before or after the journalists had their fun? They certainly wouldn't be the first or last manufacturer to tweak a test bike to improve the odds...

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Compared to its peers, the Onixa had the most potential to be the benchmark in the supermono category - styling excepted. Let's examine the competition, with some leeway in dates (some came before, some just after). The BMW F650 was a quasi-offroad roadster dubbed the, ahem, "Funduro" - which in hindsight is probably the most cringeworthy and emasculating name you could christen anything other than a Chinese 50cc scooter. The KTM Duke was more of a refined supermoto than anything else, dubbed a "streetmoto" by MCN. The Yamaha SRX was behind the curve, having been around since the mid-80s and perennially not selling well since it was introduced (remember when I talked about enthusiast specials?). The MuZ (later MZ) Skorpion was a relatively unexciting machine powered by a lazy Yamaha XT motor (shared with the SRX, in fact), and earned a reputation for poor quality over the years. The Ducati Supermono was without peer as a factory single-cylinder sport machine, but it was hideously expensive and reserved for the track - you might as well have been shopping for WSBK-spec race bike if you were considering the Supermono.

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That leaves the Bimota BB1 (BMW-Bimota 1) as the Onixa's principal rival - it had superb handling and top-spec equipment, and it looked like a proper Bimota (which is to say pretty good). Problem was it was expensive, they only built 148, and the motor was shared with the, ugh, "Funduro" but with the added excitement of poor fueling and unconscionable vibration - details are scant but I presume Bimota ditched the counterbalancer that kept the BMW from shaking itself to pieces. The more you look at the competition of the period the more the Onixa looks like a winner. Especially if you consider that at the time most superbikes were big, bad, macho heavyweights that usually clocked in at over 500 lbs, and supersports were easily pushing 450 lbs or more. A 300-odd pound sportster with a useable spread of power and a good chassis would have decimated the big boys on tight roads. Just ask anyone who was fortunate enough to own a 250 two-stroke of that era.

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Alas Barigo was not long for this world after they cancelled the Onixa project. The company attempted to remain afloat by introducing an electric scooter in 1994 dubbed the Barilec, but things were going downhill fast. Between 1995 and 1997 only 40 SMs, 100 Barilecs, and a handful of competition chassis were built-to-order before the company went under. As the 1990s progressed demand for sporty singles waned, multi-cylinder machines became more refined, singles racing became relegated to support events, and demand for proper supermonos was relegated to unrealistic pining from that amorphous group know simply as "enthusiasts" writing on internet forums. The recent 2012 switch from two stroke 125s to 250 four stroke singles in the Moto3 category has renewed a bit of interest in lightweight one-lunged sport bikes but manufacturers, with the possible exception of KTM, have been slow to respond.

Barigo was an innovative company that punched well above its weight in the marketplace, first by producing successful motocrossers, followed by some of the toughest enduros in the world, then introducing the first production supermoto to the market. Unfortunately innovation isn't enough to keep the lights on, and Barigo disappeared despite debasing their brand with cash-grabbing run of electric scooters. The name re-appeared in 2001 on an experimental racing project that was aimed at developing a chassis for a future zero-emissions motorcycle, but despite some success on track (it placed second in the Challenge des Monos category in 2001, and came out of retirement to compete again in 2010) the project has apparently been abandoned. Today Barigo is no more, and the Onixa remains a footnote in the history of modern sport bikes. The Onixa was potentially one of the best single-cylinder sport machines of the era, a tantalizing 'what if' for lovers of single-piston simplicity the world over. What if it had entered production and stomped the competition? What if Barigo hadn't slid into insolvency? What if it hadn't looked like a NR750 run over by a steamroller? Regardless of the speculation, the supermono remained a niche category that appealed to but a small number of riders, a niche that has become virtually non-existent since the mid-1990s.

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Interesting Links
1994 review of the Onixa
French language reviews of the Onixa
French language reviews of the SM 600
French Wikipedia entry on Barigo
Overview of the Barigo story with photos of their motocross and enduro machines
Some photos of various Rotax-engined Barigos
Details of the Magie Noire/Tanagra supermoto

Incredulity, followed by a comment on the size and metallic composition of my testicles. That is usually the immediate reaction I receive when I tell people I use a Ducati 916 for touring duty. I’ve never seen it as that exceptional. Sure, 916s have earned a reputation for being cantankerous and uncomfortable mounts that are certainly ill suited to cross-country adventures. But reputation and reality are two different things.

Actually I’m lying: the reputation is well earned and quite accurate. I’m not a Ducati apologist who sugar coats the truth in favour of rosy nostalgia or blind brand worship. Riding a 916 any great distance is an exercise in zen-like concentration and meditative pain control, always haunted by the remote but present possibility of mechanical disaster. Spend any time on a Ducati forum and the stories of horror, and the photos of shattered alloy that were once engines, will instill an irrational but justifiable fear into the heart of any Ducati owner.



One of my favourite quotes comes from Peter Egan about an exchange with a mechanic after telling him he planned on riding his Norton Commando from Wisconsin to Washington State:


That’s precisely why I enjoy using a 916 as my daily driver and occasional long-distance mount. The mere act of riding it further than the nearest café is a flip off to all those jello-butted Ducatista poseurs who are scared of putting five digits on the odometer, and thumbed nose at all those fairweather tourers who wouldn’t ride more than 100 miles on anything other than a full-dress 800-pound touring rig. I ride a 916 thousands of miles because I can, and because I like to be an iconoclast in my poor choice of equipment.

Also it’s my only vehicle, it’s paid for, and I couldn’t afford to get something more appropriate if I wanted to.

Of course I've learned over the years that no matter how tough or proficient you think you are, there is always someone out there who is riding a pre-war machine a thousand miles further than you. Presumably while eating nothing but beef jerky mixed with crushed glass, carrying a backpack loaded with cinder blocks, occasionally pausing at truck stops and asking burly truckers to kick them in the groin a few times to warm them up. That's not mentioning the Iron Butt brigade, who do their damnedest to make everyone else on two wheels feel inadequate. One must be careful when assuming one's level of badassitude, because there are plenty of far more hardened old gits out there who will be happy to demonstrate how weak and unskilled you really are.


But I digress – you’re here to read about the OddBike USA Tour. So let’s step back a bit and start at the beginning.

It’s mid-summer, 2013. I’m sitting at my desk at my day job, which is located in a basement retail store. I’m staring at my computer screen for about the fourth consecutive hour that day. I've run out of ways to appear busy when the boss is looking. I work in the type of business that we would charitably call a “destination store”: a high-falutin’ luxury retail shop, accessed through double-locked bulletproof doors, on an street populated by bars and nightclubs, with shitty parking. We don't get much traffic in the course of the day. Some weeks are so quiet that you begin to see visitors as undesirable interruptions to your meditative state. Their arrival jars you out of your catatonic trance and you are more annoyed than enthused by the sight of another human being. This is not a place where you make many friends.

I spend most of my time tinkering with the online aspects of the business and hammering out the odd bit of content. But it’s impossible to stay focussed and occupied 8 hours a day, so I often find myself staring at that damnable LCD screen, hunched over the keyboard, watching my skin whiten from lack of sunlight and feeling my muscle atrophy. It’s in these moments when I've run out of things to do that I feel truly trapped. Your average white-collar retail gig, in other words: the sort of soul-crushing routine where you expend far too much energy attempting to look busy rather than actually accomplishing anything.


It’s within this environment that I began developing an escape plan. An idea I had long been mulling over was the classic “Coast to Coast” cross-country tour. I wanted to ride a motorcycle across Canada (and back again). This sort of wanderlust seems to be a peculiarity of us North Americans. We live in a vast landscape that occupies multiple time zones and spans thousands of miles. A cross-country tour to the average European would be a pleasant weekend trip. To a Canadian or American, it’s an arduous journey, a rite of passage that every motorcyclist worth his or her salt must accomplish before they can be considered a “real” rider. We envy those fearless enough to drop everything and hit the road with no particular destination in mind – just ride till you hit ocean, then turn around and do it again.

I had the opportunity to meet Dennis Matson a year ago when he was passing through Montreal on the northernmost portion of his cross-continental blast. For those of you not familiar with Dennis’ journey, I strongly encourage you to read his travelogue. I can’t possibly summarize the journey in any meaningful way, you must read his thoughts and reports. The synopsis is he dropped everything, sold his current bike, bought a brand-new Ducati 1199, and hit the road immediately with just a backpack and the clothes on his back with no particular destination in mind. 15,000 miles later he finished his journey, inspiring intense jealousy among thousands of people who yearn for the ability to let go and ride.

Dennis’ adventure was utterly inspiring, and maddeningly accessible. Two wheels and whatever you can carry on your back and you could be on an epic soul-searching trek. Of course reality, work, bills, and debts keep most of us grounded (Dennis was fortunate enough to have a job that could be done on the road by telecommuting). But the idea was planted and my wanderlust was ignited, smouldering in the back of my mind over the winter, spring and summer.

I finally snapped around July, and set my idea into motion. I began organizing my thoughts and making a serious plan of action to get my ass across the country. I may be crazy enough to use a 916 for a daily rider, but I’m not stupid enough to try and ride it 7500 miles both ways across Canada. I needed to get a second bike, my first choice being a used Honda CBR 1100 XX Super Blackbird, my favourite intercontinental ballistic sport tourer, and enough funding to pay for 30 days on the road.

Being perpetually broke like most Gen Ys I sought aid from my bank. Here’s a tip – don’t ever go to your bank and tell them you are applying for a loan to drive a motorcycle across the country. Tell them you want to buy RRSPs, or sink a bunch of money into junk bonds, or put your cash into a big pile so you can set it on fire. The moment you utter the words “motor cycle” you will see their eyes glaze over in that moment of realization that they are about to waste the next 30 minutes filing an application that will go nowhere.

In other words my idea of flying across Canada by Blackbird was shot down in short order.


I was explaining my desire to travel across the land to a friend of mine who lives in Louisiana. Then I had a lightbulb moment and brought up Google Maps. Louisiana is about 1500 miles from Montreal. 3000 miles isn’t that crazy on the 916 – I’ve done nearly that much on it in the past, as long as I paced myself it would be a relatively easy journey. I asked him for a couch to crash on, and he agreed. I told him I’d be coming in summer of 2014, to which he asked why not this year? I explained my financial bind, and that I would need time to put money aside. He gave me a verbal kick in the ass: “I laid out a plan for you a few months ago”.

What he meant was that several months prior he had proposed a new concept to me – crowdsource funds to write OddBike articles. It was something that had never been done in the motorcycle blogosphere: propose a topic and canvas for funding to pay for the research and travel expenses from the readers themselves, rather than sponsors or advertisers. I didn't take it seriously at the time, and put his advice on the back burner. But as OddBike grew and my writing became more involved, the idea became tantalizing. It would enable me to write better articles and pay for some of the considerable time I invest into the site, without resorting to whoring OddBike out to sponsors and advertisers. I would go direct to my readers for help, and I would only have to answer to them. And having funding for travel and research would allow me to reach out and meet key industry people face to face, something that is virtually impossible to do while living in Montreal.


