Seeing as how I've recently been dealing with a particularly hardy case of writer's block and a few stalled articles, it is probably an appropriate time to delve into one of my trademark in-depth reflections on my somewhat unexciting existence. Yes, it's time for another rambling editorial here on OddBike, at least until I can clear the fog out of my head and start writing meaningful profiles of weird motorcycles again.

As some of my loyal readers will note (those who slogged through my epic USA Tour Travelogue, anyway) I recently announced my intention to bugger off and pack my ass off to Calgary, where I would start my life anew with a post in the motorcycle industry. I did indeed follow through on my threat, and this major moment of transition is what has kept me tied up and limited in my writing capacity in recent months. On reflection it seems a good opportunity to look back on how things have evolved in my life, and how OddBike has grown in the previous year. It was, as really loyal readers will note, the one year anniversary of this site in November 2013, so it seems appropriate to take this belated opportunity to address the development of this here experiment in quote unquote "motorcycle journalism".





At the close of the USA Tour I was filled with an intense wanderlust, a deep longing for a measure of instability in my otherwise dull and routine existence. This was a desire that wasn't satisfied with a few weeks spent on the road, however memorable those weeks may have been. With winter upon me and the Ducati tucked away in the garage, I was desperate to escape, my life turned upside down by the revelation that an entire world was open to me if only I took the opportunity to break away from my dreary and repetitive life. I lived in one of the most vibrant and culturally interesting cities in North America and I felt completely stifled. I was going nowhere, I was doing nothing, my friendships were fairweather and superficial, my career was sliding into miserable repetition, and all around petty politics were conspiring against my personal well-being. I was becoming a shy and withdrawn creature of habit, an inner-city variation on the dull suburbanite existence I despised so much. I felt trapped and I needed to do something about it.


I fielded several wishy-washy job offers from numerous motorcycle related businesses in Calgary. I had no real concrete offers in hand, just a few vague promises and some maddeningly tantalizing “come see us when you are in Alberta” statements. For any sane and rational person it was nothing worth giving up a stable job to pursue, particularly when it involved moving to the other side of the country.

I am not a sane or rational person.

I gave notice at work and started giving away my furniture. I financed a used car and bought a motorcycle trailer. I arranged a sublet in my apartment to take care of the remaining months of my ironclad lease. The announcement that I was giving up my life in Montreal to resettle out West was met with shock from my friends and family, usually followed by a verbal pat on the back for making the effort to move forward with my life. Even my boss of three years was understanding after the initial shock of my resignation passed – he knew well enough that Quebec wasn't the place for me, and that I would have more opportunity to grow in Alberta.

Most people seemed to assume my move was for economic reasons, to pursue the almighty dollar in Canada's oil-rich heartland. Truth is I chose Alberta because it offered the greatest degree of personal freedom, jobs were easy to come by, and my best friend had moved there the previous year. It didn't hurt that it was something new and unknown, far away from anything I had experienced before: I'd never been west of the Great Lakes. What better way to see the rest of the continent than to pack your shit into a car and drive out there? It would be a shift that would herald the beginning of a new attitude and a new stage of my life.        

On January 3rd I hitched a trailer carrying my Ducati to a Civic loaded to capacity with my most prized possessions and set out across the country to restart my life 2500 miles away.


This wasn't the first time I'd given up my existing life to reset the clocks. I've often found myself in these moments of renewal, usually following a period of intense soul-searching spurred on by either some trauma or my constant fear of complacency. My time on Earth has been a string of compartmentalized lives, a series of personalities developed and then abandoned in the process of self-improvement. I've struggled with my personal demons and social anxieties since I was a child, and I often found that when all else failed the best recourse was to stop, cut the ties that were holding me back, and start things over. It was often as much about rebuilding my psyche in a new environment, free of pretensions, as it was about escaping my real or imagined failures. Dramatic move aside, Calgary was just the latest reset: a place where there was no reputation preceding me, no skeletons from my past to haunt me. It was an opportunity to remake myself once again, and add another layer to my personality as I shed another life.


I was brimming with confidence and bravado, the uncertainty of my resettlement relieved by the prospect of a clean slate awaiting me in Alberta. I was filled with a happy anxiety, a sense of anticipation for the promise of the unknown. As I eased the car out of my Montreal garage for the last time, I felt alive once again.    


I drove across Quebec and Ontario and then crossed into the United States for the majority of the journey, bypassing the treacherous Northern Ontario route in favour of the clean highways and cheap gas south of the border. I passed through Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, and then crossed into Alberta. Aside from the withering Midwestern cold and some icy roads my journey was uneventful and refreshing, a good chance to ease my mind of the stress of the chaotic transition. The soothing act of being on the road and the uncertainty of tomorrow's destination is something I've always loved but rarely had the opportunity to exercise, given the realities of being a lower middle class retail lackey with more debts than assets. I was anxious to get to Calgary, but I didn't want my journey to end. I wanted to keep driving until I ran out of road.      


I recently stumbled onto the latest travelogue by Dennis Matson, aka Antihero. As you might recall I met Dennis in Montreal on the northernmost stop of his more-or-less unplanned 15,000 mile adventure by Ducati Panigale across the USA and Canada. More recently Dennis has been riding along the West Coast of the United States and publishing his usual brilliant musings when he dropped this magnificent bit of insight:


Then at some point in the travelogue this picture of Peter, a Dutch rider passing through the Pamir mountains in Central Asia, was shared:

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I experienced a minor crisis after reading those words and seeing a photo of a man who could only be me in a parallel universe where I lived a far more adventurous life (while maintaining my masochistic penchant for using the most inappropriate Italian machinery for the job). I had kindred spirits across the globe and their actions were beckoning me to join in their maintenance of glorious chaos, where tomorrow remains an unknown and that's the whole point. The weight of my sedentary life slammed into me with all the force that only a twentysomething's existential dread can conjure up. I desperately desired the ability to let go and simply ride wherever the wind took me without any regard for my future. The idea was now firmly planted in my mind and my desire to ride aimlessly was renewed in a most terrible way.    


Reality and financial obligations intervened before I was able to have a breakdown and take off for the horizon.


I was now in an unfamiliar city with only the contents of a car to my name. I was fortunate to have a place to crash at my best friend's house in the city, until his girlfriend revealed in no uncertain terms that I was to get the fuck out at the soonest opportunity. Tensions were high and I was forced into panic mode to find an apartment and settle into a job. My fantasies of escaping my obligations were promptly curtailed by the slightly hostile environment I found myself in. I was being pressured to get out, my lack of funds and omnipresent debt threatening to bankrupt me, and I was in a strange city with no income and few contacts.
 

After canvassing a few potential posts, I accepted an offer to work a parts counter at a large dealership in Calgary. Nothing exceptional or exciting, nothing noteworthy and groundbreaking - certainly nothing that was worth moving across the country for. It is a job. I have the good fortune of working with an excellent group of people and I'm in an environment where I can meet passionate motorcyclists on a daily basis, but the work itself is just another position in just another company for just another middling paycheque – it is a post that offers nothing more in the way of personal fulfilment than any other job I've had. It is an anticlimactic result to my dramatic attempt at renewal but one that was necessary given the circumstances and my fear of spending any amount of time in a state of unemployment.


I recalled some advice JT Nesbitt's had given me prior to my move. He assured me that I had no need to impress anyone by taking a job in the motorcycle industry, noting that I was “already there” with my work on OddBike. He had a point, one that was quickly dawning on me as I settled into yet another safe but unfulfiling stage in my life. JT was referencing his concept of the Bohemian “secret life”, where you accomplish greatness on your own terms, on your own time, outside of your daily grind. He's a man who would be content tending bar as long as he was able to fulfil his true aspirations in his free time - it is a reality he lived for most of his life, his tenure at Confederate and his work with the ADMCi excepted. It isn't cynical or defeatist, it's just a realistic view of the world and an attempt to reconcile one's talent with the reality of existence. The fantasy of the dream career born of passion and sustained by your shining talent is admirable, but barely tenable in the real world. If you hold our passions up and demand to be paid and recognized for your talents, you are corrupting the purity of your accomplishments and risk sliding into the realm of the mundane – a passion can quickly become drudgery if you do it for a paycheque. I can think of few good examples of this, none of which I will share outside of a conversation over a beer lest I alienate some potential future contacts.


Not everyone agrees with this sentiment, and I've been told as much by some who wish a degree of success upon me, but the fact remains I am an ordinary person in an ordinary life and I deserve nothing. I feel that this is the best way for me to operate. OddBike is my creative outlet, my diversion and evidence of my ongoing education – it isn't about making money or catching the attention of some benefactor who will swoop in and save me from my dull existence with a big fat cheque and promise of greatness. I write simply because I enjoy it and because I appreciate weird motorcycles. Somehow that ideal seems incompatible with writing as a career, or at least it would seem that way if you read the drivel being published by “professional” motorcycle journalists who just shovel shit onto the page to meet a deadline.


Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I could make money with my writing without compromising my ideals or losing my drive. Won't know 'till it happens, I guess. In the meantime this seems an appropriate moment to reflect on how OddBike has developed over the previous year.

I began this site without any real direction or modus operandi. I just found unusual motorcycles fascinating and I wanted to share my interest by writing about the strangest machines I had come across. I began by drawing up a master list of every odd motorcycle I could think of, pouring over the books and magazines I had littering my apartment for inspiration. I began with cursory research and simple articles written using the information that easily fell to hand, but soon my work became more involved and my investigations more in-depth. I developed my own style of telling a story that blended my background in history with my technical knowledge and my passion for bikes. I began contacting designers and owners for more information and ended up conducting impromptu interviews in my own strange way - this usually involved doing the research first, writing the article until I hit a blank spot or vague area, then seeking out the truth from the source. Before publishing I always submit a draft to my interviewees for fact checking, something I doubt most journalists bother doing (I suspect there is some rule against it to maintain objectivity, or some such nonsense).


Soon I noticed that many existing articles were filled with factual errors, contradictions, and outright bullshit - so I stepped up my research to reconcile these details and tell the correct story. What started as a series of rambling little blog posts became an exercise in straightening out the history of these machines.

As time went on, the process became increasingly involved and my subjects increasingly obscure, which has meant a significant slowing of my output. While I used to be able to hammer out an article once a week, I now need at least a month to properly research and edit a full length article. Quality over quantity, or something like that. Keep that in mind if you are breathlessly waiting for me to churn out an endless series of articles.

Throughout my process I have maintained a degree of levity, honesty and opinion to keep things interesting. I write like I think – my thought process is manic, obsessive, and constantly flitting off on tangents. I think this personal touch and erratic writing style is what makes my work unique and appealing, but it is also what puts me at odds with “traditional” journalism. My lack of formal training keeping me within the arbitrarily determined borderlines probably doesn't help. Not that traditional journalism is any more impartial or accurate than what I do – it simply puts on pretences of integrity and objectivity while continuing to fuck everything up.



The response I've gotten from OddBike readers has been completely unexpected and absolutely wonderful. I'm always stunned to get positive feedback from my followers, because I still treat OddBike as my own little fiefdom where I am effectively talking to myself and learning about cool motorcycles along the way. I sometimes forget other people are actually reading this stuff. There is a reason I refer to myself as OddBike's benevolent dictator, stealing a phrase from one of my university political science professors.

In spite of this subjective angle to my work, I've received fantastic words of encouragement and praise from all over the world as well as some really fascinating information and anecdotes about the machines I cover (and some great ideas for future articles). This feedback is what drives me to continue doing what I'm doing. Without it I probably would have let the site wither on the vine many months ago. The knowledge that people care about what I'm doing and are interested in what I have to say has kept me going and continues to inspire me.



I've been stunned by the fact that I have somehow become an authority on the subjects I've covered. I constantly monitor the sources of my site's traffic to see who is reading my work and what they have to say about it. I'm always happy to see that forumites share my articles and these average folks start discussing otherwise completely obscure machines that they hadn't heard about until they stumbled onto my article. Sometimes they show great appreciation for my work and these weird motorcycles, other times they are snide assholes who put down my writing and turn up their noses at these unconventional bikes. In either case I'm pleased that my work has started discussions all over the world and maybe even saved a few topics from complete obscurity. I had no intentions for this to happen, but I'm extremely happy that it has turned out this way – I love weird motorcycles, and I am glad that my work has inspired people to take an interest in these otherwise under-appreciated contraptions.



This position of “authority” on these subjects can also be scary. The first time I discovered I was being cited as a source on Wikipedia inspired a moment of simultaneous joy and terror. The terror comes from the fact that I don't consider myself an expert by any stretch and my work certainly isn't perfect or free of errors. The reality that I'm gradually becoming a trusted source of information is a daunting prospect, but one that drives me to do better work. Hence why I'm putting much more effort into my research and fact checking. I won't be publishing as many articles in 2014, but you can be assured what I do come up with will be far more accurate and more in depth than anything I've published up to now. And when all else fails I'm happy to issue corrections, provided someone out there is willing and capable of pointing out my mistakes. I aim for accuracy and balance in my work, even if it sometimes comes off as opinionated and subjective.
 
All that to say: a happy belated first anniversary to OddBike, I never expected it to go this far.



Speaking about life as much as about motorcycles, as I grow older and the more I learn, the dumber I feel. I have the sense that as I build my knowledge, I am moving towards the edge of a massive precipice overlooking an endless plain. The plain below is the sum of what I don't know and what I have not experienced. It is beautiful and awe inspiring but threatens to overwhelm me. As I learn more I feel less intelligent because I am increasingly aware of the scope of my ignorance. It is a bit frightening, but if I can control my descent into this landscape I have the possibility of learning more and developing myself as a person and as a writer.

The tempting prospect of travelling and experiencing the world on the back of a motorcycle also inspires an overwhelming sense of inadequacy in the face of what I haven't yet been able to do. Since finishing the USA Tour in October the gravity of the trip has been weighing heavily on my mind and I've been mulling over what will constitute the OddBike USA Tour Part II. Seeing how my first adventure was along the East coast, and I've now moved to the opposite side of the country, it is only natural that I'd head West through the Rockies and then down the Pacific Coast Highway until I hit the Mexican border. After that it is a nice straight route back up north through Nevada and Utah... Where the Bonneville Salt Flats just so happen to be right along my imagined route. So a stop at Speed Week would be in order. Given that I am unable to book enough time off work to accomplish this trip in 2014 (and I already have plans to visit the Barber Vintage Festival this October) I anticipate Part II will happen in fall 2015.

I have been eyeballing the local classifieds, scoping out the prospects of a second bike to use for the ambitious amount of touring duty I anticipate would be necessary to satisfy my insatiable wanderlust. This, of course, is an idle and desperate fantasy given my current financial situation. My desperation at my lack of funds was made worse when a clean, extremely low mileage Moto Guzzi V11 Le Mans was traded in at the shop and promptly dismissed as an Italian piece of junk by the staff, its presence seen as nothing more than a blight on the inventory list. I desperately wanted to rescue it from its unappreciative captors, to release it from its neglect in the backlot. It begged to be ridden. It would be the perfect touring mount for a masochistic Italophile like myself.


Then I recalled that damned photo of Peter the Psychotic Dutchman riding through the Pamir mountains and I was struck by a pang of intense realization – I had to keep using the 916 for touring, and I had to use it for the next OddBike USA Tour. That bike is my signature and it is a part of my personality. If I did Part II on anything more rational it would take away the magic of the journey, and diminish some of the wonderful insanity of the whole endeavour. Showing up at an event 2000 miles from home on a comfy, long legged machine doesn't have quite the same impact as rolling in on a bug-addled, luggage laden, capital-S Superbike that has a reputation for crippling ergonomics, a cantankerous disposition, and nonexistent reliability. That thought of once again inspiring looks of disbelief from candy-assed riders south of the border makes me fiercely desire the arrival of warmer weather so I can blow out the cobwebs and start piling on the miles once again. I've established my own particular brand of insane touring and I should stick to it.

I still want that Guzzi in my garage though. It deserves a good home.  

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For the purpose of today's article I'm going to make a broad generalization: the cruiser is a relatively recent invention that was concocted in the boardrooms of at least one major manufacturer. There was once a time when Harley Davidsons and Indians were simply styled in the manner of their era and were just as susceptible to being stripped to their bare essentials and ridden in anger as anything coming out of Europe. Their styling was once current, their performance once competitive, their function never intended for weekend warriors escaping office drudgery in leather-clad road pageants. The overwrought modern cruiser and the carefully cultivated image of its riders were but a distant glimmer in the eye of a clever marketing maven.

It could have been different. It should have been different. The cruiser wasn't born in the boardrooms of Harley-Davidson in the 1980s. It was the product of a man with a singular vision, whose work would prove to be under appreciated and his skills as a remarkable designer and craftsman virtually forgotten. These prototypical cruisers weren't created by tacking tassels onto nostalgic throwback machines – they were an optimistic vision of the future welded out of steel tube and beaten out of sheet metal in Orley Raymond Courtney's workshop before being rolled out into an ignorant world in the mid-1930s, and once again in the early 1950s. Courtney's work was bold, innovative, and without peer in the United States, or anywhere else in the world. Above all, it was beautiful. And it is now virtually forgotten, his stunning and forward-thinking designs contributing to a future that never happened.

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Today we benefit (or, depending on your viewpoint, suffer) from a proliferation of increasingly specialized motorcycles tailored to specific functions. If you want to go slow and munch miles on the Interstate, you buy a cruiser. If you want to go fast, you buy a sport bike. If you want to go fast and ride more than 50 miles at a time, you buy a sport tourer. If you want to go fast and ride more than 50 miles at a time and pretend you can go offroad if you wanted to but you probably never will, you buy an adventure tourer. Categories are so prolific that each year we are introduced to a new type of machine that we never even knew we needed, until this shiny new “super-middleweight-naked-sport-standard-retro-street-tracker” hits the showrooms and we carve yet another useless and short-lived niche into the catalogues. Having a single motorcycle to do it all is a laughable exercise - and that niche of the do it all bike is well served by an impossibly large gamut of disparate machines built to suit every taste.  

It wasn't always so. Once upon a time you had a motor cycle, a simple formula served by simple contraptions: a machine with a frame, two wheels, and an engine stuck in the middle. This motorcycle could and would do anything you might ask of it – you could use it to commute to work, to cross the country, to pick up the groceries, to bounce through dirt trails, to compete in racing, to do pretty much everything you needed of it. It was a utilitarian transport that was adapted to the needs of the owner. Re-purposing a motorbike was just a matter of adding or shedding a few components. Add a sidecar and you have an economical family vehicle. Strip off the brightwork and hot up the motor and you can go earn some extra money flattracking at the fairgrounds. In these early decades motorcycles were blue-collar, utilitarian devices that were adapted to various duties as circumstances or desires dictated. The industry was a long way away from turning motorbikes into recreational vehicles for yuppies and adrenaline junkies like you and me.

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Orley Raymond Courtney was a motorcycle enthusiast who joined the sport during this period, a man who started riding when motorcycles were still crude and brutal devices that lacked specific purpose or any degree of refinement. Born in rural Indiana in 1895, Courtney developed a penchant for riding in his teenage years aboard a single-cylinder 1911 Indian. When he turned 21 he bought a 61 cubic inch 1916 V-twin Excelsior - apparently a three-speed Big Valve X. The Excelsior twin was marketed as “The Fastest Motorcycle Ever Built” - it was popular among law enforcement, it served as rapid transport for the American military overseas and in Mexico, and it was a formidable competitor on the legendary board track circuits. It won the 1916 Pikes Peak hillclimb with the fastest time overall, with a young rider by the name of Floyd Clymer (yes, that Clymer) at the helm. Courtney's choice of an Excelsior was perhaps not surprising for a young rider with visions of speed and excitement filling his head, and Courtney was known to dabble in the amateur racing of the day.

The Excelsior was a machine that fits well into our framework of a single motorcycle serving many purposes – daily rider, utility vehicle, high-performance racer. Lacking a certain degree of refinement, machines like the Excelsior could be a bit difficult to live with. It was the nature of motorcycling in these early decades, and Courtney began to lament that high-performance motorcycles such as these required the talent of a racer to ride properly.

Courtney was the prototypical American craftsman, a gifted builder with a blue collar upbringing and hands-on skills developed over years of manual labour. Courtney was a quiet genius in his own way, and his position in the world gave him a unique insight into the design of a motorcycle. He began his career as a labourer in a Jefferson Township glass works in his teens, progressing to power hammer operator at the Central Manufacturing Company in Connersville, Indiana in the mid-1910s. The Central Manufacturing Co. specialized in the production of automobile bodies for various domestic manufacturers, eventually becoming renowned for their work on the incomparable shapes of Auburn, Cord and Duesenberg automobiles. He would remain with the company into the 1920s, excepting a brief stint at the Nordyke & Marmon automobile company in Indianapolis in 1917, and a year of service in the US Army Air Corps in 1918.

At some point during the 1920s Courtney and his young family moved to Lansing, Michigan where he continued to ply his trade as metalworker for Oldsmobile and Kaiser-Frazer. It was during this period that he apparently helped develop some part of the styling of the 1933 Oldsmobile models, but the details of his exact contributions are frustratingly vague, his work lost in the vastness of General Motors' corporate history.

It was around this time that Courtney began to develop his idea of a comfortable, stylish and relaxed motorcycle, a refined and luxurious machine aimed at the average rider who wasn't interested in going fast. It would have to be a machine designed to be ridden for pleasure, something that hadn't been properly addressed by motorcycle manufacturers in Courtney's mind. Perhaps there were motorcycles out there that would have suited Courtney's ideal of a civilized machine that could be piloted without stress by an ordinary man, but fortunately for us he hadn't encountered such a machine during his life in the American Midwest.


Sometime in the early 1930s Courtney began to build his vision. He purchased a 1930 Henderson KJ Streamline four-cylinder, one of the ultimate examples of the early American “super bike”, a design lineage that was lost during the Great Depression when most of the great American marques succumbed to the economic downturn. These were smooth, fast and elegant machines featuring longitudinally mounted four-stroke, four-cylinder engines laid out in a manner introduced by Belgian manufacturer FN in 1905. Built to increasingly high standards and graceful styling, the American four culminated in beautiful and powerful machines like the Cleveland Tornado and the Ace (later Indian) Four. Austerity conspired against the success of these superlative (and complex) machines, leading to their gradually replacement by the simpler twin-cylinder machines that we now take for granted as the prototypically “American” motorcycle.


Henderson had been one of the pioneers of American four-cylinder motorcycles, introducing the first of their fours in 1911-12. The KJ that Courtney chose as the basis of his prototype was the penultimate evolution of the Henderson line, introduced in 1929 under the leadership of ex-Harley-Davidson engineer Arthur Constantine. The KJ featured a freshly reworked version of the venerable Henderson air-cooled four, with an inlet-over-exhaust head and a displacement of 1304cc via a 68.3mm bore and an 89mm stroke. Power was 40hp at 4000 rpm, enough to make the 440lb KJ a genuine 100 mph machine in an era when that sort of speed was rarified territory for any vehicle at any price. The “Streamline” moniker referred to the use of a teardrop-shaped fuel tank that straddled the backbone of the frame rather than sitting within it – it might seem like a half-hearted attempt at aerodynamic styling by our modern standards but it was a significant step forward at the time, and an aesthetic element that would be copied by numerous marques in the succeeding decades.

Hendersons had long been renowned for their speed and refinement, beating out Harley Davidson and Indian in production machine performance, if not always winning on the race track. This made Hendersons, particularly the final 45hp KL models of 1931, the darling of police forces across the United States and the holder of numerous speed and endurance records from the mid-1920s until the company was abruptly shuttered by parent company Schwinn in 1931. Despite a healthy backlog of orders on the books, management determined that the writing was on the wall for expensive motorcycles if the Depression was to continue, and with a few words and the stroke of a pen Henderson was no more.  

The KJ and its powerplant was a fine start to Courtney's ideal motorcycle, but it required a significant amount of reworking to satisfy his goal of building the ultimate cruising machine. Courtney's aim was to build a comfortable, smooth riding machine with ample suspension, easy handling, and adequate wind protection to shield the rider from the elements.

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The resulting machine was far beyond the sum of those basic tenets and a testament to the innovation and skill of Courtney as a mechanical craftsman. Courtney rebuild the chassis of the KJ to the point of it being unrecognizable. The central duplex cradle of the frame was unchanged, but front and rear ends were modified considerably. The leading-link springer fork of the Henderson was widened and the rake reduced. Long, wide handlebars with a integrated instrument panel extended rearward a considerable distance, set at nearly a 90-degree angle relative to the front fork. A massive, well sculpted solo seat was set as low as possible, riding directly on the frame. The rigid rear end of the KJ was ditched in favour of a unique swinging arm, suspended on a pair of coil springs and built using components liberated from the front suspension of an unidentified automobile.* Both ends were widened considerably to accommodate 10 inch wheels shod with balloon tires taken from aircraft landing gear to ensure a smooth, compliant ride. Hydraulic drum brakes were integrated into the tiny wheel hubs. The iconic teardrop fuel tank of the KJ was gone, replaced by a reshaped fuel cell that barely extended above the backbone of the frame.

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While the chassis was unique, the true highlight of Courtney's KJ was the astonishing bodywork. Hammered out of sheet steel by Courtney himself, the fully enclosed bodywork echoed the styling cues of some of the most radical automotive designs of the era. Many have noted that the curved vertical grille on the front was an unmistakable nod to the Chrysler Airflow, while at the rear a subtle boat tail shape tapered into a teardrop shape that echoed the Auburn Speedster. The awkward-looking balloon wheels were completely hidden beneath the streamlined and enclosed fenders, which were low enough to give the KJ the appearance of hovering across the ground. Teardrop spats at the four corners accentuated the effect of fluid speed. Fairings were integrated into the front fenders ahead of the large floorboards to shield the rider's legs from the wind. Wind protection was further enhanced by a curved windscreen mounted on top of the instrument panel. According to friends the machine was painted in a lustrous burgundy scheme - the exact colours are unknown, as it has been repainted several times since 1935, but several period photos show a two-tone scheme with a scruffy-looking lambskin seat. All told the incredible bodywork took nine months for Courtney to hammer out by hand.

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The overall aesthetic of Courtney's KJ was a product of the height of the Art Deco era, with soft curves and common-sense aerodynamic forms borrowed from the futuristic streamlined objects that would become touchstones for modern industrial design. The KJ was a design that hid the mechanical elements of the machine in favour of pure styling, the outer shell unconnected to the function of the machine below, predating (for good or ill) our current practice of hiding the oily bits beneath expansive fairings by several decades. The only hint that something mechanical lurked below the flowing bodywork was the kickstart lever poking through the left side of the fairing. Courtney's KJ owed some elements to the brief trend of fully-shrouded motorcycle designs of the 1920s, well represented by the French Majestic and the American Ner-A-Car, while eclipsing all of them in its beauty and the quality of its execution.

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The KJ was so cleanly style you might be tempted to think the elements were appropriated from the streamlined designs that were becoming popular in the mid-1930s. It certainly looked like the two-wheeled equivalent of the shapely automobiles and Streamline Moderne objects of the era. Attempts to relate Courtney's styling to the work of Raymond Loewy and other well-known 20th century industrial designers are inevitable. But there is one problem with that comparison –  Courtney's KJ, the product of a blue-collar Michigan metalworker, predated Loewy's best design work by several years.

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Courtney's work in manual trades and the automotive industry allowed him to approach the development of his motorcycles from a fresh perspective, unhindered by conservative notions of what was or was not acceptable in designing a two-wheeled machine. He had the mechanical aptitude to craft a machine from scratch, developing his own peculiar and fascinating chassis design. He had the creativity and metalworking skills to drape his creations in the shapes he envisioned, concerns of mass production be damned - and damned they were with the extremely complex, labour intensive, hand-formed bodywork of the KJ. Courtney came to the process of building a motorcycle like an outsider, tossing aside convention to build his machine the way that made sense to him. He had all the marks of a great designer, and he may well have become one had he lived in another era or had more favourable circumstances shine upon his creations.    

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Courtney filed a patent in July 1934 for the design of his bodywork and the associated support structure, with details of his unique suspension design included in the document. The KJ, however, was not to be the beginning of a production machine. It was a labour-intensive one-off, a personal exercise that fulfilled Courtney's desires. While Courtney's precise motivations for filing a patent aren't known, there is some evidence he hoped that his innovations might be adopted among mainstream motorcycle manufacturers. Unfortunately for Courtney there was not much demand for a complex, futuristic and highly unorthodox motorcycle body design at the height of the Great Depression.