I was reluctant to ask anyone for money - I would make a terrible entrepreneur, as I feel guilty asking anyone for help. But I had nothing to lose. So I sat down and did some thinking. To make it worthwhile to my readers and myself I’d need to maximize the possibilities for content gathering along the way. The Barber Vintage Festival was coming up in October, and Birmingham is on the way to Louisiana, so that became one of my first destinations. Motus and Confederate are two independent American brands I've been meaning to profile, and they are both located in Birmingham as well. Former Confederate designer JT Nesbitt has a studio in New Orleans and is working on a cool new design that I was interested in checking out. Later I heard tell of the mysterious Traub V-twin at the Wheels Through Time museum in Maggie Valley, North Carolina so I added a stop there to investigate. I now had a series of articles laid out. I could ride down and gather information, conduct interviews, and take photos (an important consideration - one thing they don’t tell you about motorcycle journalism is that everyone demands top-quality exclusive images, regardless of how good your content might be). I’d also have the opportunity to make myself known to a few key people in the industry and spread the word about OddBike and my writing. And of course I’d have fodder for an interesting travelogue.


Pretty soon my “vacation” was looking like more work than my soul-sucking day job. And that was immensely appealing: this would be an intense journey that would allow me to move forward with my passion and take OddBike to the next level. So I set to work and hammered out an Indiegogo proposal. Much to my amazement the contributions started trickling in. I had gone into the campaign expecting nothing to come of it. But now I had backers putting down cash to see me on my way, and I owed it to them to make sure the trip happened and that I followed through on my promises. The OddBike USA Tour was on.

I began getting equipped for the trip. To keep expenses to a minimum I’d camp in state parks most of the way, with a few couches to crash on along the way offered by generous OddBike fans. I picked up a cheap set of soft saddlebags and some backpack camping gear. I planned a route and organized my stops. I was able to confirm visits with everyone except Confederate (I will try to organize something but as of this moment nothing is confirmed). Finally I gave the bike a once over to make sure everything was in order. I spent most of last season sorting out issues and chasing gremlins - while most people might be put off by a season full of problems and repeated breakdowns, a seasoned Italophile sees it as an extended shakedown run where you have the opportunity to sort everything out before next year. Optimism is a required outlook when owning an old Italian motorcycle, as is a philosophy of masochistic fatalism (I resign myself to my immutable fate, and I will enjoy it).

When touring by sportbike simplicity is key. I don’t like elaborate touring gear, and I think it is silly to pay thousands of dollars for boxes that weigh more than the widgets you will be putting inside them. I use lightweight sport saddlebags, my trusty 20$ tankbag which has accompanied me for 8 years, a low-profile backpack, and some cold-weather touring gear to keep comfy. Clothes, tent, sleeping bag, a few snacks, toolkit, a handful of zip ties – good to go.

I practiced my usual style of trip planning – sketch out the broad strokes but leave the details open so that I’m not adhering to a strict schedule. About 300 miles a day, which I can do comfortably without rushing - I also have a tendency to miss exits and take wrong turns so I like to leave myself some leeway in my scheduling. I made no advanced reservations so I can modify my route as I see fit. I’ll be passing through New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana. It will be a total of two weeks on the road, mostly on the Interstate with the odd excursion onto some backroads.

Come Sunday, October 6th the OddBike USA Tour begins.

I have a strange relationship with motorcycle riding. I have an absolute, unmitigated passion for the sport and I’ve been riding since I was 17, but I still get pangs of apprehension every morning before I hit the road. You would think I should be accustomed to it by now, and yet each journey is preceded by intense bouts of anxiety. It’s not the danger or the risk, which has never factored into it for me. I simply don’t worry about such things. It’s something else, like an intense excitement that builds into this climax of fretfulness and physical discomfort. When I learned that Formula 1 legend James Hunt would often throw up right before a race, I immediately understood. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn't because he was scared, though he had a healthy appreciation for the danger involved in his sport. It was the energy and intensity of the coming event building up inside him to a literal bursting point.



Once I am on the bike, this unease and discomfort immediately melts away and I become part of the machine. My mind settles and my body relaxes. The act of riding becomes soothing, in spite of the fury of the machine and the heightened awareness necessary to pilot it. It’s an addictive routine – your body vibrating with anticipation, followed by a wave of intense calm and serenity washing over you.

I wake up early on the morning of October 6th, an hour before sunrise. I down a cup of coffee and have a light breakfast, my stomach turning at the thought of food. I rarely eat anything before noon, but I force down a few nutritious items to sustain me for the morning ride. I slowly zip into my gear and check over my luggage, making my last minute checks. I maintain a calm demeanor as I pack and adjust my armour, moving slowly and deliberately while my torso burns with the anticipation of the journey that lies ahead of me.


I descend into the parking garage, helmet in hand with my gear slung over my shoulder. I walk around the bike, performing a final check of the lights, tire pressure, fluid levels. I secure my luggage and roll the machine out of my parking spot.

My anxiety has built to a fever pitch at this moment. This is just part of my routine before every significant ride.

I turn the key and flick on the fast idle button. I turn my eyes to the dash and instinctively watch the oil pressure light as I stab the starter button. After a few characteristically lazy turns the engine fires into life and booms in the confines of the garage, the thundering exhaust offset by the clattering and pinging of the dry clutch. The oil light promptly flicks off and I begin to relax. I click the throttle forward to turn off the fast idle, allowing the engine to lope along as it warms up - the staff isn't fond of my Ferraci pipes so I keep noise to a minimum until I leave the building.

I slowly slide my helmet on. The bike stalls, as usual, and I pause to tap the starter button again. The Ducati warmup routine is always the same, and stalling is part of the process. Something about two big pistons in a high state of tune that makes most Ducatis stall happy – sometimes you can get the throttle bodies balanced perfectly and it will never cut out, sometimes the balance is off by a gnat’s ass and it will die at every other stoplight. Part of the charm, I suppose. I define those elusive clichés of  “character” and “soul” in inanimate motorcycles as consistent inconsistency. Even when perfectly tuned a 916 will still occasionally cough, hiccup, misfire, or stall. No rhyme or reason, and no predictability – they just do. You come to accept it as the "personality" of the machine, and it makes the thing far more endearing than your typical Yamondazukawa, once you are able to put the spectre of imminent mechanical catastrophe out of your mind. You get the sensation that you are riding a barely-tamed stallion, a beast that you alone are capable of keeping reigned in. T.E. Lawrence had one of the finest summaries, which I won’t attempt to better:

I put on my gloves and throw my leg over, sitting on the machine and gently blipping the throttle as the temperature needle creeps up off the peg. My anxiety is melting away now as the thrum of the engine vibrates through my body. The basso profundo sound of a barely muffled Italian twin reverberates around me, bouncing off the concrete walls. The intake pulses are channeled through the fuel tank into my stomach. The temperature is over 140 now, time to go. I pull in the clutch, flip up the sidestand, and click the motor into gear. I am at complete ease now as I roll out of the garage into the sharp autumn air.

My anxiety is gone and I feel at home.  My journey begins.



Before I set out on this trip, I encountered a few naysayers. The whole "asking people for money to ride my bike" bit ruffled some feathers and incited some minor backlash from people who didn't understand the "funding articles" element of the campaign - a backlash which I anticipated but still didn't enjoy. It's the principal reason I was reluctant to even start a crowdsourcing campaign, because I expected nothing but negative feedback. In the end I got far more positive support than negative, but hearing cutting remarks from Internet Tough Guys is still unpleasant and weighs more heavily on your conscience than the dozen or so pats on the back you received prior to that. Motorcycle culture has long had a dichotomy behind the scenes - on one side you have massively friendly folks who will give their left fork leg to help out a rider, on the other you have the self-absorbed aloof jackasses who play up the outmoded antisocial outlaw biker image. There is an easy litmus test to determine which category someone falls into - the former waves, the latter doesn't.

So it was that I kept my plans to myself, sharing only with the loyal readers of OddBike.



Passing through US customs, I understand why the locals frequent the US. The agent takes my passport, types my name in the computer, stares at the screen for 15 seconds before handing me back my documents and wishing me a good ride. No questions, no "what is your business in the USA?" or "how long is your stay?" or "are you now, or ever have been, a member of the Al Qaeda network?". Just a quick check and off you go, have fun in our land of freedom and cheeseburgers. A lot of Canadian provinces could learn a thing or two from the process - like welcoming riders and their tourist dollars, instead of alienating them with draconian law enforcement and noise laws.





My destination is a private residence owned by a wealthy motorcycle enthusiast who retired from banking before the capital-C Clusterfuck in 2008 with enough cash to live out his dreams. I knew of him through a friend and had heard tell of his private motorsports wonderland in the rolling hills of upstate New York, but I still didn't really know what to expect. I had never met him before, but my friend had given me a good recommendation and the fellow was kind enough to offer me a place to stay for the night.

I arrive at a motorised gate, just in time to meet the full-time mechanic, Peter, as he returns from a parts run. He quizzes me to a bit, having not been informed of my arrival. Apparently I seem harmless enough, and he leads me into the property. A one-lane road forks and runs to the various buildings - the main house, a guest house, the garage and workshop, the private 1.1 mile racetrack. Oh, I forgot to mention that part. This man has built a racetrack in his front yard. Now that he is retired, he has dedicated himself to a career in racing - his passion began with bikes but migrated to open-cockpit cars once his first daughter was born and he wanted something a bit safer. I won't pretend to understand the intricacies of the categories he races in, but suffice to say he has some impressive four-wheeled equipment at his disposal and he is doing quite well as a privateer. His ultimate goal is to race at Le Mans, a noble endeavour that I salute. The world needs more enthusiastic privateers nipping at the heels of the factory efforts, but it is becoming increasingly difficult given the level of technology and funding needed to participate in modern racing. He has the advantage of private wealth, but money isn't a substitute for proficiency, and he hones his skills right here in front of his country house.


Peter brings me to the main motorcycle building. We enter through the workshop where a few machines are lined up - a couple of race-prepped GSX-R 600s, a half-assembled shifter kart, a Ninja 250. He hands me a legal waiver to sign. Having a racetrack on your property presents its own set of legal challenges, apparently.


He flicks on the lights in the adjacent room. I instantly set eyes upon a pristine Bimota V-Due. Around it was a room full of obscenely rare motorcycles, with a few interesting cars slotted in among them. I think I stood there frozen for nearly a minute, unable to react to what I was looking at. It took me a while to regain my composure and start wandering through the rows of bikes. I realise what I am looking at is my personal dream garage, with almost every bike I have ever desired sitting in front of me. I realise that here is someone who has almost the same taste as I do, but who has earned the wealth to fulfill his dreams.


Bimota is one of my favourite brands, but they have never been homologated for sale in Canada. I have only seen one Bimota in my life, a restored KB1 that was being exhibited in a Toronto vintage bike show. Now I am looking at nearly all of them in a single room. I can barely take it all in. The V-Due is one of my all time favourite machines and was the first bike I profiled on OddBike. But there is also a Tesi 1D, tucked in beside a Ducati 851 Tricolore.  Here's a DB1, DB2, even the infamous Mantra. Most of the SB, YB and HB machines are represented as well. And there are the perfectly restored Ducati bevel head singles and twins, and the Honda RC45, the Dakar-prepped Cagiva Elefant.


Then you go upstairs, where you find more Bimotas lined up with Laverdas and a few odd machines, including a first-series Hesketh V1000. I run around madly snapping photos and taking in the details of machines I'd only ever read about, barely able to process what I'm seeing. The owner, Alan, has been profiled in the past but mainly for his four-wheeled endeavours. I was floored by his collection of motorcycles, which had always been ignored by the car-centric press who wouldn't know a NR750 from a Gold Wing.