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His second patent, filed in July 1940, was for a much more modest streamlined body that took the styling of the then-recently restyled Indian Chief to its logical conclusion. For that year Indian introduced the now-iconic skirted fenders that would forever be associated with the brand's big twin offerings (and countless cheesy imitators). Courtney took the idea and extended the skirting to encompass the entire wheel and suspension, front and rear, with aerodynamic spats flanking the skirts that echoed the soft shapes of his own KJ design, but in far more conservative and production-minded fashion. Shortly after, in 1941, he copyrighted the name “Courtney Aero Squadron”. It's been suggested that Courtney patented this “ornamental” design in the hopes that other companies would follow Indian's lead and have to reference his patent should they try to develop fully streamlined wheels, but unfortunately for him the trend didn't take off and the entry of the US into the Second World War would soon interrupt American motorcycle production.

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Courtney continued working for General Motors during the wartime period. Following a brief stint with REO in 1940 Courtney took a job at the Pontiac Motor Division, where he would help produce a variety of wartime components ranging from anti-aircraft guns, to truck engine blocks, to tank axles. Following the end of the war he went to Kaiser-Frazer to work in the company's pre-production body shop. Courtney's motorcycling ambitions were put on the back burner, his Aero Squadron project never progressing beyond the patent drawings. Despite this lack of progress, his enthusiasm for motorcycles never waivered. His KJ saw extensive daily use and was a familiar sight in his Michigan neighbourhood, racking up considerable mileage despite having awkward ergonomics, with far too little leg room for the average rider – this being an element that Courtney apparently failed to account for in his quest for the ideal cruising machine.

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Courtney left his post with Kaiser-Frazer to open an independent metalworking shop with his son, Ray William, in 1950. Courtney-Enterprise was opened in Pontiac, Michigan and offered general metalworking and bodywork services. The newly-independent father and son outfit now had the opportunity to return to Orley Ray's dream of building the ultimate cruising motorcycle, this time designed with series production in mind.

The new machine would refine Courtney's idea for a usable, comfortable machine by having a more conventional riding position, with provisions for a passenger, as well as modern bodywork that would be much easier to manufacture than the hand-beaten panels of the KJ. The suspension and frame would be of Courtney's own design, with power provided by off-the-shelf motors – in the case of the prototype, an unmodified 45 cubic inch, 40hp Indian Scout V-twin with three-speed gearbox.

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To provide the long and low proportions and ample seating Courtney desired, a unique chassis was developed for the new machine. A chromoly steel cradle supported the engine, with a horizontal backbone running beneath the rider and passenger seats. The steering head was set behind the handlebars and connected via a drag link to the unique front suspension, which was comprised of a wide U-shaped leading link fork suspended on a pair of progressively wound springs with a crude snubber damping system. The front subframe used a large diameter spine extending above the front wheel to support the steering mechanism and the internally-baffled fuel tank, which was hung over the front of the bike. Out back was a relatively conventional swinging arm suspension with dual shocks. Courtney used small diameter wheels with tall, supple tires, in this case 9x6.00 inch rims mounted with fat whitewall tires that appeared to have been yanked off the nearest pickup truck.

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As with the KJ, this new machine was styled unlike anything ever seen before (or since). The story, shared in a March 1953 Popular Science article, was that the styling came to Courtney in a dream in 1950, when after several months of fretting over the aesthetics of the machine he had a vision of a futuristic motorcycle gliding across a serene landscape. Upon waking up he sketched out the vision and this drawing was faithfully recreated to build his dream machine, which Courtney christened the “Enterprise”.  

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Where the KJ had been bulbous and smooth, the Enterprise was sharp, sleek and elegant. It was perfectly in tune with the aesthetics of the 1950s, with a hint of an optimistic vision of the future in its chrome-trimmed bodywork. There were cues from American consumer and automobile design, though executed in a far more elegant fashion than the average be-finned yank tank or atomic age toaster. The Enterprise looked like a late 1950s or early 1960s vision of the future, a two-wheeled interpretation of the jet-age styling that characterized that golden era of American automobile production - except it was unveiled to the public in 1952, well before sharp creases and slab sides became the norm in Detroit designs. The Enterprise was supposedly revealed at the Detroit Motorama in 1952, and brochures were prepared to announce the new company that were apparently intended to be handed out at the show. This is entirely plausible except for the fact that there was no Detroit Motorama held in 1952, so the true nature of the public unveiling is a bit murky.

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Once again Courtney proved to be well ahead of the design curve. As it was with the KJ, it is tempting to relate the Enterprise directly to some particular influence or a school of design. Just as it was unfair to compare the KJ to some Loewy-esque streamlined Art Deco refrigerator, so too is it unreasonable to simplify the Enterprise as an example of some greater design trend. It wasn't a cribbing Exner or Teague, who only came into their element years later, and it made Harley Earl's chrome-addled work look instantly dated. It was styled unlike anything else on wheels, never mind comparing it to the stodgy looking motorcycles of the era. The Enterprise was a truly unique and forward-thinking design that made contemporary vehicles look old fashioned. Hindsight sometimes clouds our appreciation of innovative design, where our current perspective causes us to lump a decade of progress into a single blanket category. It's also hard to believe that a ordinary man like Courtney could concoct something so pitch-perfect and forward thinking in his spare time with his son, so we fall into the trap of relating it to something bigger than Courtney and his vision, trying to explain away design as part of something that is better understood. The truth is there was nothing like it at the time and Courtney managed to hammer out something special that would embarrass a lot of the well-known designers of the era.

As on the Henderson the engine and wheels were fully enclosed by the bodywork, but this time the fairings were far simpler in their construction and far easier to produce. The panels were secured to a steel support structure with quick-release fasteners. The Indian twin was fully enclosed and fed cooling air through a pair of slatted inlets in the front fender, with only the shift lever and kickstart pedal poking through the fairings. A pair of saddle trunks were integrated into the rear fender spats. Full length floorboards ran between the fenders, with ample leg room for the driver and passenger who were positioned directly above the engine. The whole machine had an overall length of 112 inches and a 58 inch wheelbase, with a comfortably low 28 inch seat height. Weight was around 580 pounds, heavy for a motorcycle of the era but not nearly as porky as you'd expect given the fully enclosed sheet metal body and the complicated chassis.    

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The Enterprise was featured in several magazines including Popular Mechanics and Cycle, where Courtney revealed his desire to craft a stylish and comfortable cruiser for the everyman:

“ This wasn’t Ray Courtney’s first poke at convention. Being one of the gifted few who can not only pierce the veil of the future, but reach behind it and withdraw actual proof, Ray has purposely concentrated on one phase of cycling: that done by the pleasure rider. Asked why he had spent so much time and money on his latest ‘Enterprise,’ Ray, who has been saddle-bound since 1913, replied that he felt the pleas of the most important guy of all. ‘Average Joe Rider.’ Had long been drowned in the roar of racing machines and that it was about time that someone listened. ‘Anyone can ride for pleasure, but only a few have the talent to race.’ ”

The admirable concept of building a machine for the average rider was diminished somewhat by the price tag of the Enterprise. The cost of the hand-built prototype was quoted at an eye-watering $5,000, with built-to-order machines using customer-supplied engines available for a mere $2,500. To put these numbers into perspective a series of unfair comparisons are in order. A contemporary Vincent Rapide would have run you around 1,100$, a Black Lightning ringing in at $1,800 at the end of production in 1954. The average British machine would have been in the 400-700$ range and the big-twin offerings from Harley and Indian retailed for under $1,000. A flagship Cadillac Fleetwood 75 sedan was $5,360. At a price of $2,500 for the production version, plus the cost of the engine that you were expected to supply, the stately Enterprise was hardly going to fly off out of the showrooms.

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The price tag likely diminished the novelty of Courtney's accomplishments to the average reader, who wouldn't have paid attention to anything said after noting the obscene price tag. To make matters worse the articles specifically noted that Courtney's aim was to build a slow, serene cruiser, and Courtney himself admitted to never taking the machine over 65 mph – hardly the stuff that would make adrenaline junkies reach for their chequebook. Courtney wasn't in tune with the fast-developing cult of speed and the outlaw motorcycle culture that was taking hold in the US after the war, with cheap thrills on two wheels available to young men who craved excitement. He was a gentleman rider, and he would have scoffed at the scruffy hooligan “bikers” immortalized by American pop culture during the 1950s and 60s.

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Given the exorbitant sticker price and radical design it is not surprising that only three Enterprises were built before Courtney moved on to other projects. Aside from the Indian-engined prototype at least one BSA-powered machine was built around 1956 for Ray William, possibly using a 646cc A10 twin, but the whereabouts of this example remain unknown.

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While the BSA-engined Enterprise has been lost to history, the prototype appears to have lived an interesting life. Painted in aqua green and white, the original Enterprise became a fixture at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando, Florida, having been apparently sold to the Hard Rock by Courtney's family at some point in the 1980s or 1990s, the last family owner apparently having been one of Orley Ray's sons or grandsons. The motorcycle was exhibited as an alleged “James Dean” motorcycle, with an apocryphal story attached about it having been ridden by Dean in a scene filmed for Rebel Without a Cause that was left on the cutting room floor. With no photos or film to back up the claim, the story smacked of fanciful bullshit concocted by a fast-talking seller who likely also had a few Elvis Presley Harleys cluttering up his garage. Regardless of the reality the Enterprise was exhibited in the Hard Rock for several years and was immortalized by a Chinese-made enamel souvenir pin. It has since disappeared into one of the vast Hard Rock memorabilia warehouses, perhaps after the management decided that James Dean probably never straddled it and the novelty of a remarkably advanced and innovative American motorcycle wasn't enough to entertain tipsy patrons who came to eat overpriced burgers while oogling Jimmy Hendrix's underwear.**

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A second Indian-powered machine was built at some point, with revised bodywork that exposed the front wheel and the lower part of the engine. This machine also featured a radical chassis design, which was patented by Ray William and Orley Ray in 1956. The front wheel was held by a pair of L-shaped arms, with a similar design at the rear. These arms acted on a coilover monoshock, with steering controlled indirectly by a drag link attached to the base of the steering stem. The rear suspension was also a monoshock, with a cantilevered swingarm working a straight rate linkage, the base of the shock mounted above the rear wheel. A revised version of this suspension was patented in 1978, with a steeper rake on the rear suspension, a simplified direct steering design, and swingarm beams that could be unbolted at their midpoint to expedite wheel removal.

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Curiously, Orley Ray's grandson Rick (now deceased) claimed that only one Indian-engined machine was built, and that the other two Enterprises featured BSA mills. This is in spite of the fact that the Hard Rock machine is the well-documented Indian-powered prototype, while the second surviving example currently has an Indian motor installed, and the associated patent drawings for the revised suspension design depict a V-twin powerplant.

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This final suspension design was adapted to the second Indian machine that Courtney kept in his possession, along with the KJ, until his death in 1982. Both machines were then purchased by an acquaintance of Courtney's by the name of Ron Finch. Finch cared for the machines and kept them in as-purchased condition before selling them in the 1990s to Mike Gaglioti. Gaglioti moved the motorcycles to New York, eventually selling the pair to Frank Westfall in 2001.

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Westfall took possession of an intact and well-preserved Enterprise and a basket case that was once the KJ, as well as a collection of documents related to the machines from Courtney's estate. While the Enterprise was left in its original state, and is currently exhibited at the Northeast Classic Car Museum in Norwich, New York, the KJ was well beyond a sympathetic restoration and required a total rebuild. Westfall noted that the Henderson was well used, apparently ridden regularly by Courtney. He contracted Pat Murphy to perform a full restoration and the rebuild of several of the hand-crafted body panels, an enormous undertaking that took the better part of a year and nearly 700 hours of labour. Murphy noted that the craftsmanship exhibited by the KJ's bodywork was astonishing, and that it was no mean feat to recreate Courtney's work. The finished machine was painted a deep black and embellished with a few new details, including a leather saddle, fishtailed exhausts, and a mesh opening peeking into the engine bay, before being unveiled to the public at an Antique Motorcycle Club of America show in Rhinebeck, New York in 2010.

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Since the restoration was completed the KJ has earned accolades and disbelieving praise from all who have seen it. Most onlookers assumed the machine was a production motorcycle from a bygone age, or a long-lost concept produced by a manufacturer, or perhaps a modern custom built machine put together in recent years. Few realize that it was built by a single man in early 1930s, and that it features some fascinating chassis details beneath its shapely bodywork. Courtney's craftsmanship has earned a new following in the internet age, and a level of appreciation that he never experienced during his lifetime. Unfortunately this has lead to coverage of the KJ overshadowing Courtney's later work and his numerous patents. Worst of all is that the newfound attention has lead to ridiculous and demeaning comparisons to modern machines like the Victory Vision, as if Courtney's largely forgotten work somehow led to a modern Harley knockoff with goofy bodywork from a snowmobile company.

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Courtney's talents as a designer and craftsman deserve better than strained comparisons to modern production machines, and his concept for a stylish cruiser deserved a better fate than obscurity. Courtney was a man out of time, a gifted motorcycle builder who looked to a future that never occurred. The modern cruiser should have begun with the Courtney Enterprise, not with a series of contrived cookie-cutter behemoths inspired by rose-tinted nostalgia and sold with heavy-handed marketing. Like many forward-thinking backyard builders lacking the benefit of public recognition or manufacturer's support, Orley Raymond Courtney revolutionized motorcycle design without anyone ever knowing it.      

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*The current form of the KJ, described here, may not be the original design of the suspension. The patent filed in 1934 illustrates a very different layout that includes a unique leading-link front suspension apparently patterned on the geometry of the Henderson fork. The rear is a multilink sprung hub with unequal-length arms connecting the wheel to the frame, the lower arm only a few inches long. Whether the cantilevered suspension now found on the KJ is original to the machine or was modified at some point over the course of Courtney's ownership is unclear. In any case the design was (and is) unique and highly innovative considering the crude rear suspension designs of the time. 

** I sincerely hope I'm wrong and if anyone has evidence that James Dean ever planted his cheeks on the Enterprise I'd love to see it. I'd also appreciate some photos of the machine from when it was on display at the Hard Rock in Orlando if anyone has any leads.