I chat with Peter for a while, sharing the usual motorcycle shop talk. Swapping stories, talking bikes. Peter is a seasoned motorcycle mechanic who worked mainly on Japanese machine before being hired by Alan. He still runs his own repair business on the side, while working as Alan's Crew Chief and Motorsports Director. While his speciality is bikes, Alan has slowly introduced more and more car-related work into his schedule, much to Peter's dismay. There is a big disconnect between cars and bikes when it comes to mechanical work, and it is rare to see a professional mechanic who can do both equally well. Bike guys usually look at cars with disdain, and vice versa. Since getting into motorcycles 10 years ago I've become less and less impressed with cars, a contrast to the youthful enthusiasm I had as an adolescent reading the buff mags and rags. In fact I haven't owned a car in 4 years, and have zero desire to get another one.


So I understand Peter's position perfectly, and I feel a little sorry for him - particularly considering the calibre of machines sitting in front of me, most of which are static and would need some significant prep work to get running. There are only three or four that are in a ready-to-ride state. I was disappointed that most of the bikes weren't being used regularly, but not really surprised given the quantity on hand - there is only so much riding one man and a few of his friends can accomplish, even with a private racetrack in your yard.


Alan arrives. He is a flurry of energy, going madly off in all directions. I introduce myself and sheepishly compliment him on his facilities, and thank him for hosting me. Between unloading his car and firing off questions at Peter (I think the topic of the day was gearbox options for an LMP car, but they lost me pretty quickly), Alan takes a few moments to begin describing his passion for Italian machines and how he began collecting bikes. He has an infectious childlike enthusiasm. Here is a man who is having fun and living out his dreams, with every toy he has ever wanted at his disposal. He is passionate, friendly and lively. I cannot picture him in the banking industry.


He sets me up in the guest house, a beautiful open building set on the shore of the private lake adjacent to the main house. The bedroom I am staying in is only slightly smaller than my entire Montreal apartment.

As quickly as he arrives, Alan is gone, off running errands around the property. I drop off my stuff and  get a tour of the property from Peter. We hop into a side by side Polaris ATV and ride around the wooded trails surrounding the estate, then up onto the ridge overlooking the lake and the track. We drive around the track, which is a tight and technical circuit that has no real straightaways. It was designed by Alan with some input from Keith Code, and was intended as a bike track - the cars came later, but were equally at home. It's basically a perfectly maintained canyon road in front of your house, with zero traffic and safe runoffs. In fact Alan has given up street riding entirely for the safety of the track, something that might seem surprising to non-riders (A track? Safe?) but is quite common among sport riders who get sick of close calls, rough pavement, absent minded drivers, and LEO attention.


I retire to the guest house in the evening, feeling a bit ill at ease in this environment. While I work in a luxury industry I come from a simple background. Aside from the race track and the motorcycle collection Alan's property is reasonably modest and not at all ostentatious, but still intimidating for a simple person like myself. I also feel slightly guilty - I don't know Alan personally and don't want to be an ungrateful mooch taking advantage of his hospitality. I am extremely grateful that he has opened his home to me, but I am not entirely at ease. The beautiful but awkward furniture doesn't help - everything is "form before function" where the pieces looks impressive but weren't designed to be sat upon by human beings. I suppose you could say the same thing about a lot of bikes.


The well-stocked beer fridge in the guest house helps me relax. I forgot to bring anything for dinner and don't dare ask my hosts for food, so I resign myself to Rolling Rock and beef jerky from my snack stash. I take my notes for the day and do my online business, updating my readers on the journey through Facebook on my iPod. This will become my nightly ritual - relaxing, scribbling out the days events and thoughts, and tossing a few pictures onto Facebook to let everyone know I'm still alive. I manage to figure out the impossibly complicated centralised media system and spend the evening watching a Military Channel documentary marathon on fighter aces. A good start to the OddBike USA Tour.

It was fortunate that I had this opportunity to unwind in luxurious surroundings, given what I had in store the next day.

   

Sunday morning is another beautiful day in Birmingham. Attendees of the Vintage Festival were blessed with three perfect days of weather: 80-90 degree temperatures with blue skies and low humidity. Barring our spark-plug-fouling gridlock adventure on Saturday morning I was never uncomfortable. The dread of riding north into cooler weather was starting to dawn on me.

I wake up early to do my laundry and scribble down some notes for the previous two days. Saturday had been such an intense, whirlwind day that I never had the opportunity to stop and (literally) collect my thoughts, so I took the time to put my experiences on paper while they were still fresh in my mind. It still felt unreal and scarcely believable that I met so many interesting people and experienced so much in the course of a single day. I truly believe it will remain one of the most memorable days of my life. But I sincerely hope it isn't - better things await in the future. It's a line of thought that will become important over the next few days.



Winslow invites me to breakfast with his friends at Waffle House. A fixture at offramps across the USA, Waffle House is pretty much what you’d expect: a cheap, greasy breakfast diner. It is the sort of place that is packed with locals nursing hangovers on a Sunday morning, members of our group included. I order a gummy waffle the size of my face with a side of obscenely greasy bacon, served with corn syrup and artificial butter. Not margarine - fake butter. I've never seen such nonsense at a restaurant before. I vocally lament the lack of legitimate maple syrup south of the border but the others don’t seem to get it. Spot the Canuck.


I decide to skip the Festival today and head straight for New Orleans, passing my Sunday ticket along to Winslow to dispose of as he saw fit. It was to be a 400-mile day on the road and I find the prospect of riding after dark disconcerting, especially in an unfamiliar city. I have terrible night vision and the lights on a 916 are somewhere between kerosene lantern and three Maglights with weak batteries taped together on the candlepower scale. The main beam is so worthless that it is virtually invisible in daylight, so I ride with the high beam on at all times just to be somewhat visible to other drivers. I've never understood the American propensity to drive with no running lights at all, and then bitch about mandatory lighting. I'd rather be noticed as much as possible on the road to lessen the possibility of some absent minded dolt running into me. Maybe that's the result of riding a bike in Montreal for 8 years, where I'm constantly threatened by absent minded dolts who are also aggressive vehicular sociopaths.

I hit the road around 11 am. Today's ride is boring. I pass through the remainder of Alabama and then cut through Mississippi, stopping only for a quick lunch and gas along the way. I will forever remember Mississippi for having the single worst Wendy's in the history of fast food, but not much else. The landscape has flattened out now, the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina having progressed into the hills of Georgia and Alabama and now the flat swampland of the Gulf coast. The vegetation changes noticeably as well - from dense, overgrown forest into shrubby bayou as you near Louisiana. The progression of the landscape makes me realize just how far I have traveled. I left the Great White North in near freezing temps a week ago and now I'm sweating it out within spitting distance of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Interstates of Mississippi are dull, with the least appealing rest stops I encountered anywhere on my journey. It’s long, boring rides like this that allow me to formulate my ideas, sketching out the themes of my writing in my mind. Or maybe that’s just how I console myself for enduring many hours of straight, dull as fuck Interstate over the course of this trip. “At least I got lots of quiet contemplation done.” Next time I do a trip like this I’m going to allow myself more time to explore the sideroads along the way.


I enter Louisiana and reach the coast of the Pontchartrain, an inland river connected to the Gulf of Mexico. Suddenly I feel at home. This is a setting I’m familiar with: marshland and flat sandy beaches surrounded by cottages and fishing communities. I grew up in rural New Brunswick, near the seaside town of Shediac. I am immediately reminded of the landscape of my youth, of time spent playing on beaches, of the sandy ground extending inland blanketed with thick marsh grasses. My heritage is Acadian, from the same French lineage as the local Cajuns (“Acajun”). I’m struck by how our common ancestors, thrown to the winds par Le Grand Dérangement, ended up resettling in such similar locales at different ends of the continent. It’s an eerie realization that is accompanied by a strong sense of deja vu, one that is only disrupted by the presence of palm trees. We don’t have those in Shediac.


Driving along I-10 into downtown New Orleans I spot countless boarded-up buildings and empty, overgrown parking lots. Dilapidated and collapsing properties dot the landscape. It is immediately clear that the scars of hurricane Katrina are still present, eight years after the storm. The modern skyline rising above the city contrasts with the signs of destruction and destitution that are visible from the freeway above the city.

I roll off the Interstate and get lost in a rough looking neighbourhood that exhibits more evidence of Katrina. Poverty is omnipresent and permeates the scene. This is what we Canadians are unused to seeing when we head south of the border. This is what inspires those Mad Max nightmares of getting mugged and shot by roving bands of miscreants, just waiting for an innocent Dudley or Deborah Do Right to stumble into their trap. Canadian cities are homogeneous and largely gentrified. Poor areas might have simpler architecture, a bit less maintenance done to the infrastructure, a couple fewer Starbucks locations. But here it is different; the gaps between the wealthy and the poor areas are extreme and immediately visible. The transitions between good and bad 'hoods are stark and impossible to miss. It’s hard to find the words to describe why this is apparent but upon arriving it becomes immediately clear. I was on edge riding through these depressed areas, exhausted from a day's ride, desperately scanning for my destination. I wasn't scared, but I did not want to be there either.

I make my way into the French Quarter, mere blocks away from the rough area I entered through, and the difference is staggering. Within the span of a few hundred yards you go from boarded up and collapsing buildings to stunning colonial architecture and lush greenery surrounding picturesque streets full of eclectic bars and restaurants. Within minutes I begin to see the appeal of living here in the French Quarter, and I start to understand why JT is so fiercely proud of this city. But I can’t shake the unease of seeing the two extremes laid out before me within the span of a few blocks.


I park the 916 in front of the Studio, a simple two-story building on the edge of the French Quarter. JT hasn’t arrived yet. Earlier he had recommended I stop at Checkpoint Charlie’s down the street. I discover it to be a dark, mercifully air-conditioned dive bar on the corner of Esplanade and Decatur, just the place to sit down and cool off. I am exhausted, my shirt soaked with sweat, my hair matted into a perfect helmet-head coif - I am in no condition to impress anyone so a dark, no-pretenses bar is just the ticket for me. I dump my luggage at a table and order a beer. The Saints are playing the Patriots on the TVs hung overhead and the game dominates the attention of the patrons. A mix of interesting locals populates the bar, all engaged in intense discussions of life, philosophy and football. I learn pretty quickly it is quite easy to spot whom the locals were: they are the eclectic mix of tattooed bohemians who appear more or less in control of their faculties. The tourists are the fat, pasty Midwesterners stumbling sideways down the middle of the street with plastic go-cup in hand.


I settle in and start taking my notes for the day. I like bars like these. No bullshit. Cheap booze and food. Always populated by interesting people. They might seem seedy and intimidating to an outsider or a person weaned on nouveau-riche trust-fund baby nightclubs, but they are often the most friendly and welcoming joints out there. They lack the phony, contrived pretenses of the haute-bar scene. I once found the flash and trappings of those wealthy haunts appealing, until I got to know the people who frequented them and began to see through the façade. Years of working in the “Luxury” business have taught me that brands, places or people that cater/aspire to an image of luxury are not authentic. Places like Checkpoint Charlie’s are.


It makes me realize how much I hate my day job. But that is a lament for another day and another venue.

I spot JT wheeling the Legacy out of a trailer across the street. I gather up my gear and head over. JT lives in the Studios, which is an open space that is more artist’s loft than garage. Pass through a glass façade and you'll encounter a heavily modified Harley flathead bobber, a Bimota SB8R, and the Magnolia Special.


I had hoped the Special would be here. It is a staggering accomplishment, a beautiful neoclassical car built from scratch and powered by an alternative fuel that JT drove across the United States. But he seems almost embarrassed that I’m enamored by it. I’m here to talk bikes, why would I be interested in that thing? I don’t press any further. I will learn soon enough that he is a man who is always looking forward, not backwards at his previous work.