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Interesting Links
Coachbuilt.com profile of Orley Ray Courtney
Ed Youngblood's Motohistory profile of Courtney's work
March 1953 Popular Science article featuring the Enterprise prototype
The KJ on display at the Frist Center for Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee
Knucklebusters' photo gallery of Courtney's Henderson KJ
Brief Hemmings profile of the Enterprise
Patent for a "Streamline motorcycle body", 1934
Patent for a "Design for. a motoecycle(sic)", 1940
Patent for a "Airplane wing construction", 1942
Patent for a "Cowl for a motorcycle front wheel or similar article", 1953
Patent for a "Motorcycle body", 1953
Patent for a "Motorcycle front wheel suspension and steering arrangement", 1956
Patent for a "Wheel suspension system for a vehicle", 1978

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Considering our recent inundation of overweight, overly-complicated, quasi-enduro hair shirts produced by every manufacturer and their Chinese knockoffs, you'd be forgiven if you were to think that the overwrought poseur offroader (sorry, “Adventure Tourer”) was a recent innovation. If you thought these “should-be-an-uncompetitive-road-bike-but-it's-a-class-leader-because-we-made-the-suspension-too-tall” machines that clutter up showrooms and spend most of their time outside the nearest Starbucks - or beached on logging road ditches by weekend warriors - were concocted by the marketing gurus of the motorcycling world who sought to add yet another saleable category to our ever-growing gamut of useless niches, you'd only be half right. The improbable off-roader has been around for decades, gradually evolving into the two-wheeled barges we enjoy today, and few of these fauxduros were as unusual as the V-twin mud pluggers that rolled out of the Moto Guzzi works in Mandello del Lario.

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The story of Moto Guzzi's off-road efforts begins in the mid-1980s, when the venerable Italian marque decided to take a stab at building a large trailie based around their new Lino Tonti-designed small block V-twin engines and frames. The decision to build a twin-cylinder off roader during this period wasn't pure happenstance or the product of some particularly good weed making the rounds in the design department – BMW had been cleaning up in the showrooms and in competition with their rugged Gelände/Straße series, introduced in 1980 with the R80G/S. The formula was as simple as it was weird – take a well-proven and rugged engine, strip away the cosmetic baubles, put on some long-travel suspension and skinny rims, and bam: a new category of on/off road machine that was neither fish nor fowl. It was too heavy and cumbersome to be a proper dirtbike, and too biased towards off-road riding to be a proper streetster, but somehow the combination just worked well as a do-it-all machine that could munch miles on the freeway and function well enough offroad to win the Paris-Dakar and the Baja. Against all odds BMW was fast developing a cult following for its unusual machine, powered by its perennial airhead boxer twin. And Guzzi, like many manufacturers, wanted a slice of the G/S success pie.

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The irony was that BMW claimed to be bucking the trend of increasingly specialized Asian machines by producing a deliberately mixed bag that would function well as an all-rounder. Faced with a slow slide into nostalgia-driven conservatism, and some rumours of the automotive side of the business shuttering the stagnant motorcycle division, something fresh was needed to kickstart sales. Using existing parts-bin bits - a slightly reworked R80/7 engine, a R65 frame, some R100/7 forks and brakes - was an expedient solution that would keep costs down. Despite the basic elements being standard BMW fare, the resulting G/S was unlike anything else on the market. BMW's answer to the proliferation of specialized niche machines was... to build a new specialized niche machine. And never mind that off-road oriented “scramblers” had been around for decades, even if they had never been runaway sales successes. Don't think too hard about that, you might piss off the copy writers in the BMW marketing department who have worked hard to build an image of iconoclastic and innovative success spearheaded by their goofy parts-bin-special boxer dirtbikes.
Regardless of the motivations behind the design, the G/S was a trendsetter and performed remarkably well offroad as well as on, spawning a new category and a series of imitators. Moto Guzzi was a little late to the G/S copycat party, but when they did put pen to paper they introduced a series of machines that were so brilliantly executed that nobody outside of the Guzzista forums remembers they ever existed.

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After decades of producing a line of well-regarded horizontal singles and a variety of small engines in various configurations, not to mention some stunning racing engines, Guzzi introduced their now iconic air-cooled transverse V-twin in the 1967 V7. Designed by Giulio Cesare Carcano, famed for his work on the legendary 500 V8, the twin was initially developed as a larger engine aimed at winning an Italian police motorcycle contract, some claiming it was intended for use in a three-wheeled military tractor. The rugged 90-degree overhead valve motor would prove to be one of the most enduring engine designs of all time, and would establish Moto Guzzi's unwavering commitment to the unusual engine layout, which (curiously) has always been viewed with far more consternation than the equally distinct BMW boxer. The Carcano engine became the genesis of what has become known as the “big block” Guzzi architecture, which has maintained the same basic layout into the 21st century: air cooling, one-piece crankcase, overhead valves actuated by pushrods, and a separate transmission with shaft final drive. The only aberration of the formula has been the eight-valve engines introduced in the Daytona series in the early 90s, featuring a belt-driven pair of high cams acting on short pushrods controlling four valves per cylinder. Current 8V models use a modified high-cam layout with chain-driven camshafts, but otherwise still retain the basic characteristics of the big block engines that have endured since 1967.

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The success of the big block formula continued until the mid-1970s, but despite the quality and performance of their V7 series Guzzi faced a waning market. Following a record year of sales in 1971 (which remains unsurpassed for the company) things began to slide downhill. Following yet another period of financial instability (name an Italian motorcycle company that hasn't, repeatedly), (in)famous industrialist Alejandro de Tomaso stepped in and purchased the ailing company in 1973, adding Guzzi parent company Società Esercizio Industrie Moto Meccaniche (SEIMM) and its assets to his stable of brands under the De Tomaso Industries Group, which included Benelli, Maserati, Innocenti, and his namesake automobile company.
Under de Tomaso's leadership Moto Guzzi focussed on the production of twin-cylinder machines, discontinuing production of the long-in-the-tooth Falcone horizontal singles in 1974. De Tomaso felt that a move into the middle range with a cheaper, smaller displacement offering would aid the faltering company. Engineer Lino Tonti was entrusted with creating a new machine that would fit the bill for a lighter, cost effective, more refined competitor which would aim to steal shares from the middleweight machines from Asia that were dominating the motorcycle market.

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Tonti was well versed in Guzzi twins, and had reworked Carcano's motor for the legendary V7 Sport in 1971, his revisions becoming the basis of all subsequent big block twins. He also introduced a new frame in the Sport, a stout backbone design that would serve as a template for most future Guzzi chassis designs into the 21st century. Tonti's solution for the new series of machines was to retain the transverse layout and 90-degree Vee, but miniaturize and lighten the package considerably, while improving efficiency and moving Guzzi into the midrange category with a smaller twin that would fill the gap in the line left by the now departed Falcone.

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Tonti's new “small block” engine debuted as the 45hp, 490cc, 74x57mm mill slotted into the new V50 unveiled in 1976, introduced alongside a downsized 346cc, 66x50.4mm Italian home-market displacement tax dodging version dubbed the V35. On the whole the new models shed a slightly obscene amount of weight compared to their bigger stablemates – there was over 100 lbs difference between the new small blocks and their big block counterparts. While sharing a general visual similarity to the big block motors, and retaining pushrod actuated valves and a separate transmission with shaft drive, the small block engine was an entirely new design, as was the straight-cut five-speed gearbox. Production initially began at the Mandello factory, moving to the Milan-based Innocenti automobile works (which was also part of de Tomaso's empire) in 1979 to increase production capacity of the Tonti twins.

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The new engine featured horizontally split crankcases, while the cylinder was of a Heron head layout with two valves per cylinder. More common in automobile engines than in motorcycles, Heron heads use a flat combustion chamber with vertical valves. The combustion chamber is carved into the crown of the piston, which is far easier to cast/machine into a complex shape than the cylinder head, reducing production costs. The Heron head was favoured by a select few motorcycle companies – aside from the small block Guzzis, the design was shared by the 72-degree air-cooled V-twins produced for many years by Moto Morini. It remains a hallmark of the modern small blocks, a lineage which persist in the current V7 range of throwbacks, which are never to be confused with or directly compared to the big block V7s of yore lest you incur the wrath of some grizzled Goose enthusiast who doesn't take kindly to bearded espresso-sucking Rocker rejects bastardizing the heritage of Mandello's historic machines aboard wheezy, emissions strangled small blocks.

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Fast forward to the mid-1980s, after BMW's G/S has taken the motorcycling world by Sturm and proved its critics very wrong by performing extremely well in the showrooms and on the trails. The new niche of the big road-based trailie has suddenly become an appealing formula to rival companies, and Moto Guzzi is no exception. At the 1981 Milan motorcycle show the company unveiled a prototype Tutto Strada machine based on the V50 which was in the vein of street scrambler motorcycles of the 1960s and 70s, but had not followed through with a production version. It wouldn't be until 1984 that someone in the Guzzi skunkworks eyed the V65, an upsized V50 that had been in production since 1982, and thought to themselves that could surely be turned into a dirtbike. A slight restyle, some taller suspension and a set of knobbly tires later the unholy Tutto Terreno 650 / 350 (also referred to as the V65 / V35 TT) was born.

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The TT shared the (admittedly very good) Tonti frame with the V65, which suspended the motor as a semi-stressed member. It retained the dual-shock suspension and swingarm of the V65, with the swingarm pivot supported by the transmission cases. The bodywork was squared off and given a distinctly 1980s off-road flair, with a thick foam seat, boxy high-mount exhaust, abbreviated nacelle around a rectangular headlamp, and a useless 14-litre fuel tank that would have been better suited to a motocrosser. The front suspension looked the part with lanky leading axle 42mm right-side-up Marzocchi forks and a 21 inch rim below a high mounted mudguard, but the rear looked like it had collapsed onto the 17 inch knobbly in a permanent squat. The 80x64mm 643cc motor was unchanged (or detuned slightly, depending on who you ask or what was on the shelf at the factory when final assembly came around) from the V65 donor, and produced something in the neighbourhood of 45-50hp at around 7000 rpm, decent performance from a small twin in a relatively lightweight machine that tipped the scales around 400lbs wet.

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The TT performed reasonably well, save for a few fatal flaws. The first was the worthless range offered by the weeny fuel tank, which limited the TT's appeal to globe-trotters or people who liked to ride further than the corner store. The second was the limited rear suspension travel which was hampered by the old-school dual shock setup and short swingarm from the V65. The third was a fragile final drive that wasn't suited to being pushed hard off the beaten track. The fourth was the utterly useless front brake, which might have been suitable for a featherweight off roader but not for a 400lb road bike masquerading as such. The fifth was the lack of support for the swingarm pivot, which led to a few instances of cracked transmission cases in hard use. The final nail in the coffin was the typical bugbears of anything slapped together by Italians: iffy quality control, substandard wiring, and crap electrics - complete with bad-old-fashioned contact breaker ignition, Guzzi having abandoned a previous attempt to convert its machines to electronic ignition when they were unable to cure a flat spot under acceleration. The TT performed admirably considering how ill-suited it should have been for offroad use, and was noted as being easier to handle than the porky G/S, offering smooth, tractable power from its little V-twin and a lot less weight to muscle around.

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One example was specially prepared by the factory for the 1985 Paris Dakar at the behest of Italian architect and amateur racer Claudio Torri, who rode the machine in the PD but failed to finish. Remarkably, Torri's 650 TT was not the first small block Guzzi to compete in the event. A privateer effort undertaken by French Guzzi importer SEUDEM in 1979 had taken five road-going V50s and modified them in haphazard fashion to compete in the grueling race, beating all expectations when one of the machines ridden by Bernard Rigoni finished the event in 48th place overall, the best result of any Guzzi desert sled to date. This result was all the more remarkable when you examine the cobbled-together details of these underdog machines. At the time no spoked wheels could be sourced to fit the final drive, so the stock cast wheel was used at the rear, looking quite out of place compared to the 21 inch alloy spoked wheel at the front (and proving to be the weak link of the machines when the alloy spokes began snapping due to the side loads imposed by riding through deep sand). The standard swingarm was retained with a pair of longer shocks to suspend it, along with magnesium Marzocchi forks up front. The seat was pulled off a V1000 Convert. The fuel tank was based on the V7 Sport shell, enlarged to 30 litres. The scrappy French underdogs returned to the PD with two new V50-based machines in 1980 and another three in 1981 but failed to finish in either event.

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Inspired by the near-success of the curious 1985 “kinda-sorta-but-not-really” works effort (Torri had funded part of the project personally) the French Moto Guzzi importer commissioned the factory to build 16 Dakar replicas dubbed the Tutto Terrena Competizione Baja. These were distinguished from pedestrian TT models by their hand-beaten 30 litre aluminum endurance tanks, long travel Marzocchi suspensions with relocated shock mounts, heavy sump skid plates, oil coolers, electric start delete (with a kickstarter fitted in its place), solo seats, lengthened swingarms taken from the big block Le Mans, and straight through two-into-one exhausts finished in white enamel. All examples were built in the factory's experimental workshop over a period of two years, with each machine exhibiting unique details due to their hand crafted nature.
The second generation of factory racers built in 1986 used the newly introduced 744cc, 84x74mm V75 engine with four-valve heads, and were developed and tested with the input of the French importer with the intention of once again competing in the Dakar. Two machines were built using lessons learned from the Baja series and extensive testing in France and Spain, both producing over 60 hp and weighing just over 350 lbs. Unfortunately neither machine finished the event.

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The four-valve heads introduced on the 1984 V65 Lario soon became notorious for snapping the heads off their valves, causing spectacular engine failures at random. The smaller valves used in the new heads were constructed in two pieces, with their poppets welded to the shafts, creating a weak point where they inevitably began to fail. Additionally these motors used overly strong doubled valve springs which tended to accelerate the valves too fast, especially at the higher revolutions that the new four-valve designed offered. Finally the changes in the cylinder head apparently reduced oil misting to the top end, this being quite a big deal as misting from the crankcases was the secondary means of top-end lubrication on the small block engines. The icing on the shit cake was a solid camshaft that self-destructed due to lack of lubrication, a problem fixed by a recall that installed a hollow cam with revised oil flow. All these factors came together into a perfect storm of mechanical destruction, with the four-valve motors fast earning a reputation for being grenades. It is a reputation that persists to this day, with many owners either significantly reworking their valvetrains to improve their chances, or just parking the pitiful things to gather dust rather than risking an expensive blowup.

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The final factory Guzzi off road racer was a 750 built in 1987 for the Australian importer to use in the Wynn's Safari event, with the problematic four-valve heads ditched in favour of the old two-valve setup. In preparation for the Safari this machine was given a trial by fire in the 1988 Peruvian Incas Rally, where it successfully finished (placement unknown). When it was finally campaigned in the Wynn's Safari by Aussie rider Allan Cunynghame it suffered a catastrophic front fork collapse and failed to finish. That particular machine, which would prove to be the last factory off-road racer, was repaired after the event and sold into private hands.

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On the production side of the factory floor the TT concept received a significant reworking in 1986 with the introduction of the Nuova Tipo Cross (NTX) 650 / 350, which would be sold alongside the TT until it was discontinued in 1989. The NTX addressed many of the weak points of the TT and aspired to be a more serious enduro machine, complete with a sizeable 32 litre fuel tank, taller seat, and Dakar-esque fairing. The rear suspension was reworked to improve travel, new 42mm Marzocchi forks suspended the front, and the Brembo brakes were mercifully left unlinked in defiance of longstanding Guzzi tradition. The engine was shared with the TT and 2-valve V65s, with a new camshaft providing extra midrange and a coat of black paint providing some cosmetic distinction. All told very little was shared with the TT. The overall effect was that of a purpose-built big enduro machine, much like the contemporary Pantah-powered Cagiva Elefant or the Honda Transalp.

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In 1987 (or 1986, depending on who you ask) the NTX was made available in a 750 variant, producing the same claimed horsepower as the 650 with an extra measure of torque, which would soon become the darling of the Italian polizia and scourge of Latin motorists. In police guise the NTX 750 was referred to as the X Publicca Amministrazione (X PA) and supplemented sales of the more traditionally styled V50/V65 PA, which had been the first of the small block police-issue Guzzis. The X PA had some key modifications to distinguish it from the civilian version, aside from the obvious addition of lights and a siren. The 21 and 18 inch alloy rims of the production NTX were replaced by steel 18 and 16 inch items fitted with road biased tires. The windscreen was taller, handguards were standard, and engine crash bars were fitted. A lower, more comfortable seat was also installed. A body-coloured hard luggage kit was also available. Aside from these modifications and accessories the X PA was mechanically identical to the NTX – no cop shocks or cop motor here. Production of the X PA continued until 2001, long after the civilian version had been discontinued.

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The NTX earned a small but loyal cult following over the course of production, which endured with only minor changes until 1995. In the press the NTX earned many of the same accolades and jeers that the TT had, with a poorly damped suspension and worthless front brake topping the list of complaints. The dual-shock swingarm looked downright quaint well before the end of production, and was well behind the times for an off-roader of any description from the git-go. The tall centre of gravity, exacerbated by the massive fuel tank, made slow manoeuvres and trail riding a bit dicey. American riders were largely oblivious to the NTX, with as few as 24 examples having been imported - which was still a better showing than the TT, of which only a dozen or so are thought to have been sold on this side of the Atlantic. But the sweet character of the flexible little V-twin and decent handling on- and of- road (wobbly suspension aside) won the NTX a few fans over the years, even if it never threatened to unseat the G/S from its perch as king of the quasi-enduros.

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While the NTX remained in production for the next ten years more or less unchanged aside from some cosmetic improvements, the competition had moved on. The BMW G/S had been significantly updated and punched out to 980cc in 1987, when it was rechristened the R100GS (no slash, with some sources claiming the new name meant Gelande-Sport, though BMW sometimes denies this). The bigger, badder, fatter GS was recast as a world-conquering adventure machine, gaining inches and pounds in every direction compared to its more elemental predecessor.  The new GS was modified with the express intention of turning the GS into a more road-oriented machine that would better suit the actual rigours most of the machines would face (contemporary surveys having determined that as much as 98% of G/S owners never left a paved road), marking a moment of transition that would lead to our modern glut of top-heavy tourers with laughable off-road pretensions. Meanwhile, Honda released the first 583cc version of their evergreen V-twin powered XL-V Transalp in 1987, with the 742cc XRV 750 Africa Twin following in 1989. Yamaha got into the game in 1989 with their parallel-twin XTZ 750 Super Ténéré. The market was gradually shifting away from big enduros to purpose-built twin-cylinder “adventure” machines that sacrificed most of their off-road ability for better long-distance touring manners. Like the new GS these were road-biased motorcycles built for occasional excursions off the beaten track, provided you had the skills to manhandle a tip-happy 500 pound-plus beast on DOT approved tires over rough terrain, and the strength to lift it up when you inevitably toppled it over.

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Guzzi joined the nascent adventure tourer festivities with the entirely new Quota 1000 IE, which was distinguished from their previous off-road efforts by using the Weber/Marelli fuel-injected 949cc, 88x78mm, big-block twin yanked straight out of the California III cruiser. First unveiled in 1989 but only reaching production in 1992, the Quota had a claimed 69hp at 6600rpm and 59lb/ft of torque at 6000, eclipsing the power output of the NTX 750 by a fair margin with a torque curve flat enough to make a Harley rider jealous. It also eclipsed the weight of the NTX by clocking in at over 560lbs (with the factory claiming a ridiculously optimistic 465lbs dry), a not insignificant 150-pound difference between the small block soft-roader and the new big-block BMW-beater. Twin 280mm discs grabbed by Brembo two-piston calipers up front addressed the braking complaints of the NTX and dealt with the added heft of the big block platform. Wheels were spoked 21 and 17 inchers, while the rear suspension was much improved by a rising-rate monoshock swingarm. Wheelbase was a long 63.4 inches, which offered better traction and compliance off road but did nothing to mitigate the shaft jacking effect of the solid drive shaft. By the time the Quota was introduced BMW had long since eliminated the jacking effect from their boxers via multilink rear suspensions with articulated Paralever driveshafts – Guzzi would introduce its own articulated shaft system, a parallelogram linkage dubbed Cardano Reattivo Compatto (CARC), in 1993 on their Daytona superbike.

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In spite of the soft-roader image, legend has it that the Quota was intended to be every bit as durable and capable off road as anything else in the hopes of securing military and law enforcement contracts in areas where severe duty was expected. The Quota had to handle some serious shit and was built to last. The Tonti frame was abandoned in favour of a new twin spar steel backbone frame with removable lower cradles to facilitate easy engine removal. A pair of massive rectangular box section spars, tucked up high above the engine and hidden beneath the bodywork (which reduced fuel capacity to 20 litres, despite the appearance of having a massive gas tank), connected the steering head to the swingarm support and offered a strong and rigid chassis to cope with the rigours of off-road abuse.

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An interesting aside – with the introduction of the oilhead R1100GS in 1994, BMW redesigned the GS chassis to minimize the frame and utilize the engine as a stressed member, with a subframe supporting the new Saxon-Motodd-designed Telelever front suspension and the swingarm pivoting through a reinforced transmission casing. Unfortunately this near-frameless design overtaxed the chassis and led to cracking mounts and broken subframes, especially on the few examples that were actually flogged off road or called upon to embark on cross-continental journeys like the BMW marketing department kept insisting the GS was designed for. The Quota had no such problems with its massive box section frame, and thus in a perverse way it could be argued that the Guzzi would be a better choice for gruelling excursions than the GS. Regardless of whether the Quota was intended to do duty as a military machine in the deserts of Africa or not, it proved to be a tough machine - wonky electrics and the usual Guzzi foibles excepted. BMW would completely redesign the chassis of the GS with the introduction of the R1200GS in 2004, significantly reworking the rear frame to better support the seat and swingarm pivot.

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Period reviews noted that the Quota was reasonably capable on and off road. Performance was improved over the NTX with better suspension, better brakes, and a stronger motor. There was no escaping the weight and tall attitude of the Quota (which, perhaps not coincidentally, translated to “heights”), but reviewers noted that despite the top-heavy design and 35 inch seat height the heft was easy to control and the balance was good once underway – this damning-with-faint praise coming from an era before all tourers and “adventure” bikes were expressly designed for (and exclusively reviewed by) 6-foot-10 200-plus pound Aryan supermen with 40-inch inseams who delighted in having absurdly proportioned motorcycles built just for them. To add insult to injury at least one Quota was delivered to a journalist without a sidestand, forcing every stop into a delicate balancing act while the rider dismounted and heaved the ungainly brute up onto the centrestand. If you were fortunate enough to have a sidestand mounted to your Quota, you were treated to the catastrophically stupid 1990s Italian trend of fitting a sui-sidestand that would automatically retract as soon as the weight was taken off it, a brilliant addition to a tall, top heavy machine with expensive engine parts jutting out on either side.

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Unwieldy at a rest though it may have been, once underway the Quota was a pleasant machine and the lazy, torque-addled California mill suited the laid-back character of a large quasi-off roader that was likely to be called upon to devour miles on the freeway than jump whoops on the back forty. Some complained about the agricultural and lazy nature of the softly tuned V-twin and its clunky five speed transmission, as Guzzi critics are often wont to do, but reviews were generally favourable and the Quota surprised in its abilities on the highway. The Quota was an interesting competitor to the GS, in other words, and comparisons to the Bavarian tractor were inevitable. But the Quota was not a volume machine intended to knock the GS off its perch, and nobody was expecting the boys in Mandello to build a world beater that would fly out of the showrooms - let alone go toe to toe with zee Germans. As such the Quota sold a few units and earned a few loyal fans, much like the previous Guzzi trailies, but never became anything more than a curious aberration in the model lineup to keep the California company.

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In spite of the presumably limited appeal of an oversized Italian enduro-slash-tourer, production of the Quota 1000IE continued until 1997, when the model received an update to become the Quota 1100ES for 1998. The engine was enlarged to 1064cc with a 92mm bore and 80mm stroke, a displacement bump introduced in the big block range by the 1100 Sport in 1995. A new lazy camshaft and updated EFI with a new Marelli ECU rounded out the engine updates, while the five speed transmission and final drive was pulled straight off the Sport 1100. Power was virtually unchanged from the 1000IE, but the torque curve was beefed up – put an 1100ES on a dyno and you'll find the horsepower matches the torque peak number-for-number, making for some seriously understressed motivation. The rear subframe was reworked to reduce the seat height to just over 32 inches, which was still on the “1990s Teutonic action hero” side of the ergonomic bell curve. In a curious bit of spec-sheet fumbling the dry weight of the ES was listed as 540lbs, 77lbs more than the claimed figure for the IE and still on the bullshit side of the scale, with the actual curb weight being as-near-as-dammit 600lbs. Brake rotors were upped to 296mm at the front to improve on-road stopping power. Aside from these detail updates and refinements the ES was little changed from the IE, complete with conservative styling that was beginning to look more than a little dated despite some minor restyling. While the 1000IE had been a European (and Australian) exclusive model, the 1100ES was imported into the US market from 1999 onward. It sold in ludicrously small quantities, likely barely more than a hundred examples, to an indifferent market until it was quietly dropped from the US lineup around 2000, not long after Aprilia purchased Moto Guzzi from De Tomaso. The final North American deliveries were apparently to Canada in 2001, with ES sales continuing in Europe until as late as 2002. Some have suggested that Aprilia didn't want another Italian V-twin powered enduro/tourer competing with their new ETV 1000 Caponord, but this gives the Quota a bit too much credit considering less than 1000 examples were built over the entire course of production, and most of them languished in showrooms.

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Off road machines remained absent from the Guzzi lineup for the remainder of Aprilia's ownership, and upon Piaggio's takeover of Aprilia and its subsidiaries in 2004 the Guzzi lineup was subjected to a significant reworking to increase sales. The iconic V11 sporting models were unceremoniously dropped, with only the uninspired Breva and American-pandering California carried over. In 2007 Piaggio greenlit the revival NTX name with the NTX 1200 Stelvio, which shared absolutely nothing in common with the original NTX and was more swollen, complicated and road biased than the Quota had ever been. Now Guzzi was fully intending to do battle with the boxers from Bavaria on their home turf, with an overweight, accessory-addled quote unquote “adventure tourer” shod with faux-knobblies and possessing zero off-road ability. Piaggio dropped all the sporting pretension of Moto Guzzi's heritage in favour of building the Italian equivalent of a BMW, and the Stelvio was (and is) one of the worst offenders in this regard. The Quota was quirky and unloved, but surprisingly capable and full of character. The original NTX was equally capable and admirably weird, while the TT was a curiosity that achieved far more success off road than it ever deserved to. The Stelvio, meanwhile, is a shameless knockoff chasing the latest dumb niche - much like how the asthmatic V7 retro-repops are attempting to unseat the Triumph Bonneville from the hipster hit list to become the sole source of revenue for manufacturers of exhaust header wrap.

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Moto Guzzi has come full circle. After apeing the BMW G/S with their half-baked but charming TT, they are now making a bloated faux-enduro tourer aimed squarely at stealing market share from that caricature of an off-roader that is the R1200GS. Long gone are the weird V-twin powered oversized enduros that could be coaxed into traversing the globe or running the Dakar: today Guzzi has joined the leagues of BMW knockoffs pandering to middle-aged riders with marketing-driven dreams of globe-conquering go-anywhere adventures in their minds - and hernia-inducing tipovers in the Starbucks parking lot in their reality. Moto Guzzi's previous attempts at off-roaders were the best kind of unholy abominations that have been forgotten in the rush to build the biggest two-wheeled equivalent of a sport utility vehicle that can turn a profit. The TT, NTX and Quota will remain obscure skeletons in the Piaggio corporate closet, relics of an era when Moto Guzzi was still weird enough to be interesting and dumb enough to be daring, and were happy to leave the dull profit chasing to the Japanese and German bean counters.

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There are rare moments of remarkable clarity and forethought in the realm of motorcycle design, when machines are produced with such innovation and beauty that they are scarcely credible as products of their time. These motorcycles can occupy one of two positions in subsequent conception: they can be held aloft as gamechangers, as the designs that pushed the goalpost forward and forced everyone else to catch up, or they can fade into obscurity only to be appreciated by a limited few who recognize how advanced they truly were. Many remarkable designs fall into the latter category, the genius of their creators only recognized long after they pass into anonymity once the rest of the industry has caught up to the future that was laid out well in advance. Appreciation of these machines is only possible in hindsight when we see how their details foreshadowed subsequent trends.

German motorcycle designer Norbert Riedel was one such forgotten innovator, and his Imme R100 proved to be a masterpiece of design that have only began to earn appreciation in recent decades. Once a cheap and cheerful form of transportation that was designed and built within the restrictions of a postwar economy, the Imme became one of the most fascinating examples of motorcycle design to emerge during the mid-20th century – and would prove to be one of the most beautiful motorcycles of any era. They were a machine out of time, a vehicle that applied nascent principles that were still decades away from the mainstream, and a series of ingenious design elements unified into a coherent whole that has since earned the accolades of some of the world’s motorcycle elite. The Imme was not just a cleverly constructed motorcycle, it was one of the most beautiful pieces of modern industrial design that nobody has ever heard of.