While all the equipment and tools you'd expect in a builder's shop are present, there are a few details that distinguish Bienville Studios. Upstairs you’ll find a living area with a couple of spartan bedrooms. The shop is dusty and moderately chaotic but relatively well organized and filled with interesting objects, at least compared to the places I've worked. One rack is piled with spare parts and mockups from the Legacy. A lone Moto Guzzi twin sits on a stand in a corner. A bookshelf loaded with design yearbooks, pictorial histories, and art compendiums sits in the corner. Not the typical objets you’d expect in a run-of-the-mill garage. Instead of girlie posters the walls are littered with paintings, sketches and a few prints. Several of the artworks show a recurring pattern of interlocking circles and horizontal lines – this is JT’s design touchstone, his “circles and lines” framework. A pair of antiquated looking machines hang from the rafters, scarcely more than heavy-framed bicycles. One has a tiny single-cylinder engine. They are Simplexes, and they serve as symbols of two things: local industry, and what happens to those who fail to innovate. These are two important themes in JT’s work: he is fiercely loyal to New Orleans and he is always trying to innovate.


The bathroom is, however, exactly what you would expect in a garage. I had been warned about that bathroom by one of JT’s friends. "It couldn't be that bad" I thought.

It was that bad.

I was half tempted to go to the corner store and buy a case of bleach and disinfectant, just to lessen the Lovecraftian horror in store for the next poor soul who had to make use of the facilities. Fortunately we had more pressing matters to attend to.

We head over to one of JT's favourite haunts, Molly's At The Market on Decatur. He buys me an unidentified JT-special, a tall drink that is definitely of the sneak-up-behind-you-and-club-you-with-an-iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove variety, and slaps a pack of Camels onto the table in front of me. Fuck. I'm an ex-smoker, free of the vice for just over a year. This is probably the last place in North America you can still smoke in bars ("Last bastion of freedom" according to JT), which makes it a bad place to be for a reformed smoker like myself. But I maintain my will, decline the smokes, and start drinking.


We discuss life, motorcycle, and OddBike. JT is an intense, passionate individual - opinionated and not afraid to express his views. He is very intelligent and extremely perceptive. He is idealistic and refuses to compromise on his values, and has nothing but disdain for those who do. If you've read his more outspoken commentaries you already have an small indication of his intensity. It is not an internet-tough-guy routine that evaporates in real-life encounters. He really is that honest and direct, and he is not afraid to call people out on their bullshit.

Chatting with him as the night progresses I realize he has high hopes for my writing, as well as where OddBike can go in the future. This intimidates me. As I sit here in Molly’s and nurse my whiskey-somethingorother I suddenly dread that I won't live up to his expectations. I am a simple, young, freelance writer who has a dull day job and a passion for bikes. I'm still green and I lack experience. He throws some intense motorcycle-related philosophy at me and it sails clear over my head, my comprehension dulled by the booze.

By the end of my second drink my willpower has broken and I grab a cigarette. I immediately regret the decision, even in my tipsy state. I vow in my head that I would only cheat for this night, in this place, in this situation. When else will I have the opportunity to get drunk in New Orleans with one of the most famous motorcycle designers of our generation? Of course that calculated rationalization came later. At that moment my line of thinking was "fuckit to hell, I want a cigarette." And goddamned if it wasn't the most magnificent, head-lightening, nerve-easing smoke I've had since I first picked up the habit 9 years ago.


I think JT was waiting for me to snap. I'm more relaxed now. I spend most of the evening listening, taking in the ideas he is throwing my way. I make no attempts to pretend to understand when he begins to lose me. As we both get progressively more smashed I quickly learn that he is man of many facets, far more than I had previously imagined. I will note I am piecing together the details after the fact, many elements having disappeared into the cloudy haze of a night of drinking, so apologies to JT if I missed anything important. I do recall that despite his purity of vision, he appreciates and enjoys a wide variety of bikes in terms of performance and design. He isn’t a snob - he appreciates good design wherever it may emerge. He adores the Yamaha R6, and would love to own a first-generation Suzuki GSX-R 1100. He has a deep respect for old British bikes and ran a Triumph dealership for two years. He wrote for Iron Horse magazine under the editorship of David Snow, a man who he credits with nurturing modern chopper culture (the legitimate, hands-on culture - not the phony OCC commercial bullshit). He has done a little bit of everything, and he speaks of his experiences with enthusiasm and passion.

He exhibits nothing but contempt for Soichiro Honda, a man who he deems a “destroyer”. Honda dominated the industry by crushing his contemporaries, in particular the British, when he could have helped them and developed a relationship of mutual advancement. He refused to share technology or expertise and mercilessly eliminated his competitors from the market. He asks why. Would it not have been better if both had existed side by side? Like many of JT’s thoughts it is perhaps an idealistic view, but it reveals a philosophy of motorcycles as being something more than digits on a spreadsheet.    

At some point in the evening he asks me what my favourite OddBike article is. I pause and think for a moment. Well it would probably be my first one, the Bimo- “Nope, wrong answer. Try again.” I dunno, I suppose I’m quite proud of the Nemb- “No. Do you want to know the answer?” He tells me how Alan Cathcart had asked Pierre Terblanche and Miguel Galuzzi what their favourite design was during a charity dinner at the Barber Museum on Friday. They too got it wrong. The best article (or the best motorcycle design, such as the case may be) “is the next one.” You must always look forward. It’s a point he repeats over and over. You may look to the past, and you may respect it, but you must not be determined by it.

By this time we are both properly drunk. We leave Molly’s to seek out food. JT takes me to a nearby restaurant, Mojo, where I have a fantastic steak and round out the evening with a glass of wine, which I am utterly unable to appreciate in my current state of inebriation. It’s now the halfway point of my trip, in terms of mileage and time. I have been on the road for a week and traveled 2000 miles. I significantly underestimated the length of the trip – I originally anticipated about 3000 miles, round trip. So much for my Google Maps estimate.

Tomorrow I will be conducting my proper, not blind drunk interview of JT and spending another day in New Orleans before I begin the long journey home.

Motorcycle design is a field that has many pretenders but few true practitioners. There are plenty of motorcycle stylists, men and women who draw forms on paper and then outsource the headaches of realization to a team of engineers and technicians. But people who can craft a machine from start to finish, from notepad to road, are virtually nonexistent. These are true designers who can conceive, sketch, fabricate and build a motorcycle from start to finish. J.T. Nesbitt is one of these few true designers. The Bienville Legacy is the much-anticipated follow up to Nesbitt’s seminal Confederate Wraith.

More than a mere motorcycle, the Legacy is the culmination of two distinct philosophies coming together – the uncompromising design ideas of J.T. Nesbitt, and the sustainable social principles put forward by The American Design and Master Craft Initiative (ADMCi). The Legacy has an important role to play in the future of American design that may not be apparent at first glance.





Nesbitt is a man who is well respected in the motorcycle industry, but who remains enigmatic and well outside the traditional hierarchies. Many reference his work but almost no one is capable of continuing the framework he established. His opinions are either highly respected or vehemently attacked – both good signs that you are doing something right. He has had an indelible influence on modern motorcycle design.


After 2005 he was serving drinks, waiting tables, and cleaning toilets, his life and promising career swept away by the floodwaters of hurricane Katrina. Not long after his whirlwind rise to prominence with Confederate Motorcycles he was back to tending bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, his life ravaged by the storm that had forever scarred the city.


Nesbitt is a formidable figure in American motorcycling, not simply for his contributions to the industry but also for his philosophies. He has an intense disdain for those who have compromised their principles and isn’t afraid to take them to task. He is opinionated and vociferous, never hesitating to speak out, but always willing to praise what he believes is deserving of admiration.

Nesbitt is complex, contradictory and frighteningly intelligent. Summarizing him with a few words on a page is wholly inadequate – you must sit down with J.T. and discuss life and bikes over the course of several beers to even begin to understand where he comes from and what he believes in.  

While we must not become mired in the glory of past successes, it is impossible to understand Nesbitt’s design philosophy without referencing his work at Confederate. Without the opportunity that was presented to him by Confederate founder Matt Chambers he would have remained unknown, just a man with a degree in Fine Arts serving drinks in New Orleans who was attempting to start his life from scratch.


Chambers gave Nesbitt the outlet for his creativity and their symbiotic partnership was one that is difficult for an outsider to understand. Nesbitt met Chambers while working for Iron Horse, during the magazine’s glory days under David Snow’s editorship. Following Nesbitt’s review of the company’s Hellcat, Chambers offered him a position with Confederate in New Orleans. When Nesbitt’s talents and vision became clear, Chambers offered him a chance to redesign the company’s iconic flagship: the brutally raw G2 Hellcat was the result, which proved to be a well-received warmup act from a man who already had bigger ideas brewing.


To Nesbitt the essential problem with modern motorcycle design is that we haven’t progressed much beyond conceiving of a motorcycle as anything more than a bicycle with a motor attached. Virtually every motorcycle, no matter how advanced or technologically dazzling it may be, is still designed and built within this framework. Nesbitt’s solution and design touchstone is what he calls “circles and lines”. It is a sort of blueprint structured around a series of six interlocking circles – the two wheels with the motor set between them, and the proportions of the components that bind them together. The core of this idea is that instead of fitting the motor into the chassis, we must design the chassis around the motor – more importantly, the motor dictates the design. You start with the engine and build the bike around that, rather than trying to figure out how to hang the motor on the proverbial bicycle.


The first machine that applied the circles and lines concept was the Wraith, which began as a styling exercise built around a Harley-Davidson XR750 engine. So strong was the response to the mockup that Nesbitt essentially forced Chambers to hire budding designer Brian Case and allow them to build a running prototype. XP1 was the result of Nesbitt’s vision and featured a monocoque chassis wrapped around a Sportster-patterned S&S Pro Stock motor, with a girder front fork incorporating modern materials. It was circles and lines made real. Nesbitt insisted his machine be run on the Bonneville Salt Flats to prove its mettle, thereby establishing a long-running Confederate tradition of testing their designs at the Flats. Nesbitt’s friend Chris Roberts rode XP1 across the salt at 139 mph before the bike was sold to a collector and work began on a more advanced pre-production prototype. With that, Nesbitt’s talents were established and the world took notice. The Wraith was a design that was so unlike anything seen before that it forever altered motorcycle design and custom culture, and showed the world that Americans could still build a world-class machine - right in the heart of New Orleans.


Working for Confederate gave Nesbitt the opportunity to create without dealing with the pragmatic concerns that stymie most designers. In any other company he would have been forced to deal with concerns of mass production, emissions and noise laws, headlight and turn signal placement, and any of the myriad manufacturing and legal nonsense that conspires to dilute the original vision of a designer. Confederate was always the brand of “Rebellion”. It was a place where Chambers allowed creativity and uncompromising values to take priority over practical matters. It was here that Nesbitt could and did flourish.

Hurricane Katrina changed everything. The Confederate factory was destroyed just as production of the Wraith was being finalized. Following the destruction of their New Orleans factory, Chambers chose to move Confederate to Alabama. Nesbitt insisted on staying in his beloved city. It proved to be the end of his tenure with Confederate.


Bienville Studios emerged during the tumultuous period following Katrina. After leaving Confederate Nesbitt began working independently while tending bar at Flanagan’s Pub in the French Quarter. A short-lived partnership with a Chinese firm required the setup of a design studio, which Nesbitt established in a gallery space on Esplanade Avenue. After the deal with the Chinese fell through the studio remained.