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Norbert Riedel was born in 1912 in Jägerndorf, then a part of Austrian Silesia, to German-speaking parents who were among the significant majority in the region. Following the close of the First World War the city was ceded to the newly established Czechoslovakian state, under whose administration the region remained until it was claimed by Germany during the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. Riedel began a career in engineering which saw him join Ardie in 1935, where he cut his teeth working on various two-stroke designs produced by the Nuremburg company, eventually rising to the post of lead engineer. Powered by bought-in engines produced by various firms, mainly two-stroke, with some four-stroke models including some JAP powered singles and twins produced in the 1920s, Ardies were well respected and competitive designs during the interwar period. Riedel’s exact contributions to the company are vague (much like many details of this story), a fact compounded by the significant bombing the Ardie factory suffered during the Second World War that led to the destruction of most of the company records.

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What is clear is that in subsequent years Riedel would make a small but interesting contribution to the German war effort. Development of the modern jet engine began in Germany during the interwar period and eventually culminated in the production of the BMW 003 and Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet designs which would power the Heinkel He 162 and Messerschmitt Me 262, respectively. These early jet engines were fickle devices that taxed the metallurgy and engineering of the day, and required auxiliary engines to be fitted for the complicated multi-step start up procedure. At some point in the late 1930s or early 1940s Riedel, now working for Victoria-Werke in Nuremburg, designed a two-stroke, horizontally-opposed air-cooled twin which would serve as the starter for these production turbojets. This compact 270cc engine, named the Riedel Anlassermotor (starter motor), featured a remarkably oversquare design with a 70mm bore and 35mm stroke and produced 10hp at 6000rpm, with power transferred from the crankshaft through a series of planetary gears to a stepped gear which meshed with the central shaft of the turbine.

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This oversquare configuration was odd for a two-stroke, where longer strokes are favoured to provide more port area and longer timing, as the ports are cut into the cylinder wall. Common practice in two stroke design is the use of square (equal) bore/stroke ratios, or undersquare configurations with a stroke that is longer than the bore is wide. Short stroke engines are common today in four-stroke machines because in a four stroke cylinder port area is relative to the size of the bore, with a bigger bore allowing larger valves and bigger holes for the mixture/exhaust to flow through (and reduced piston speed via that shorter stroke, which means improved ability to safely rev higher and exploit the improved breathing characteristics of the large ports). The short stroke configuration of Riedel’s engine gave the device extremely compact dimensions, a feature borne of the necessity to allow it to fit within a cone-shaped nacelle fitted in the nose of the turbine while leaving space for a 3 litre fuel tank.

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Regardless of the peculiarities of the design, Riedel’s Anlassermotor proved to be a reliable and effective design that earned Victoria a contract for series production of the engine, beating out competing designs from BMW and Hirth. While all the initial designs were rejected by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM), Riedel/Victoria’s engine was approved and given a production contract following a second round of trials. Officially designated the RBA/S10, RLM design number 9-7034A, the engine could be started externally via pull cord (visible at the tip of the nose cone of the engine) or with an integrated 24 volt electric motor activated from the cockpit, accomplished in the Me 262 by a plunger on the pilot’s right hand side. The raspy, unmuffled unit would be fired and run to spin the turbine up to 800 rpm, at which point the pilot would activate the injection of the fuel/oil starting mixture and ignition systems on the main engine. Once the turbine hit 1800 rpm the starter motor would be shut off and the remainder of the starting procedure would be controlled by the pilot. The Anlassermotor would only be required to run for about one minute – a good thing considering the air-cooled engine was completely shrouded and would likely overheat if run for much longer, though an integrated fan was fitted at the forward end of the engine to improve cooling within the confines of the tiny nacelle.      

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Following the end of the war Riedel found himself a free agent with the benefit of some positive notoriety among the Allied victors due to his contribution to the Nazi jet program, which had been intensely scrutinized and reverse-engineered by the Allies during and after the war. Legend has it that it was the Allied appreciation of Riedel’s starter motors that earned him some favouritism that would enable him to establish his independent motorcycle manufacturing operation not long after the war, though concrete details outside of apocryphal statements are scarce. In peacetime Riedel Anlassermotoren found their way into other civilian projects, and some examples survive with sprockets attached to their output shafts to drive a chain in a homebrewed go kart. Ingenuity in the postwar period, fed by a steady supply of cheap military surplus, was often limitless in its potential despite the austerity present in a continent ravaged by a violent war, a reality that would inform many of the design ideas Riedel would adopt in his later work. Considering their particular application (and the limited number of jet turbines produced by the Nazis during the war), and the attrition rate you'd expect for surplus items from a losing nation, a surprising number of Anlassermotoren have survived into the present with a few caring enthusiasts restoring them to running order. You can even purchase an example right here for under 1000€.

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Victoria-Werke suffered significant bomb damage during the war and would not resume motorcycle production until 1946, making them one of the fortunate companies that managed to survive the conflict (and their association with the Nazi war machine) to resume civilian production. By this time Riedel was already formulating ideas for a complete motorcycle of his own design, and in 1947 he would set out on his own to develop his proprietary machine.

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In April 1947 the first contract documents were filed in the founding of Riedel Motoren GmbH, marking the genesis of Riedel’s motorcycle company as a private legal entity. Work on the prototype machines began in Muggendorf in 1947, with the first chassis hitting the road in December, but with facility space limited and production aims ambitious an expanded Riedel factory would need to be established in a new location. In June 1948 Riedel Motoren AG would be established in the Bavarian Alpine town of Immenstadt, encouraged by the support of the local government which wished to provide employment to the area’s skilled workers, who had previously been employed in the now defunct aero industry.

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Postwar Germany was, like most of continental Europe, going through the agonizing process of rebuilding their society after a disastrous conflict that left their industries in literal ruins, their economy in shambles, and their people starving and scarred by years of conflict. It was a time of austerity and small steps towards recovery, and in the years following the end of the war simple, inexpensive transportation was in high demand. This was the era when small, cheap motorcycles flourished as an economical alternative to cars, providing the modest beginnings for many nascent motorcycle brands across Europe. The existing companies that had survived into peacetime retooled their factories to produce goods that suited the new economic reality of Europe.

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Norbert Riedel had the foresight to recognize the growing demand for cheap and cheerful transport, and put his skills as an engineer to good use by designing a remarkably well-thought out machine that was as innovative as it was inexpensive to build. It was a masterpiece of good design. And it was beautiful.
His creation was dubbed the Imme R100, a colloquial German term for “bee”, and given a cheery mascot in the form of a stylized bee with windswept wings riding a motorcycle. The origin of the Imme name has been debated. While it would be obvious to see the name as an abbreviation of the factory’s home in Immenstadt, it has been noted that the name and bee logo had already been determined while Riedel Motoren was still based in Muggendorf. Some sources suggest that the name was provided by the workers who noted the little motorcycle sounded like a buzzing bee. Curiously an attempt was made to market the R100 in Belgium as the “Golbi”, but aside from exhibiting a Golbi-branded R100 at the 1949 Brussels Motor Show no evidence of a rebadged Imme survives.

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Whatever the case of the nomenclature of the company’s product, The Imme was a remarkably advanced machine that offered budget-conscious buyers an exceptionally handsome and cleverly designed motorcycle for their money when production began in mid-1948. The base model cost 775 DM, and that netted you a 99cc, 52x47mm, Schnürle-ported two-stroke single producing a healthy 4.4hp at 5800rpm with a 7:1 compression ratio – a modest figure by modern standards, but nearly double what the contemporary competition was squeezing out of their 100cc engines.

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The engine was stylized and streamlined, with an oval-shaped profile to the horizontal cylinder, the tiny Bing carburettor hidden behind a polished cover on the right hand side while the magneto resided under a cover on the left. The cylinder head and barrel were cast as one piece to simplify production. The unit gearbox was a simple three-speed unit that lacked a neutral position, saving some complexity but forcing the rider to keep the clutch disengaged at a stop or on startup, aided by a simple wire loop that could be flipped between the lever and perch to lock the lever in position. Riedel developed a linear-shifter “draw key” transmission to further simplify construction. Rather than having a shift drum operating forks within the gearbox, the main gears were hollowed out with detent balls set within their hubs. A shaft with wedges machined into it sat within the hollowed-out countershaft. When the shaft was moved in and out, the wedges spread the detent balls outward to mesh with notches cut into the hub of the gears, locking the gear and engaging the desired speed of the transmission. A twistgrip on the left bar connected to the gearbox via a cable linkage which pushed and pulled the draw key. First gear was in the central position, twisting down selected second while twisting up engaged the direct-drive third.

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The throttle was controlled as you would expect via the right hand grip, but doubled as the kill switch – pushing the grip all the way forward shut off the engine. One of the most interesting features of the engine was the asymmetrical crankshaft, which featured a single-sided crankpin mount and one counterweight web. The big-end bearing was secured to the crankpin with a circlip and the whole bottom end was supported by a single main bearing on the left side – a clever bit of cost saving, but one that would ultimately prove to be the fatal flaw of the design.

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To keep manufacturing simple and material use minimal the frame, front fork leg and rear swingarm used the same diameter steel tubing. The engine was rigidly mounted to the swingarm – thus the power unit was suspended along with the rear suspension and moved in unison with the rear wheel, much like a modern scooter powerplant. An Imme on the move was a curious sight, with the engine bobbing up and down in harmony with the rear suspension.

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One of the most forward-thinking elements of the chassis was the suspension arrangement. Both front and rear wheels were suspended on single-sided arms, a single-sided girder fork on the front and a monoshock swingarm on the rear. This rather modern arrangement was a product of the material shortages in postwar Germany – the single sided design meant that half as much steel was needed to manufacture the front and rear arms. The front suspension is reminiscent of the unusual suspension fitted to the Gilera CX, which used a single-sided arm connected to a single telescopic fork leg – 40 years after the Imme was introduced. The rear swing arm doubles as the exhaust pipe, a unique element that would not be recreated until it inspired Confederate designer JT Nesbitt when he was tasked with designing the second generation Hellcat in 2003, more than 50 years after the Imme hit the streets. The rear suspension uses a horizontal monoshock in a straight-rate configuration bolted to pressed steel mounts attached to the frame and fender, triangulated through the reinforced fender mount that supported the left side of the rear axle - a good 30 years before cantilevered monoshock rear suspensions came into vogue (if we conveniently forget the contemporary H.R.D-Vincent chassis, anyway). Rudimentary adjustable friction dampers at both ends kept things under control. The front and rear wheels were interchangeable, and an optional spare wheel could be mounted beside the rear wheel on the mudguard support bracket.

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The whole package was clothed in simple, elemental bodywork that left the fascinating chassis and engine unhindered by flashy baubles or useless styling exercises. You had mudguards, a fuel tank, a headlamp nacelle, and sprung saddles for the rider and passenger (if so equipped). The curved backbone of the frame and the shapely engine took centre stage. It was simple and beautiful, a product of the limited means that determined many of the design elements - without looking like a cut-rate budget machine, despite its modest sticker price. The first examples were available in one colour only, a deep oxide red with the only ornamentation being that cartoonish riding bee taking pride of place upon the tank.    

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In 1948, the first year of production, a mere 80 machines were assembled. By 1949 the Immenstadt factory had 370 employees producing up to 500 Immes per month, for a total of 5000 examples by the end of the year. Margins were slim on the relatively inexpensive R100, and Riedel hoped to make up for the meagre profits with significant volume. Small changes were made throughout the production run, some to simplify production even further, such as a combination headlamp-rectifier which converted the alternating current of the magneto to direct current through the filament of the headlight bulb. Solutions like this would come to define the ingenious ideas behind the Imme, where simplicity was key and the often-referenced-but-rarely-executed engineering ideal of multiple uses for a single component was evident throughout the design. It is this purity of form and function, the result of the thoughtful consideration of practical details, that have earned the Imme a degree of appreciation that is completely disproportionate to its obscurity. The Imme was remarkable because compromises didn’t hinder the design – it was those very compromises that made it brilliant.

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In January 1950 a more upmarket “Export” version of the R100 was introduced, retailing for 850 DM. This upgraded Imme was available in green or black in addition to red, with hand-painted pinstriping to distinguish it from the base “Standard” model. For your extra 175 marks you received decadent luxuries such as a battery, a horn, a speedometer, a centrestand, an improved seat, and some chrome trim pieces. In May a “Luxus” model was introduced for 865 DM, adding some more chrome trim to the horn cover, rims and hubs in addition to the options present on the Export. The popularity of the Imme was such that 1000 machines were now being produced per month, with over 10,000 sold before the end of 1950. R100 powerplants were also sold to the Fritz Fend company to power their third generation of Flitzer three-wheeled microcar, a single-seat machine marketed as an “invalid carriage” - an unfortunate reality in a nation with an overwhelming number of citizens wounded and maimed during wartime.

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Aside from being beautiful and inexpensive, and backed by a successful marketing campaign, the R100 offered good performance and an extremely compliant long-travel suspension which was an asset in various forms of small-bore competition. Top speed was claimed to be better than 50 miles per hour, while netting up to 150 miles to the gallon. Immes successfully competed in European events on and off road across the continent and earned a reputation as reliable and sprightly little machines. Riedel was also notable for offering a manufacturer’s payment plan on the Imme  – with a minimum downpayment of 250 DM you could finance the balance of the purchase price for up to 12 months, which worked out to 50 DM a month for a Standard, 75 DM for an Export, and 90 DM for a Luxus. Everything added up to the Imme being a winner, a machine that should have propelled Riedel into the history books – but trouble was on the horizon.

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Work began on an enlarged R100 named the R150 and advertised as the Neukonstruktion Imme. This new design retained many of the characteristics of the R100 with the extra power of a parallel-twin cylinder engine; the chassis was unchanged aside from the fitment of slightly wider 2.75x19 inch tires, and prototypes were pictured in what appeared to be R100 Luxus specification, with only the position of the carburettor and the presence of twin spark plug leads giving away the new zweizylinder engine. The engine was heavily reworked but was still clearly an evolution of the R100 architecture. As on the R100 the cylinder and heads were cast as a single component, with the intake and exhaust runners placed between the two cylinders in a downdraught configuration, with the single carburettor placed above the engine. Bore was 48mm and stroke 41mm, with 6 claimed horsepower at 5000 rpm. A conventional four-web crankshaft supported by two main bearings was used instead of the single-sided setup of the R100. Gear ratios were revised compared to the R100 but the gearbox was still a three-speed draw-key design shifted by twistgrip, and it was still devoid of neutral. Brochures and advertisements were printed to herald the arrival of the new, much improved Imme, but ultimately only three prototype R150s would be built.

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In an attempt to diversify the product line, a step-through scooter called the Till was developed in late 1949. While not as well-known as the Imme the Till offered several innovations of its own. Using an R100 powerplant with duplex chain drive and enclosed bodywork, the Till was notable for using part of the rear frame as the exhaust pipe and having an adjustable rear suspension that compensated for the weight of a pillion - a mechanical switch connected to the passenger pegs engaged an extra spring to support the load of a passenger on the rear suspension. Five examples were built in 1949-1950, along with a single prototype using the R150 twin cylinder engine with an integrated cooling fan. Interestingly a Till 100 was used as a prop in the 1950 West German film “Schwarzwaldmädel” (“The Black Forest Girl”), a sappy bit of romantic entertainment that was part of a genre of escapist movies made in postwar Germany.

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Even more obscure than the Till was the Zircon moped presented at the Brussels Motor Show in 1950, which used an R100 power unit mated to a bicycle-like chassis made in gents and ladies configurations – whether this machine made it past the prototype stage is unclear, with only a blurb and a drawing from the French magazine “Le Cycle” surviving to prove the existence of this unusual bastardization of Imme components.

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Despite all appearances of success there were problems brewing at Riedel. The single-sided crankshaft design of the R100 engine was proving problematic – it was fragile, and notorious for destroying its single main bearing. Engine failures while the machines were still within the factory warranty were becoming a major liability for Riedel, and the kickstart mechanism in the gearbox was also proving troublesome. The slim profit margins meant that any warranty repairs, particularly ones that involved major engine work, were incurring significant losses - enough to warrant a redesign of the bottom end of the R100 motor that dropped the single-sided crankshaft in favour of a conventional two-main bearing setup.

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It proved to be too little, too late for Riedel. The writing was already on the wall, and the company books were suffering under the weight of warranty claims. Mismanagement of the company finances compounded the losses. Despite healthy sales and a total of 12,000 machines rolling off the line Riedel Motoren AG was in receivership by the end of 1950. Norbert Riedel stepped down and company executive Fritz Philipps took control, continuing R100 production into 1951. The Immes produced under Philipps’ direction were christened the Neue R100/D and featured the updated twin-main crankshaft as well as an improved kickstart gear, but were otherwise identical to earlier R100s.

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While the R100/D addressed the major flaws of Riedel’s engine design it wasn't enough to save the floundering company. Debts in excess of 1 million Deutschmarks crippled the company and there was little that Philipps could do to keep the banks at bay. Production continued until November 1951, when Riedel Motoren AG was finally liquidated. Philipps purchased most of the tooling and founded his own company, Zweirad Motoren und Getriebe (ZMG), to continue limited production of the Imme and provide spare parts support for existing machines. The ZMG Immes used the same chassis as the R100 but introduced an enlarged version of the R150 prototype engine featuring a 174cc, 52x41mm twin-cylinder configuration with a claimed 8.5 hp. Only 25 complete R175s would be built over a period of several years, with a few examples put together in later years by combining R175 engine with R100 chassis. Production of spare parts and a few complete engines continued until 1956, by which point ZMG had produced fifty 125cc singles based on an enlarged R100 D engine, along with ten 195cc, 55x41mm, 12 hp “R200” twin-cylinder engines which would prove to be the ultimate evolution of Riedel’s design. Production of modified gearboxes continued after 1956, and ZMG became Philipps Getriebebau in 1958, which subsequently became Antriebstechnik Roland Schwarz GmbH & Co. in 1995. The company continues to operate today as gearbox specialist RSGetriebe GmbH in Sonthofen.

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After leaving his namesake company in 1951, Norbert Riedel returned to Victoria where he headed design on the KR 21 Swing motorcycle and Peggy scooter, both released in late 1954. Both were interesting and advanced machines that featured some elements that were clearly a product of Riedel’s design process, an evolution of some of the ideas introduced on the R100. Much like the Imme the Swing and Peggy had their power unit rigidly mounted to the rear swingarm, pivoting within the frame and bobbing up and down in line with the rear suspension - hence the name “Swing”, which was soon nicknamed “das schwebende Motorrad” (“the floating motorcycle”). Both machines used a 197cc 65x60mm horizontal two-stroke single mated to a four-speed transmission with a fully enclosed chain final drive, with the cast alloy chain housing doubling as a structural element of the swinging arm, but differed in their chassis designs – the Peggy had a step-through frame and fully enveloping bodywork (with a fan providing cooling to the enclosed air-cooled engine) while the Swing had a more traditional duplex cradle frame with a half-bathtub rear fender and an exposed powertrain.

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Both the Peggy and the Swing were notable for offering electric starting* long before the “electric leg” became commonplace in production motorcycles, as well as introducing a unique electromagnetic push-button gearshift integrated into a gearbox that applied the linear shift mechanism introduced by Riedel on the Imme. The system, dubbed Swing-Blitz-Schaltung (SBS), used a four-button gear selector switch mounted on the left hand handlebar which allowed the rider to select individual gears. Four doughnut-shaped electro magnets were arranged in line around the draw-key shaft. When a button was pressed on the selector, one of the four magnets energized and pulled a cylindrical barrel threaded onto the end of the shaft into the position needed to engage the individual gears. As on the Imme the gears were engaged by detent balls arranged within their hubs, pushed outward by a bulb-shaped wedge on the end of the selector shaft to lock the gear.  Neutral was selected by activating both the 1st and 2nd gear magnets, which would hold the wedge between the two positions and allow the gears to freewheel. While ingenious and unique, the system was fragile and prone to failure, easily accomplished if the rider selected the wrong gear at the wrong time.

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Details of Riedel’s career following his work at Victoria are scant. At some point he left the company to start his own business in Lindau called Amarturen GmbH. There have been suggestions that Riedel faced significant problems in securing royalties and recognition for his designs, with much of his work at Ardie being unrecognized and his draw-key gearbox allegedly copied by several companies, most notably cribbed by one Hermann Hagenmeyer - the founder of GETRAG, which has grown into one of the largest gearbox manufacturers in the world.

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Norbert Riedel was killed in February, 1963 in an avalanche while skiing at the Zürs alpine resort in Vorarlberg, Austria. He was survived by his seven year old son Steffen, who would go on to write a well-reviewed German-language biography of his father detailing the difficulties he faced as an engineer in postwar Germany.

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Following the closing of Riedel Motoren and the end of ZMG production, the Imme faded into obscurity. R100s were always cheap, economical transportation and were treated as such – which is to say badly. As the decades passed attrition claimed many of these unique machines, their delicate engines and advanced chassis’ succumbing to the use, abuse and neglect of uncaring owners. A small but loyal fanbase remained in Germany, where the Imme earned a cult following that persists into the present, but most of the 12,000 machines that rolled off the Immenstadt assembly line were lost to history and indifference. This has made the Imme a particularly rare and under-appreciated piece of design, a forward-thinking and beautiful motorcycle that often baffles oblivious onlookers who have never heard of this “bee” machine. Few are aware of the innovative design elements it featured decades before they were re-introduced by mainstream manufacturers.

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A few modern designers quietly uphold the Imme as a masterpiece of motorcycle design. Former Ducati (and current Confederate) designer Pierre Terblanche holds the Imme in high regard:


Bienville Studio’s JT Nesbitt is happy to expound the virtues of the Imme to anyone who will listen:

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The Imme received a significant boost in credibility and appreciation after it was featured as one of the centrepieces of the Guggenheim’s “The Art of the Motorcycle” exhibition in 1998, where it was displayed on the merits of its beauty, its design, and its historical context. Today the Imme remains relatively obscure but greatly appreciated by the few who are familiar with it, and the value of surviving examples has been steadily rising (if not threatening the traditional blue-chip hierarchy). Despite the recent rise in appreciation the history of the Imme has been largely lost over the course of decades of anonymity, and few are aware of Norbert Riedel’s contributions to modern motorcycle design. Thus the Imme is one of the greatest motorcycle designs that no one has heard of, a machine out of time and the product of a brilliant man who remains tragically underappreciated.

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*In 1953 Norbert Riedel patented a combination starter-generator, but it’s unclear if this system was utilized in his Victoria designs. If anyone has any experience with Swing or Peggy engines, feel free to chime in.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

There has been a remarkable amount of innovation in motorcycle design that has come from Down Under. Australian and New Zealander designers and tinkerers seem to have a particular penchant for crafting some of the most interesting and forward-thinking machines the world has seen, all in isolation from the existing networks. These clever displays of ingenuity often seem driven by a variety of factors – perhaps it is their distance from existing industries, or their down-home ingenuity brought on by that isolation from the rest of the world, and more than likely it is their strong fondness for all things loud and fast. One company came to the fore in the late 90s with the promise of putting an Australian-made motorcycle on the world stage, with a radical clean-sheet design that made the rest of the industry take notice. The Hunwick Hallam almost single-handedly kickstarted an Australian motorcycle industry that would have dusted the competition the road and the track, but the realities of the market would doom it to obscurity.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Hunwick Hallam began as a partnership between Australian businessman Rod Hunwick and engineer Paul Hallam. Hunwick was well known in the Australian motorcycle market as the owner of the Action Motorcycles dealerships in Melbourne and Sydney, achieving notability for introducing in-house financing and on-site financial and insurance advisors. Rod achieved success after having moved to Australia from New Zealand in the early 1980s, building his empire of two- and four-wheeled dealerships beginning with the purchase of a Suzuki dealer in Sydney. Following the old cliché Rod would serve as the business end of the partnership while Paul Hallam would be the talent – Paul was a gifted designer and the son of Frank Hallam, a man famous for his work as chief engineer of the Repco-Brabham Formula One V8 in the mid-1960s. The senior Hallam would go on to found Frank Hallam and Sons Engineering in Geelong, where Paul and his brother Andrew would learn the trade and develop their abilities as engine builders. While the Hallam family was inextricably linked to automotive exploits, with the success of the Repco engine in the 1966 and 1967 F1 championships earning their place in history, Paul gravitated towards two-wheeled endeavours as well as two-stroke marine racing.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Paul Hallam was not the first designer to be courted by Hunwick. The first design proposed in 1994 used a steel trellis frame built by New Zealander Ken MacIntosh housing a Ducati-like V-twin designed by Peter Smith (mocked up in wood but never built), though both ideas would be abandoned in subsequent development. The story goes that Hunwick had seen one of Hallam’s projects, a heavily reworked Harley-Davidson Sportster with a more sporting chassis and running gear, in a 1994 issue of Australian Motorcycle News and contacted him to discuss the possibility of designing a home-grown Australian machine. Another version has Sir Jack Brabham, who well acquainted with Frank Hallam from the Repco V8 project, recommending Paul as a candidate. Soon after a partnership was formed and work began in secret on a new design that would be the first all-Australian production motorcycle designed and built in the country.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

The initial brief proposed by Hunwick was to produce a street-legal design based around a proprietary V-twin engine. The first machine would be the Boss, a modern cruiser aimed at taking on Harley-Davidson with a high-performance muscle bike that would eclipse anything coming out of Milwaukee while retaining laid-back ergonomics. It was a curious choice of target market and one that seemed a bit naïve in hindsight, especially considering the technology and design principles that would be put on offer once Hallam was on board. Soon after the initial brief a second flagship machine was added to the roster – the X1R would be a 1000cc sportbike aimed at pushing the limits of Hallam’s engine and chassis design with a machine that would be eligible for competition in World Superbike. A few tweaks of the chassis would yield the geometry necessary to build a sportbike, while the engine would be reworked significantly to product competitive horsepower. A third design was also proposed: the Rage would be a semi-naked streetfighter with an 1100cc engine splitting the difference between the X1R and the Boss that owed a debt to the popularity of the Ducati Monster. The Rage would utilize the basic architecture of the Boss with modified suspension and bodywork and a different state of tune for the engine. Thus a single chassis and one engine design would serve three distinct purposes, each more extreme than the last, and all were hoped to be capable of blasting the competition away.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Development of the machines was kept in strict secrecy for three years while the engines and chassis were built and tested. When the project finally broke cover in January 1997 Hunwick Hallam was already well established and the machines in a late stage of development, with production capacity claimed to be largely ready for setup. Initial press releases quoted HH motorcycles as being 85% Australian in their construction, a remarkable figure for a small company with no precedents in the market. At this stage no firm date was given for the commencement of production.

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The engine was a proprietary design developed by Paul Hallam. The basic architecture was relatively conventional at first glance, featuring a liquid-cooled 90-degree V-twin layout with four-valve heads and double overhead cams. The true genius was in the details. Despite liquid cooling the cylinders were heavily finned to improve heat dissipation, to the point where an oil cooler was deemed unnecessary. The cylinder heads were a three-piece design, with the combustion chamber machined separately from the upper and lower cam boxes. The combustion chambers were designed by Hallam based on his experience tuning two-stroke marine engines; dubbed the Axial Targeted Combustion Chamber, the heads and piston crowns were shaped in a manner that directed the fuel mixture towards the centrally placed spark plug. Details of the system are scant (and drawings are nonexistent) but the concept is sound.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

The idea behind ATCC seems like common sense but proper combustion and flame propagation within the cylinder has been an often overlooked element in engine design – if one blindly pursues the notion of flowing air through the cylinder as quickly as possible (the old concept of every engine being little more than an air pump) with no regard for actually burning the fuel mixture efficiently, you are losing power and tossing unburnt fuel straight out the exhaust. Swirling the fuel mixture past the spark source, combined with a shallow pent-roof combustion chamber with tight squish bands to force the mixture towards the plug on compression is the ideal in a multivalve head - a turbulent mixture always burns better than a stagnant one. A good example of the cunning application of fuel swirling is the recently released EBR (don’t call it a Buell) 1190RX. The hand-built limited production 1190RS produced a claimed 175HP and 97LB/FT, while the mass-produced RX puts out a claimed 185HP and 101LB/FT. The only difference between the two engines is a special staggered inlet camshaft that opens one valve slightly ahead of the other with both reaching full lift at the same time. This creates the swirling effect within the cylinder that improves combustion and gives more power, despite having a lower compression ratio than the RS, all the while lowering emissions via a more thorough burn.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

On the Hunwick Hallam downdraught inlet runners were fed by a pressurized airbox, with fueling via an electronic fuel injection system developed by MoTEC featuring single injectors on the Boss and a sequential twin injector setup on the X1R. A specially developed exhaust port with a cast-in “reverberation barrier” aimed to improve exhaust flow dynamics within the head itself. Valve sizes were 38mm intake and 34mm exhaust, set at a shallow 26-degree included angle. Belt-driven camshafts acted on shim under bucket tappets and conventional valve springs. Interestingly the timing system on the Boss engine was a non-interference design, meaning that a cam belt could snap or the engine could be assembled incorrectly without any risk of the valves hitting the pistons – ask any Ducati owner who has had a cam belt failure why this might be a good idea. Many elements of Hallam's design were catered to improving long-term reliability and ease of servicing/modification. HH projected a 15 year service life for their machines with an emphasis on quality and potential resale value in maintaining the customer's sizable investment, with retail pricing expected to be north of $30,000 AUD.