Named after Jean-Baptiste le Moyne de Bienville, the founder of the city of New Orleans and early governor of the Louisiana territory, Bienville Studios was the site of Nesbitt’s renewal following Katrina. It is fitting that it was here that he and a team of friends resurrected a flood-damaged Lincoln Mark VIII, dubbed the Stinkin Linkin, which he then drove 2000 miles with friend Andy Overslaugh to the Bonneville Salt Flats to attempt to break the 200 mph mark. More recently he built the Magnolia Special here, a stunning hand-built automobile powered by a Jaguar XK6 converted to run on natural gas. Both projects were exercises that sunk him deeply into debt. Nesbitt continued to operate as he had while working for Chambers – freely and without compromise, but also without significant income.


It is a shock to learn that Nesbitt has been so committed to his principles that he often works without salary simply so he could continue to design. He is content to eek out a modest living as long as it enables him to continue his work. Despite all the rock star status and cover spreads his work with Confederate had earned him, it was never about the money. It still isn’t. Nesbitt does not draw a salary for his work on The Legacy Motorcycle Commission.    


Following Katrina Nesbitt took a seven-year hiatus from motorcycle design. But the idea of building a new machine that refined the philosophies he introduced with the Wraith continued to occupy his mind and fill the pages of his sketchbook while he was “crosstraining” with projects in the automotive realm.


In 2012 Nesbitt was approached by Jim Jacoby, founder of The American Design and Master Craft Initiative, about continuing his work in motorcycle design. Jacoby approached Nesbitt innocently enough, coming to him as a fellow motorcycle enthusiast who was interested in his work. He met Nesbitt in New Orleans, unsure of what to expect. They ended up going out for a beer and discussing motorcycles, design and life. With the ice properly broken, it was then that Jacoby asked Nesbitt “What would you design if you could design anything at all?” Nesbitt showed Jacoby the sketches he had been collecting over the previous seven years. His answer became the genesis of the Legacy Motorcycle Commission:“I would design the bike that answered all the questions the Wraith asked.”


ADMCi is a non-profit organization based in Chicago, Illinois with a mandate to promote sustainable user-centred design in all its forms, be it art, music, craft, or design, physical or digital. The goals of ADMCi are varied but follows two main lines of thinking: that artisans come first in the creative process, operating independently and in a sustainable manner, and that master-craftsmanship should be preserved and promoted in a digital era when people are becoming increasingly detached from the things they produce.


You may simplify this as the promotion of craftsmanship, but it is much more than that. Jacoby believes that artisans, designers and master-craftspeople are kept to the fringe and exploited by our current efficiency- and profit-driven system. ADMCi wishes to put the artisan back at the centre of the system. The idea is that placing production and profit ahead of design/outcome makes for a broken process, so ADMCi promotes the opposite while offering benefits to the artists themselves.


Jacoby started ADMCi as a philanthropic foundation that operates in two ways – commissions to discover and develop knowledge, and education to transfer and apply that knowledge. The Bienville Legacy project is one such commission, with Nesbitt operating as an artisan in residence. His work is not simply towards a single end product (a motorcycle), it has sustainable value: eight patents have been filed as a result of Nesbitt’s work on the Legacy. Any royalties earned from those patents will be used to sustain the ADMCi.


The Legacy Motorcycle Commission is funded and studied by ADMCi with the goal of translating Nesbitt’s knowledge and methodology into a framework that can be shared and applied elsewhere. The irony, of course, is that despite being explicitly not intended for mass production, the Legacy is a design that is well suited for streamlined manufacturing. It uses standardized components that are shared between several elements of the bike. The suspension design is remarkably simple. It only uses two types of bearings. It uses but a few types of fasteners and can be worked on with a literal handful of proprietary tools. It speaks to the pure vision of a man who is able to intelligently design a machine in its totality. It is the product of a single mind, which gives it a simplicity that is often lacking in designs completed by committee or beholden to a profit-driven ecosystem.



Beyond the social implications of the Legacy project, the machine occupies an important position in American motorcycle design – it picks up a thread that was lost sometime during the Great Depression. Nesbitt points to what he calls the “American super bike”. It is important to note he doesn’t mean the ‘Superbike’ of modern parlance, that amorphous category of 750cc-plus sporting bikes, but a super bike: a superlative machine from a time when American manufacturers were producing some of the finest vehicles in the world. These were multi-cylinder motorcycles that were without peer, designed and built by people who had no concerns for profit margins or market share.


Nesbitt references machines produced by Pierce, Henderson, Ace, Cleveland and Indian – advanced, highly refined, fast, and powered by longitudinal four-cylinder engines. Exceptional motorcycles like these were the products of a golden era of American motorcycle design that flourished during the optimistic days of the 1920s. They were machines built by men who were looking forward, not over their shoulders at what came before - an important point that Nesbitt is quick to stress. It is a heritage that was lost after the Great Depression, when dozens of manufacturers collapsed or were absorbed, and design took a decidedly conservative turn that established the path of modern American motorcycles – nostalgic V-twin models produced by men who were too busy looking backwards. Nesbitt calls it “The Great Gap”, the period between the last Indian Four rolling off the line in 1941 and today.


The Legacy is set to pick up the lineage of the American longitudinal four-cylinder super bike and renew it by producing “what has to be the fastest fucking motorcycle ever built in this country”. While Nesbitt references the past, he doesn’t let nostalgia influence his work. He simply looks forward while respecting what came before.


There is, however, an element of the old world in his design process that bears noting. Nesbitt believes that the aesthetic appeal of vintage machines is a product of their conception – in the mind of a person. A person can conceive of an object in their mind, designing it in three dimensions within their mind’s eye. If each component on the machine is designed this way it lends a human element to the device, as no part is beyond the comprehension of a human mind. Introduce computer modelling and suddenly you have elements that are so complex that they alienate the viewer. To respect this human factor, Nesbitt designed each and every component of the Legacy with pencil on paper. He sketched every nut, bolt, fixture, linkage and accessory. A computer was only introduced after the component was designed, when the sketches were adapted into Solidworks files by volunteers David Czarnecki, Austin Porter and David McMahon. The files were then sent to Scott Tudury at Apex CNC in Morgan City, Louisiana. Scott worked as the design engineer and lead machinist, translating the sketches and files into metal and performing final milling of the components.


Motivation for the Legacy will come courtesy of the new Motus MV4 designed by Brian Case, the same man who helped Nesbitt design the Wraith. It was no accident that the pre-production prototype of the Legacy was previewed at the Motus factory in downtown Birmingham, Alabama in October. In design the Motus V4 is a quintessentially American motor, developed as a two-wheeled equivalent of (half) a small-block Chevrolet V8 complete with pushrod-operated overhead valves. Like the Legacy it references and respects American heritage, but it isn’t a slave to the past. The engine design might seem quaintly antiquated by modern motorcycle standards, but several generations of small-block tuning and know-how have been distilled into a compact package that produces 185hp from 1650cc in its base tune while remaining remarkably simple and stout. And that is before Nesbitt slaps a chain-driven Rotrex centrifugal supercharger onto it. With forced induction power is anticipated to be over 300 hp. Nesbitt will need every ounce of power he can extract from the mill to accomplish another of the project’s goals: of securing three land speed records. Just like the Wraith, the first destination for the completed Legacy will be Bonneville where the machine will prove itself on the Salt Flats.


The chassis design picks up some of the principles Nesbitt began to explore with the Wraith. The front uses symmetrical carbon-fibre blades, produced in CNC-milled moulds by BlackStone Tek, in a girder fork arrangement suspended on a rising rate linkage composed of milled alloy and titanium rockers. The rear suspension uses the same blades laid flat and suspended by another rising rate linkage that shares most of its components with the front assembly. Almost all the individual components are interchangeable between the front and rear. As the composite blades preclude the use of pinch bolts, the axles are locked together with titanium conical nuts on each end. Eccentric adjusters on the blade caps allow fine-tuning of the trail on the front and chain tension at the back. The headlight angle, seat height, and rear ride height are also adjustable via the same process: every eccentric is adjustable with a single Allen key. Just loosen one pinch bolt, and then rotate the adjuster via a worm gear. It is simple and clever, and beautifully executed.


Nesbitt wished to experiment with multiple trail value curves to make the best use of the multi-link suspension arrangement, and in so doing patented a unique method of measuring dynamic trail across suspension travel and generate real-time trail graphs. The resulting trail curve aims for straight-line stability combined with quick steering and neutral feedback while cornering.


Where the Legacy really breaks new ground is how it suspends both ends: via a single longitudinally mounted composite leaf spring. Nesbitt references the bow, the simplest form of spring that has been used by humanity for thousands of years. By using a composite polymer spring, it is free of the long-term fatigue that would wear out a metal item. It is a technology that is familiar in American motorsports: the Chevrolet Corvette continues to use transverse leaf springs quite effectively, and it is a common suspension system on circle track racers.


The suspension linkages work in reverse, pulling down on either end of the spring through pullrods. The only points of stress on the chassis are the swingarm pivot and the central mount of the spring, which doubles as the subframe support. This creates a chassis that is under compression. Moving the suspension components inboard achieves two important goals: centralizing the mass, and de-coupling suspension and braking from the steering forces. Damping is provided by a set of mountain bike units, which in testing proved to be more than capable of handing the forces at work in this application. They are in fact virtually impossible to bottom out, with near-infinitely progressive damping that is necessary for landing the massive jumps common in downhill mountain biking.


The frame is a chromoly steel trellis design that Nesbitt built himself, with final welding performed by Ace Boudreaux and powdercoating done by Alan Kirkfield, from a single one-inch diameter of tubing bent with a single seven-inch radius. As the spring mount is the only significant source of force in the frame (the swingarm pivot is supported by the transmission case), the frame flows away from the mount organically into the mounts of the longitudinally mounted V4, which is carried as a stressed member.


The only conventional off-the-shelf components used on the Legacy are the batteries, ISR radial-mount brakes, and ISR master cylinders. The BST carbon fibre wheels might appear conventional at first glance but have custom-made hubs that are unique to the Legacy. Everything else is designed by Nesbitt and made solely for this machine.


The complete machine is visceral in appearance – it is a muscular mass centred on the engine with a visual tension that suggests hidden power and agility. It isn’t pretty in the traditional sense, and you would never mistake it for a European or Asian design. It is visually brutal. It looks American, mean and gritty but built to a standard that would shame even the best boutique brands. While this example is mostly complete a few rough edges and missing components expose it as a pre-production machine. The missing details fail to detract from the overall sense of quality and the craftsmanship that has been poured into this bike. Every fastener and fitting is custom made, every component is unique and finely crafted and won’t be found anywhere else. The fenders and taillight surround are made of hand-beaten and rolled aluminium. Elements that won’t even be visible on the completed machine are built to extraordinary standards – just look at the skeletal seat support structure, comprised of blades of milled titanium, which will be hidden under a bespoke leather saddle.

Nesbitt asks: “What is the motorcycle equivalent of a Pagani?”

The Legacy is his answer.


Once the prototype is finished it will be run at Bonneville, one of three machines to be built as a result of the Commission. Nesbitt is quick to note that there is no rush on the Legacy. He has no one to answer to but himself, and no one is setting release dates or deadlines. It will be done when it is done.

Once the three machines are completed the project will end. Nesbitt will have accomplished his goal. He isn’t churning out designs for a manufacturer, and has no intention of producing more than three examples. He isn’t working for a paycheque, corrupting his designs to suit the higher ups and bean counters. He is simply building his ultimate motorcycle his way, fulfilling the design that haunted him for much of his career, and once it is done he will move on. He will have pushed the goalpost forward and once again put American motorcycle design back on the world stage. After that, he will keep moving forward and looking to the future.


Nesbitt’s work with ADMCi will promote a framework of understanding and education, a process that will benefit future designers, artisans and craftspeople. That will be the Bienville Legacy – a leap forward in design, in American motorcycling, and in establishing a sustainable educational and social framework the puts the creator back at the centre of the process.    


Interesting Links
Bienville Legacy website
Bienville Studios website
"Salt Dreams" documentary, following the story of the Stinkin Linkin
Magnolia Special
Bienville Legacy Commission proposal video
ADMCi website
ADMCi Commissions
Preview of the Legacy during the Barber Vintage Festival
Motus Motorcycles

I hear a familiar sound overhead and note a group of Canada Geese flying south. How poetic, considering I'm reluctantly taking the opposite trajectory. They seem almost majestic in this setting, their obnoxious honks taking on a gentler quality when heard from several hundred feet below. Having had some up close and personal encounters with them I'll note that despite their name and symbolism they are just vicious poultry that will sooner bite your fingers off than do anything to instill national pride.

Incredulity, followed by a comment on the size and metallic composition of my testicles. That is usually the immediate reaction I receive when I tell people I use a Ducati 916 for touring duty. I’ve never seen it as that exceptional. Sure, 916s have earned a reputation for being cantankerous and uncomfortable mounts that are certainly ill suited to cross-country adventures. But reputation and reality are two different things.

Actually I’m lying: the reputation is well earned and quite accurate. I’m not a Ducati apologist who sugar coats the truth in favour of rosy nostalgia or blind brand worship. Riding a 916 any great distance is an exercise in zen-like concentration and meditative pain control, always haunted by the remote but present possibility of mechanical disaster. Spend any time on a Ducati forum and the stories of horror, and the photos of shattered alloy that were once engines, will instill an irrational but justifiable fear into the heart of any Ducati owner.
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I have a strange relationship with motorcycle riding. I have an absolute, unmitigated passion for the sport and I’ve been riding since I was 17, but I still get pangs of apprehension every morning before I hit the road. You would think I should be accustomed to it by now, and yet each journey is preceded by intense bouts of anxiety. It’s not the danger or the risk, which has never factored into it for me. I simply don’t worry about such things. It’s something else, like an intense excitement that builds into this climax of fretfulness and physical discomfort. When I learned that Formula 1 legend James Hunt would often throw up right before a race, I immediately understood. Contrary to what you might think, it wasn't because he was scared, though he had a healthy appreciation for the danger involved in his sport. It was the energy and intensity of the coming event building up inside him to a literal bursting point.

Once I am on the bike, this unease and discomfort immediately melts away and I become part of the machine. My mind settles and my body relaxes. The act of riding becomes soothing, in spite of the fury of the machine and the heightened awareness necessary to pilot it. It’s an addictive routine – your body vibrating with anticipation, followed by a wave of intense calm and serenity washing over you.

If you've spent any amount of time here on OddBike, you’ll be aware that I tend to favour independent thought and unique approaches to the design and construction of motorcycles. The mandate for this site, such as it is, is to profile rare and unusual machines – with a particular eye towards unique technical qualities.

One element I have touched upon in the past is the proliferation of unique front suspension designs that are arguably superior to the “traditional” telescopic fork. There are a few brave engineers, designers and inventors who have dared to question the hegemony of the fork and propose a better solution. One of the most prominent, and perhaps the most misunderstood, is James Parker. Parker was one of the first inventors to achieve what many backyard tinkerers only dream of – to have his design adopted by a major manufacturer and put into mass production. His efforts are thus one of the best-known contributions to alternative front suspension design. Unfortunately Parker learned the hard way that the difference between conception and production can be significant, and that the design process within a major manufacturer is far from straightforward.

Read the rest on Silodrome.com

Image Source

Photo credit R. David Marks

DKW SS 250 at the Barber Museum

There is a saying that used to be shared in history circles, with a wry smirk, which has since become a minor cliche: “History is written by the winners”. Hackneyed though it may be, there is a great deal of truth in that old platitude. Be it in politics or in motorsports, odds are the story you know is the one that has been informed by the success of those who came out ahead. In the case of DKW and their series of once-dominant supercharged motorcycles, the company's successes have been drowned out by the tides of history. Some of the fastest, most advanced, and technologically interesting two-strokes of the 1930s have nearly been forgotten due to the company's unfortunate national ties – the once-famous Ladepumpe and supercharged “Deeks” became victims of historical circumstances beyond their control.

Des Knaben Wunsch 18cc stationary engine circa 1919 Image Source

The DKW story begins in 1916 when Danish engineer Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen founded the company in Zschopau, Germany. At this early stage Rasmussen was producing steam machinery fittings, the latest of several industrial business ventures he had worked on since immigrating to Germany in 1904. The resource shortages and rationing experienced in Germany during the First World War had inspired Rasmussen to develop a steam-driven automobile as a more economical alternative to gasoline-powered machines, hence the company's name: Dampf Kraft Wagen, the "steam motor vehicle". While the steam car venture failed to take off, the fledgling company found success in an unlikely avenue: a tiny, high-quality 18cc two-stroke stationary engine designed by engineer Hugo Ruppe. Des Knaben Wunsch, as it became known, was sold as a toy engine and soon took the place of miniature steam engines on the tabletops of well-to-do children across Germany.

Das Kleine Wunder 118cc auxiliary motor Image Source

DKW entered the two-wheeled fray in 1921 with another Ruppe design, this time a 118cc two-stroke auxiliary engine that could be installed on a bicycle. This humble machine was dubbed Das Kleine Wunder, once again preserving the DKW moniker despite the change of tact and presumably allowing Rasmussen to re-use the company letterhead.


It wasn't long after this tentative first step into the two-wheeled marketplace that DKW built its first complete motorcycle, the 142cc Reichsfahrmodell of 1922. The timing proved to be fortuitous as the company was able to ride the wave of newfound popularity for inexpensive two-wheeled transportation following Germany's bout with extreme inflation in the early 1920s. Such was the success of DKW motorcycles that by 1928 Rasmussen purchased a controlling stake in a little automotive manufacturer by the name of Audi Werk AG in Zwickau. The Zwickau factory would subsequently became the site of DKW automobile production, while motorcycle manufacturing continued at Zschopau. By the early 1930s DKW was one of the world's largest motorcycle manufacturers with over 20,000 employees. Two-strokes remained the company's speciality, and DKW became well regarded as a manufacturer of high-quality 'strokers in both two- and four-wheeled applications –  it seems unusual today, with four-stroke automotive engines having been the norm for the latter half of the 20th century, but there was once a time when you could find smoky ring-ding mills under the hood of a variety of cars competing with their (admittedly heavier and more complicated) four-stroke counterparts. Through the 1930s DKW produced a series of fascinating forced-induction two-stroke V4s that used a pair of integrated cylinders to pressurize the intake charge– the resulting motor appeared to be a V6 but only had four “functional” cylinders, the extra pair of pistons serving as compressors.


With their explosive growth at the end of the 1920s checked by massive debt and the beginning of the Great Depression, DKW needed to re-organize to remain solvent. The solution came in 1932 when DKW and Audi were merged into Auto Union along with Horch and Wanderer. The current four-ring logo used by Audi was the symbol of Auto Union, each ring representing the four manufacturers.      

Bekamo Ladepumpe single Image Source

Success in two-wheeled endeavours inevitably results in competition, and DKW was quick to begin producing racing machines to compete in small-displacement categories. During those early days of racing DKW encountered a formidable competitor from rival German marque Bekamo, who produced a series of highly refined two-stroke singles that became famous for being the first "supercharged" production motorcycle. They were designed by (drumroll) Hugo Ruppe – the same Ruppe who had designed Des Knaben Wunsch and Das Kleine Wunder before leaving DKW to found Berliner Kleinmotoren Aktiengesellschaft (Bekamo) in 1922. The Bekamo piston-port 129cc single used a dummy piston and cylinder that was placed opposite the functional piston at the base of the crankcase. It appeared to be an asymmetrical flat twin at first glance but the supercharging cylinder, dubbed the Ladepumpe (charging pump), had no porting or spark plug.

Bekamo single Image Source

The engine operated on the Bichrome supercharging principle where the swept volume of the crankcase was reduced as the supercharging piston moved up, thereby compressing the intake mix as it swirled through the crankcase. The piston doesn't compress air directly, it dynamically reduces the volume of the crankcase as the intake port opens. The upward movement of the pumping piston was timed to match the downstroke of the main cylinder so it compressed the intake mixture just as the port opened, forcing the charge into the cylinder. This is an effect that is only possible in a two-stroke, where the crankcase serves as the intake plenum. The deflector of the piston-port design angled the intake charge upward into the combustion chamber, preventing the pressurized mixture from being blown straight out of the open exhaust port on the opposite side of the cylinder (a problem called "overscavenging" in two-stroke parlance). The Bekamo also featured a novel adjustable air-assisted scavenging system where an extra port fed fresh air into a chamber inside the piston, after which it would be fed into the cylinder to help push exhaust gas out before the fuel mixture entered.

Replica DKW 175 ARe Image Source

DKW began developing their own Ladepumpe engine designs, resulting in the liquid-cooled 175 ARe and 250 ORe singles and the 500 PRe twin in 1928. These were similar in principle to the Bekamo, using piston-port induction and featuring the same layout with a Ladepumpe cylinder set 180 degrees opposite the functional piston(s). These early machines achieved some successes and had a significant performance advantage, albeit at the expense of fuel economy. The ARe and ORe advanced the DKW racing effort and proved to the be the first of a series of supercharged two-strokes that would become a signature of the marque in the 1930s.          

DKW 250 ORe Image Source

Around the same time that DKW and Bekamo were experimenting with their Ladepumpe engines, German engineer Adolf Schnürle introduced a revolutionary new porting design while working on two-stroke marine diesel engines. Where previous piston-port engines used a deflector cast into the dome of the piston to angle the charge upward and prevent overscavenging, the Schnürle porting used carefully angled ports that would direct the charge upwards into the combustion chamber. Because the scavenging was controlled by the porting and not the shape of the piston, a lighter and less heat-soak prone flat-top piston could be used, which allowed the use of higher compression ratios. DKW was the first company to adopt Schnürle principles in a production motorcycle engine, purchasing the rights to apply the technology to gasoline engines in 1932. Schnürle porting, when combined with carefully tuned exhaust expansion chambers, would prove to be the most efficient two-stroke scavenging principle and one that would dominate two-stroke design right into the present day.

ARe and ORe layout Image Source

ORe engine Image Source

However in these early days DKW continued to focus on supercharged designs to improve the performance of their Rennmaschinen and make the humble two-stroke a formidable competitor against the four-stroke designs that dominated the European racing scene of the 1930s. This was a time when the four-stroke single was the king of European circuits, when big thumpers from the British and Italian brands were the machines to beat on the track. Multi-cylinder machines were just beginning to enter the scene and become competitive against the well-developed singles, but competitive two-strokes were virtually nonexistent in the larger categories. This was a time when the two-stroke was considered noisy, smelly and cheap – they were dirty, smoky engines better suited for lowly commuter machines than they were for fast sporting bikes.      

In terms of supercharging, Schnürle designs were at a disadvantage. Because of the flat piston and port-controlled scavenging, boosting a Schnürle engine simply resulted in significant overscavenging – the pressurized intake mix just blew straight through the cylinder and out the open exhaust port. But piston port designs, while better at handling boost, were limited in their efficiency and were hitting a wall when it came to tuning. DKW needed to take a step forward to remain competitive while continuing their supercharged racing programme. With piston-port being old hat and Schnürle designs still in their infancy, they turned to a third way: the split piston design.

SS 250 Ladepumpe engine Image Source

Split piston two-strokes were not a new idea. Garelli introduced the concept in 1912, and Puch had been building simple split-single engines (sometimes referred to as “Twingles” after they were marketed under that name by Sears in the 1950s) since 1923. Puch in fact won the 1931 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring with a liquid-cooled and supercharged 250cc split-single ridden by Swiss rider Elvetio Toricelli, something that may have been a significant influence on DKW's subsequent racing programme. The basic principle of a split-piston engine is to separate the intake and exhaust ports by using two distinct cylinders with their own pistons, rising and falling in unison and sharing a common combustion chamber. The intake ports are cut into one cylinder, the exhaust ports into the other. The fuel mixture is pulled into the first cylinder and compressed into the bathtub-shaped combustion chamber. After ignition, on the power stroke, the exhaust is pulled out through the second cylinder and the process starts anew. Because there is only one combustion chamber and the intake and exhaust as split between the two cylinders, the split design is considered a single unit for racing purposes, the displacement calculated by combining the bore and stroke of each cylinder. Two pistons were thus considered equal to a single cylinder of equivalent displacement.

URe (or SS) 250 internals Image Source

The Puch design, a later version of which would become somewhat famous in the post-war period when it was rebadged and sold in the USA under the Allstate brand by Sears, used a U-shaped forked conrod with a single crankpin controlling both pistons. It was a curious but not particularly efficient design: while it was an improvement over the old piston-port engines, the added complexity and weight of the dual-piston setup and circuitous scavenging arrangement making it less efficient than the much simpler Schnürle design. But for DKW it had a distinct advantage: you could supercharge it without blowing the intake mixture straight out the exhaust.

DKW SS 250

The Puch U-shaped conrod was heavy and unsuitable for the sustained high revolutions expected of a racing engine, so in 1931 DKW engineer Arnold Zoller refined the concept with a master/slave conrod design. There was a single crankpin for both rods, with the exhaust piston connected directly to the crankpin by the “master” rod, while the intake side piston was controlled by a “slave” conrod. The slave rod was offset slightly and connected to the main rod with a pivoting pin. The timing between the two cylinders was offset by about 15 degrees to close the exhaust ports ahead of the intake, to maximize the supercharger effect and preventing overscavenging.

DKW SS 250 Image Source

The first of the Zoller-designed machines was the URe, which was a thermosyphon liquid-cooled “single” with three pistons. The URe was supercharged with a massive 120mm-diameter Ladepumpe piston, driven off the crankshaft by two conrods, mounted at 90 degrees to the main cylinders and protruding out of the front of the crankcase between the downtubes of the frame. The bore of each of the split-single's pistons were the same (47.5mm), but the strokes were slightly different - 69.7mm and 70.5mm. Total displacement was 248.4cc and power was in the neighbourhood of 24hp at 4500 rpm, later revised to 30hp at 5000 rpm. A separate four-speed transmission was used with a chain final drive. The prototype chassis featured a duplex cradle steel frame with rigid rear suspension. Subsequent versions added a swinging-arm rear suspension suspended by a sprung hub with a separate hydraulic damper (despite looking much like a plunger rear suspension, it is in fact a full swinging arm). Experiments were made with a unique front suspension that used a girder fork sprung with three massive rubber straps instead of springs – yes, a rubber band suspension on a racing machine. Aside from the suspension experiments the chassis was very conventional and not particularly noteworthy. Some accounts point out that handling was always the DKW's weak point, and in general they were heavier than their competitors - problems that were overcome by the application of copious amounts of horsepower from their supercharged mills.

DKW SS 250

Offered alongside the URe in 1935 was the SS 250, a production racer offered to the public at the cost of 1550 Reichsmarks. The SS was supposedly sold to the public at a loss and early versions were painted in the same silver and grey paint scheme as the works URe racers, albeit with simpler rigid rear suspension chassis with pressed steel downtubes until a 1938 update offered the same chassis design as the factory machines. That same year the silver paint scheme became reserved for the factory machines, with all privateer-bound SSs being painted black with red accents – supposedly this was to better distinguish privateer entries from works machines on the track, where the highly-competitive DKWs were becoming a common sight.

DKW SS 350 Image Source

1938 saw the release of the UL, an updated 250cc machine that moved the Ladepumpe in front of the cylinder, inline with the engine and operating on its own crankshaft that was geared off the main unit. Two versions were developed which differed in their induction systems: the ULd featured a rotary valve while the ULe used a reed valve. Both were supercharged directly with the Ladepumpe force-feeding the intake ports. Power was now 35 hp at 7000 rpm, top speed 110 miles per hour. These machines were an unusual sight, with twin Amal carburettors jutting out either side of the motor ahead of the main cylinder, with the twin high-mounted exhaust pipes (being nothing more than long and unmuffled megaphones) exiting at the rear. Legend has it that the side-mounted carburettors made wet weather races a challenge, with rain water easily getting sucked down the unfiltered intake trumpets.

UL/SS Twin Image Source

For larger capacity classes a twin cylinder version of the UL was developed, and these motors were available in 350, 500, 600 and 700cc displacements, with the three latter capacities (some with multiple Ladepumpe pistons) reserved for sidecar racing. Unlike the ULe and ULd 250, the Ladepumpe was once again moved to the 180 degree position and driven off the main crankshaft with a pair of conrods. Thus these “twins” had five pistons: four 39.5mm items, plus the 100mm supercharging piston, all held together around a common crankshaft by six conrods. The cylinder block had the appearance of a square-four, and were distinguished from the 250s by their finned water jackets and the 180 degree placement of their Ladepumpe cylinders. A SS 350, which was virtually identical to the works UL machines, was offered to the public and sold in limited numbers.

ULd 250 Image Source

ULd 250 Image Source

It was the 250 ULd that served as the mount for one of DKW's most famous victories at the 1938 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. It was not the first time the Deeks had been fielded at the venerable TT; the factory had been participating with their supercharged machines since 1935, and had taken third place in the 250cc Lightweight category in 1936 and 1937. The DKW team was a formidable force, one of the best organized works efforts at the time with a racing department that exceeded 100 staff members. It was no secret that the DKW team was part of the Nazi push to dominate motorsports across the continent, a pet project of Hitler and the Nazi party to prove the supremacy of German technology in every category. Riders and team members often held positions in the National Socialist Motor Corps (Nationalsozialistische Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK), a curious offshoot of the Sturmabteilung that endured after the SA was violently purged in 1934. The NSKK was ostensibly a paramilitary organization, but was comparable to a motoring advocacy and training group in terms of its mandate. Imagine the AAA with a quasi-military structure and questionable political affiliations and a tank driver training program.

Ewald Kluge at the 1938 Isle of Man TT Image Source

In 1938 the DKW team returned to the Isle of Man with 29 year old Saxon rider Ewald Kluge, a fast rising star in the continental racing circuit who was on his way to becoming one of the top riders in Europe. Kluge meteoric rise was all the more surprising given his humble background and relatively recent entrance into motorsport. Kluge had endured a difficult childhood and the loss of his mother at a young age. He had a keen interest in two- and four-wheeled machines that he inherited from his father, and apprenticed with an automobile mechanic. Unfortunately his apprenticeship coincided with the severe German economic downturn and inflation of the 1920s, which forced Kluge into a career as a taxi driver in Dresden. He scrimped and saved for years before purchasing his first racing motorcycle in 1929, a British-built Dunelt single. Success came quickly for the young rider and by 1934 he had been hired by DKW was a race mechanic and back-up rider. His success with the DKW team began in 1935, when he rode with the DKW team at the International Six Days Trial and helped earn the German effort the top team prize of the event. Kluge was known for his smooth, precise and fast riding style that earned him the enviable nickname of “Panther”. From then on he was a formidable competitor in the German racing scene, joining the works DKW team in 1936 and dominating the German 250cc championship for the following four years.    

Kluge on the ULd 250 at the 1938 TT Image Source

Kluge made his TT debut at the 1937 event riding a factory-backed 250 URe. He performed well, leading the Lightweight category for a period, but faced stiff competition from the Italian contingent. When a broken throttle cable sidelined Kluge, Moto-Guzzi rider Omobono Tenni became the first Continental European rider to win the Lightweight TT, 37 seconds ahead of the second place finisher Stanley Woods.

Auto-Union DKW record machine Image Source

In October of 1937 Auto Union prepared several modified, alcohol-burning versions of the URe singles and twins to contest several speed records. Kluge and teammate Walfried Winkler rode the highly tuned machines: the 250 produced 49 hp, while the 350 shrieked out 60 hp. Special streamlined helmets and highly aerodynamic fairings were employed, the most impressive being a “sidecar” (minus the passenger accommodations) that featured a fully faired closed canopy. Speed runs were held on a stretch of autobahn between Frankfurt and Darmstadt, where Auto Union secured 14 class records with their alcohol-fueled DKWs.

Auto-Union DKW solo streamliner Image Source

In 1938 Kluge and DKW returned to the Isle of Man with the new rotary-valve 250 ULd. Kluge set a commanding lead in the event, the thundering crackle of his megaphone-equipped machine becoming the stuff of legend – even today the Ladepumpe DKWs are remembered as some of the loudest machines to ever turn a wheel at the TT, and their staggeringly loud exhaust note could be heard some 10 miles away. In the decades since the 1938 event those pummelling exhaust pulses have been exaggerated somewhat - at some point over the years 10 miles became 20, then 30, 40, maybe 100 miles, the distance growing with each subsequent pint. Some grizzled old veterans share tall tales claiming the racket emanating from the German steeds could be heard clear across the Irish Sea on the British mainland. Whatever the reality, the Ladepumpe Deeks were spectacularly goddamned loud and still shatter eardrums around the world when the machines are dusted off and paraded around at classic events.



Despite some spectacularly terrible fuel consumption (to the tune of around 15 miles to the gallon) and the associated fuel stops, the ULd dominated the field and Kluge won the Lightweight TT with a staggering eleven minute lead over the second place finisher, with a total time of 3 hours, 21 minutes and 56 seconds at an average speed of 78.48 miles per hour. He became the second continental European to win at the TT, and the victory became a feather in DKW's cap. Kluge would go on to win 12 of the 14 races he entered in 1938, taking second in the remaining two, making him the European 250cc champion. At the end of the season he earned the title “Champion of Champions”, an accolade only given to riders who earned the highest possible number of points in European events.  

ULd 250 Image Source

DKW's moment of glory in 1938 would quickly become overshadowed by the events of the following year at the so-called “Nazi TT” when state-sponsored German teams arrived on the Isle displaying none-too-subtle support for Hitler's government and a mandate of conquering the Manx event to showcase the supremacy of German motorsports efforts. The German contingent, represented by entries from BMW, DKW and NSU, would turn the 1939 TT into a political event that would leave a bad taste in the mouth of many who were involved. German riders had Nazi standards sewn onto their black leather outfits. Well-connected Nazi party faithful were present. The NSKK was in control of the scene, orchestrated by the organization's leader Erwin Kraus.

URe 250 Image Source

During the leadup to the 1939 TT there was some heated wrangling playing out behind the scenes. George Brown, a Manx newspaper editor and BBC race commentator, was fired from his BBC post (supposedly following a complaint filed by Kraus to the BBC) after Brown had prophetically declared “Of course we don't want German or Italian riders to win and still less do we desire a victory for a British rider using a German of Italian machine… There is more than a chance that the countries these famous British riders represent will be at war with Britain before the year is out.”

DKW UL 600 racing sidecar Image Source

It's not that surprising that in the decades since the Nazi TT (the nickname itself a derisive jab that downplays the entire event and the accomplishments of all involved) the British have developed a revisionist view of the event and the people who came to the Isle that June. This can take the form of trivialization or snide derision. The riders became sinister figures, described by one MCN summary as “stormtroopers in a paramilitary organisation run by the Nazi party” - that organization being the NSKK, the stormtrooper jab referring to the junior rank of the Corps (Sturmmann). The same summary refers to Ewald Kluge as an “assault leader”, referring to his rank as a mid-level lieutenant (Sturmführer) in the NSKK.* Much like any other scenario involving Nazi-era Germans exaggeration runs rampant and biases are reinforced by subsequent events in history. Revisionism is the rule rather than the exception. The German teams are dismissed as nothing more than dirty rotten Nazis who spoiled the TT for everyone.

US 250 Image Source

DKW continued to refine their supercharged machines for 1939. The ultimate evolution of the company's forced-induction split-single formula were the 250 and 350 US, which dispensed with the Ladepumpe in favour of a centrifugal supercharger mounted in front of the engine feeding pressurized mixture into the crankcases. Power was now up to 40 hp at 7000 rpm for the 250, 48 hp for the 350.

US 250 Image Source

Despite the death of BMW rider Karl Gall during practice, the German teams forged ahead and BMW took first and second place at the Senior TT, the first overall TT victory by a non-British machine. DKW performed well in the smaller categories but failed to secure a win, their efforts ultimately overshadowed by the high-profile Senior victories. Ewald Kluge took second place in the Lightweight TT aboard the 250 US, finishing behind Benelli rider Ted Mellors. Siegfried Wünsche took fifth for the team in the same event, while British DKW rider Ernie Thomas placed eighth. Heiner Fleischmann took third and Wünsche sixth in the Junior category aboard their 350 USs.



Georg Meir, winner of the Senior TT on the formidable 500cc BMW RS 255 Kompressor, infamously gave a one-armed Nazi salute on the podium. It was a perfect piece of propaganda for Hitler's Germany, a victory at the highest level of European competition. Subsequent history turned the 1939 TT into an embarrassing episode that was hoisted high as an example of Nazi hubris. The final insult was the loss of the Manx trophies given to the Axis teams which would be spirited away and lost until the end of the war. After some sleuthing the Lightweight trophy given to Benelli was dug up from under a chicken coop in Pisaro, while the Senior trophy was seized from a BMW distributor in Soviet-held Vienna.

UL 600 Sidecar Image Source

Once the war was underway and competition had been suspended, DKW shelved their racing programme to focus on wartime production of NZ 350 and RT 125 models for the Wehrmacht, which would become popular among dispatch and reconnaissance riders as lighter and nimbler alternatives to the four-stroke BMW and Zundapp military motorcycles. DKW would be one of many German companies to use forced labour during the war - this included at least 500 Jewish women taken from Auschwitz, most of whom did not survive a supposed “evacuation” attempt in open railcars following an Allied bombing raid of the worker's barracks outside the Zschopau factory. Kluge would serve as a Unteroffizier in the Schule für Heeresmotorisierung (“school for army motorization”) in Wünsdorf before being released to work for Auto Union as a test driver in 1943.    

SS 350 Image Source

At the close of the war the Zschopau works was seized by Soviet forces. The entire factory was dismantled and transported into the Soviet Union, where it was reconstructed in Ishewsk. An attempt to revive the DKW factory by a worker's collective in 1946 failed and the remains of the factory were converted to production of IFA automobiles and motorcycles by the Soviet leadership, eventually becoming the site of MZ motorcycle production. The operation was referred to as the Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau Werk-DKW until 1951, when the DKW moniker was dropped.

The 250cc IFA-DKW/ Kurt Kuhnke KS-1 supercharged opposed-piston machine Image Source

The interwar DKW racing department, the surviving works machines, the tooling, and the records were seized and effectively disappeared into the maw of the Soviet Union – it is at this point that the history of DKW's supercharged machines becomes extremely murky. There were apparently a centrifugally-supercharged opposed-piston twin-cylinder racer in development before was broke out in 1939. This remarkable machine would have been an evolution of the 250/350 US, but details on this design and the fate of any prototypes are scant. Only a few sketches and photos remain. The design featuring twin cylinders with four pistons and geared-together dual crankshafts. Once the Soviets had discovered the plans for these "Gegenläufer" twins, they set about developing the concept and producing several prototypes. From 1946 to 1949 one 250cc and four 350cc machines were built. IFA-DKW engineers Kurt Bang and Karl Kluge, under the supervision of former DKW race department engineer August Prüssing, were tasked with developing the engine. The IFA-built machines were lost to history after being transported into the Soviet Union, never to be seen again... But one 250cc engine was secretly spirited to the West by racer Kurt Kuhnke and installed in an interwar DKW chassis. That particular motorcycle, dubbed the Kuhnke Sport 1 (KS-1) was raced in Germany until the 1951 ban on supercharged machines, at which point it disappeared for several decades. It was eventually recovered and restored in 1991, at which point it produced a remarkable 55 hp at 8500 rpm. Today the KS-1 resides in the Augustusburg Castle Motorcycle Museum in Augustusburg, Germany.

IFA-DKW opposed-piston two-stroke Image Source

IFA-DKW opposed piston machine. Note that the engine is laid out transversely ala BMW in the IFA design while it was mounted longitudinally in the KS-1 Image Source

Ewald Kluge was arrested by Soviet forces in 1946 and charged as a Nazi, an accusation reinforced by his party membership since 1937, his ties to the NSKK, and his service at the Wünsdorf motor school. He would be imprisoned in the infamous NKVD Special Camp No. 1 near Mühlberg, setup in the formerly German Stalag IV-B prisoner of war camp.

DKW, along with the surviving elements of Auto Union, relocated to Ingolstadt in West Germany. It was there that Auto Union GmbH was formed in 1947, initially servicing military vehicles and producing spares for pre-war machines. The first DKW machine to re-enter production following the war was the humble RT 125.

URe 250 Image Source

In the austere environment of post-war Germany the simple, cheap and rugged RT became a smash hit. While DKW was producing their RT 125W (“West”) in Ingolstadt, IFA began producing their own RT 125 in Zschopau in 1948. Repatriation agreements following the war led to the design of the RT being produced by numerous companies around the world, including numerous Soviet copies that were being produced in Kovrov (called the K-125), Moscow (M1A Moskva) and Warsaw (SHL 125). Copies were made in the West by BSA (Bantam) and Harley-Davidson (Hummer). The RT was even reverse-engineered and put into production by a certain Japanese musical instrument company in Hamamatsu in 1955 – the YA-1 would be the first product of the Yamaha Motor Company. The RT would prove to be one of the most copied motorcycles of all time, and the machine that would establish Schnürle porting as the prototypical two-stroke design.

SS 350 Image Source

Motorcycle racing restarted in Germany shortly after the end of the war, and interwar racing machines experienced a short renaissance while German companies regained their footing. In 1946 the FIM banned supercharging in motorcycle racing, but in the immediate postwar period Germany operated independently of the FIM with its own set of motorsports regulations that retained the interwar rules. While many of the works DKW machines were lost forever, be it due to destruction of war or their being whisked away into the vast expanses of the USSR, a few survived and were re-entered into competition after 1945. Ewald Kluge was freed by the Soviets in 1949 and immediately returned to racing as a way of making a living in the difficult postwar era, rejoining the Auto-Union team in 1950. He raced Auto-Union liveried DKWs for several years until a crash at a 350 race held at the Nurburgring in 1953 left him seriously injured. He retired from racing after the accident, and passed away due to cancer in 1964 at age 55.  

URe 250 Image Source

Germany was re-admitted into the FIM in 1951 and thereafter supercharged machines became a relic of an earlier era, never again to be fielded in official competition. DKW renewed their racing program with naturally-aspirated two-strokes, including some well-developed RT 125 racers and a successful series of air-cooled 250 twins and 350 triples. While the Schnürle-ported “Singing Saw” two-strokes were competitive machines by the mid 1950s and eventually eclipsed the specific outputs of their supercharged predecessors, they simply couldn't hold a candle to the technology offered by the remarkable interwar machines. The DKW racing programme would come to an end after the 1956 season. By the end of the 1960s DKW would be no more, its respective motorcycle and automobile arms absorbed, bought out, and merged into oblivion.

SS 250

As the decades pass the accomplishments of the DKW racing department are becoming progressively forgotten and memories of their work increasingly hazy. DKW and the German riders of the interwar period have become the victims of history, their accomplishments tainted by their association with the Nazi push to dominate motorsports competition during the 1930s. The destruction of the war and the subsequent plundering of the DKW factory have all but erased the mark of their once dominant supercharged two-strokes from racing history. The technical details of these singular machines are becoming misunderstood and misrepresented as the decades roll on, making the preservation of their heritage increasingly difficult. The Volkswagen Audi Group has attempted to preserve their Auto-Union heritage by restoring and maintaining several of interwar DKWs, remanufacturing spares to keep these exceptional motorcycles running for future generations to appreciate. While their efforts are admirable, they are insignificant in the face of decades of neglect, or the deliberate ignorance of those who prefer to trivialize the accomplishments of the Nazi-era German marques. Audi's attempts at preserving their company history is overwhelmed by many years of inertia, and glosses over many of the important (and sometimes unpleasant) details. The DKW Ladepumpe and supercharged split-single two-strokes were some of the most fascinating and technologically advanced motorcycles of their era, and despite their once-dominant position on the European racing stage they are slowly being forgotten.

DKW supercharged engine layouts: 1. URe 250 2. ULd 3. SS 350 and URe 350 4. SS 250 5. US 6. Kurt Bang's opposed-piston prototype Image Source

Editor's Note: This topic has been, without a doubt, one of the most difficult subjects I've researched for OddBike to date. The details about the interwar DKWs are scant, convoluted, vague, contradictory, and generally properly screwed up. Even the best sources I was able to find were so full of holes that I had to carefully patch together a rough timeline and technical history to try and make sense of the development of these machines. I mention this because I am certain that I am getting some of these details wrong, and I welcome anyone who knows better to please share their knowledge. I'd like my humble attempt at preserving and sharing the history of these machines to be the impetus to dig up some additional information and correct years of misinformation. If you have anything to share, be it fact or conjecture, please feel free to leave your comments below.        

Leo Steinweg on his ORe 250 Image Source

*The same MCN summary refers to Jewish racer Leo Steinweg as a DKW rider who was forced out of Germany in favour of “Aryan” riders, flippantly reducing him into a footnote used to paint DKW in a negative light. I felt I should add some further details to do Steinweg some justice:

Leo Steinweg started riding for DKW in 1924 on the ARE and ORE series of machines, and ran a motorcycle and bicycle repair shop in Münster. His racing career ended in 1934 when the renewal of his racing license required proof of Aryan heritage – Jews were barred from renewing, a ban which was extended to all driver's licenses and vehicle registrations in 1938. Steinweg fled to the Netherlands in 1938 and lived in hiding with his Catholic wife Emmy Herzog until 1942, when he was captured and sent to a series of concentration camps, including Auschwitz. He died in Flossenburg in early 1945. Emmy Herzog survived the war and published a memoir of her life with Steinweg in 2004.

Interesting Links
Bonhams auction of a US 250 ridden by Kurt Kuhnke
Sale of a 1936 DKW SS250 that is claimed to have been one of Kluge's practice machines
Phil Aynsley's photos of the 1936 Kluge SS250
Motorrad Online profile of the SS 250 and 350
"Rosie" the SS 350 on The Vintagent
Audi profile of Ewald Kluge
Ed Youngblood's Motohistory featuring lots of useful info about German two strokes and supercharged DKWs
Mick Walker's European Racing Motorcycles
Mick Walker's German Racing Motorcycles
Mick Walker's MZ