Special attention was paid to minimizing weight in the valvetrain to improve performance, with overall weight claimed to be half that of comparable production machines, but Hallam had bigger ideas: the X1R powerplant was intended to use pneumatic valves fed by gasses drawn from the cylinder, integrated into the cylinder head to keep the system compact and free of external pressure sources. Had this bleeding edge innovation made it to the production stage the Hunwick Hallam would have had the distinction of being the first (and so far only) production engine in the world to make use of the hitherto Formula 1 exclusive technology.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

While a 90-degree V-twin layout ensured excellent primary engine balance, it would still suffer from some rocking couple effects and secondary vibrations. As the engine was a stressed member and required rigid mounting within the chassis, Hallam sought to address this vibration by incorporating a torsional vibration damper on the crankshaft. Unlike a bulky counterbalance shaft, a torsional damper is far more compact and usually resides in line with the crankshaft, serving to dissipate vibration, harmonic resonance, and irregularities in the motion of the crank with a mechanical or fluid disc. The range of damping varying according to the design: hydraulic dampers having a wider range of damping while fixed mechanical items are tuned to lessen specific frequencies of resonance. They are semi-common in automotive applications to reduce perceptible harshness and vibration from passenger car engines, but are almost nonexistent in motorcycle designs. The exact details of the system used in the Hunwick Hallam engine are vague but it appeared to be a hydraulic damper fed by oil drawn through drillings in the crankshaft.    

Photo Courtesy Richard James

The first engine destined to be slotted into the Boss displaced 1350cc via a 102.5mm bore and 82mm stroke with a 8.6:1 compression ratio (confusingly some period reviews and the company website noted 105x80mm and 1385cc), while the X1R featured a 998cc 97x67.5mm mill with an 11.8:1 compression ratio (14:1 in race tune). An 1127cc, 102x67.5mm version was proposed for the Rage and was set to be released following the introduction of the Boss and X1R. Initial horsepower claims for the Boss engine were 109 HP at 7000 RPM, while the X1R pumped out an impressive 141 HP at 9500 RPM (some sources quoted 142 HP at 10,600 RPM), both figures measured at the rear wheel. With modern engine management and Hallam’s clever cylinder head designs these engines were claimed to be fully emissions compliant in Australia, Japan, the United States and Europe (though it was unclear if the X1R power figures were the result of a street-legal state of tune; with 14:1 compression power was supposedly in the 170 HP range). These figures would have placed HH well ahead of the competition they faced in the late 1990s – this was long before the Harley V-Rod would come along and slap a modern, high performance engine into a cruiser chassis, and no other V-twin in the power cruiser segment offered triple digit power in a modern chassis with reasonably light weight. If cylinder count was ignored the Yamaha V-Max could still claim to be king of the horsepower wars, but it was an ancient design that tied itself in knots at the first corner. Meanwhile the X1R engine had enough power to make the competition sweat.  The newly introduced crop of Japanese sporting V-twin like the Suzuki TL1000S and the Honda VTR1000 were knocking out around 110 HP on a good day, while the quickest Ducati on offer was the expensive and finicky 916 SPS pumping out a claimed 123 HP.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

The transmission was another unique element, featuring a removable gearbox assembly that remained in unit with the engine. The two gearbox shafts were stacked vertically to improve packaging, previewing the recent trend towards vertical gearboxes in production sportbikes. The first gearbox intended for the Rage and Boss was a five-speed design, with a six-speed reserved for the X1R. The transmission casing supported the swingarm pivot independently of the rest of the chassis, allowing the entire gearbox and rear suspension assembly to be removed without disturbing the engine. Plans were announced for an electro-hydraulic semiautomatic transmission that would use excess oil pressure from the engine to drive a hydraulic shift mechanism of an unspecified design, with semi and fully automatic modes and an integrated traction control system – heady stuff for an upstart company in the mid-1990s, and ideas that have only recently become production realities.  

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Both designs shared a remarkable chassis design that was largely underappreciated, even in the contemporary articles that profiled it. With Ducati’s recent and much-publicized “introduction” of a production frameless design using the engine as a completely stressed member in the Panigale series of sport bikes, you’d be forgiven for thinking that “frameless” motorcycles are a new thing. The reality is that frameless or monocoque designs have existed for decades, and Ducati is not breaking any new ground. Go back far enough and you’ll note that from the Series B onward Vincent was a pioneer in the use of the engine as a stressed member, with only a box-section oil tank/spine supporting the steering head. Similarly the Hunwick Hallam chassis made full use of the inherent strength of an engine’s crankcases to make a virtually frameless motorcycle. Hallam’s solution was to bolt a cast aluminum casing supporting the steering head to the forward cylinder and using the engine as a fully stressed member.

Australian Rider Autumn 1998

The rear suspension was notable for mounting an adjustable WP coilover shock just behind and below the steering head, bracketed onto the front cylinder. A long alloy beam, which at first glance might be mistaken for a frame spar, ran along the right side of the engine and connected the alloy box-section swingarm to the rising-rate linkage of the shock. This system, dubbed RamRoc, freed up valuable clearance around the rear cylinder and allowed the engine to be tilted back without compromising the wheelbase or exhaust routing, which allowed the fine tuning of weight distribution within the chassis. The RamRoc solution would be adopted in Europe by Pierluigi Marconi while designing the Bimota SB8 chassis; he referenced the Hunwick Hallam rear suspension as his inspiration for moving the rear shock up beside the front cylinder of the Suzuki-sourced TL1000 V-twin, with a linkage rod connecting it to the swingarm.

Australian Rider Autumn 1998

Adjustable 41mm WP upside down forks were used on the prototype machines, with the Boss featuring a 30 degree rake and the X1R 23.5. Wheelbases were 61 inches for the Boss and 52 inches for the X1R, with the X1R’s adjustable geometry allowing an extension of up to 55 inches - handy for improving traction when you have a fire-breathing motor threatening to spool up the rear wheel.

Australian Rider Autumn 1998

Each component of the Hunwick Hallam, apart from the forks, wheels, shock and brakes, was designed from first principles, meaning the chassis and engine were designed from a clean slate as a harmonious whole rather than two distinct objects within the machine. Hallam incorporated many clever engineering solutions throughout his design, his process more or less unhindered by the considerations that plagued larger manufacturers who worked within a framework of conservative adherence to existing ideas. Individual components served multiple functions whenever possible. This methodology drew repeated and slightly awkward comparisons to that other mould-breaking V-twin powered motorcycle from the other side of the world - the Britten V1000.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Two running engines, one Boss 1350 and one X1R 998, were completed and tested in early 1996. A running Boss prototype hit the road in the fall of the same year. When the project was unveiled to the press in early 1997 the curious looking Power Cruiser was met with reserved enthusiasm. The styling was decidedly strange, a mixture of advanced technology and high-quality running gear saddled with dumpy looking bodywork, a bobbed solo seat surrounded by a massive shroud (a necessity as the radiator was placed under the seat), an off-the-spares-shelf exhaust, Fat Boy -esque solid disc wheels, and wide cruiser bars that would have looked right at home on a Duo Glide parked outside of a roadhouse bar. The machine appeared to be more of a test bed than a polished machine ready for production, with some crude detailing and half-finished components making things look a little less than ready for primetime. Stripped of the bodywork the Boss looked like a cutting edge design, a testament to Hallam’s work on the engine and chassis. Clothed it looked like something hastily made ready for the road, the engineering masked by the strange aesthetics. Period reports hinted at the advanced technology that was being presented, but a lot of the impact was lost when you gazed upon the styling. Hallam wanted to build an advanced and competitive Australian machine from first principles and his attempt at satisfying the cruiser design brief seemed forced. Hunwick wanted to build a bike that Americans would buy if they suddenly decided that their Harleys were too fat and slow and the Boss deviated considerably from his vision. This is not to say that the Boss was entirely a result of Hunwick’s desires – it was very much a product of Hallam’s vision of what a cruiser should be, while Hunwick expected a more traditional-looking machine.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

While the Boss had hit the road, for good or ill, a mockup of the proposed Rage streetster was assembled in the HH design studio but was put on hold while work continued on the X1R prototype. Here there was more promise for something earth shattering and a worthy exhibit of Hallam’s engineering that was more in tune with his design principles. If the Boss was Hunwick’s idea, the X1R was entirely Hallam’s. While spreads of the Boss were showcased in the press, small sketches of a sleek, fully faired superbike were inserted into sideboards hinting at what was to come. When the completed prototype was unveiled at Phillip Island in March 1997 during the first race of the World Superbike Championship, it caught the world by surprise. The sleek, organic curves of the initial sketches were translated into carbon fibre and metal faithfully, with a long nose extending to the leading edge of the front wheel serving as the defining characteristic of the otherworldly machine. A shapely belly pan hid some of the mechanical bits, but left a central swath open revealing the exposed cam belts and snaking exhaust headers. The radiator was hidden at an angle in the massive nose, visible through the central duct that fed it cool air. Here comparisons to the V1000 were more appropriate, with a menacing V-twin clothed in highly aerodynamic bodywork with snaking exhaust headers that looked unlike anything else.

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

Phillip Island proved to be the first test run of the X1R, which had never been run in public and had been limited to nothing more than dyno testing prior to its unveiling. Company insiders noted that it was truly a last minute all-or-nothing gamble, with final assembly of the priceless prototype happening on site in the hours leading up to the moment that Paul Hallam bump started his creation for the crowds. Veteran rider Malcolm Campbell was handed the X1R for some parade laps around the circuit, where it performed flawlessly despite never having run under its own power before that Saturday afternoon. The X1R proved to be a hit with the home crowd and an instant sensation that was mobbed by curious onlookers for the remainder of the race weekend. It was a menacing-looking threat from an underdog upstart to the existing manufacturers. They would waste no time in putting the X1R into competition despite the early stage of development.

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

Given that Hunwick Hallam had not yet produced the requisite number of machines needed for homologation (they had in fact only produced one, and that machine was going to be their entry) the X1R was entered into the 1997 Australian Superbike Championship as a prototype. To compete in this category the X1R had to meet all existing Superbike regulations except for production numbers. No points would be awarded for wins, but the company would earn some much needed development testing in the heat of racing, and some good publicity, in the hope that by 1998 they could build enough production examples to qualify for full homologation in the series. Unfortunately things did not begin well. To fill the grid at the opening event at the Winton circuit, Supersport 600 entries were allowed into the Superbike race. While Campbell was able to qualify in 9th position in wet conditions, a collision with a Supersport rider on a Kawasaki ZX6 in the first corner on the first lap of the race led to a fall that sent the silver-liveried machine sliding unceremoniously into the gravel trap. During subsequent repairs a Kevlar chip jammed the fuel pump, putting the X1R out of contention for the following heats. Most recall this ignominious start, but few remembered that the X1R would go on to complete events for the next two seasons, even landing a 2nd place finish at a Thunderbikes event at Eastern Creek  - a result made even more impressive by the fact that Campbell missed qualifying and was forced to start at the back of the grid. That victory was offset by a spectacular mishap in a later round - an ECU glitch caused a lean condition which overheated and blew apart the exhaust, starting a fire that scorched Campbell’s leathers as he continued around the course in flames to get the machine back to the pits to extinguish the inferno.  Later events in the Superbike class netted some respectable 8th and 9th place finishes; nothing to sneeze at considering the X1R was an unproven one-off prototype.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Road tests of the X1R noted good handing (though Wayne Gardner complained about the rear suspension) while nobody had any complaints about the engine, which produced a very useable powerband and a significant spread of torque. Power tapered off around 9000 RPM, which was fine for a street motor but a bit limiting for a racing machine. Hallam noted he was aiming for stable Honda VFR-like handling characteristics, which spoke to his desire to build a useable street machine despite the extreme specs and racing mandate of the X1R.

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

The 998cc machine was soon joined by a second example, referred to as the “Phase Three” or the “Titanium” bike - the first X1R was dubbed “Phase One”, while a proposed future prototype incorporating Hallam’s pneumatic valve design would be “Phase Five”. Phase Three had a short stroke layout with a 102mm bore and 61mm stroke, giving 996cc. The “Titanium” moniker came from the fact that the engine incorporated titanium conrods, valves and valve springs, which along with several other revisions pushed claimed power up to 176 HP at 10,800 RPM and allowed the engine to breath a bit better at higher revs compared to the Phase One. Combined with a 370lb wet weight the extra power was enough to impress noted journalist and seasoned racer Alan Cathcart, who was fortunate enough to ride the Phase Three back to back with the original X1R in 1998 and note the significant progress that had been made by the tiny company.

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

Despite the wowed reactions and impressive figures surrounding the X1R, it could not be forgotten that the meat and potatoes of the Hunwick Hallam venture was the Boss, which was expected to make up at least 60% of the company’s sales, and a lot of press coverage was devoted to the cruiser rather than the Superbike. Early reviews of the Boss noted that the machine had excellent power and good handling for a cruiser, but often noted that the machine was a strange concoction in search of a niche. It had the motor and chassis to get the job done, but was hampered by the very elements that defined it – cruiser ergonomics and weird aesthetics.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

By this point Hunwick Hallam was behind schedule. An analysis by the Australian Graduate School of Management pointed to some serious issues with the HH business model, noting problems like the overly ambitious plan for a worldwide introduction and the immediate entry into several overseas markets, and the projected $30,000-$40,000 AUD price tag for a product that had no current market niche. The report closed with a verdict that the company was aiming far too high given their current situation and that they would have difficulty securing the capital needed to fund their plans. While the initial setup and prototype construction had been funded by Hunwick (to the tune of several million dollars), more capital would be needed to establish production and a sales network. Hunwick was cagey with the details of where the investment money was coming from, but it was revealed that the majority was from Asian investors. Some disappointment was noted that local Australian backers could not be secured, but in any case Hunwick claimed that all was well financially.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Further complicating matters was the fact that the company had become split into two bases of operation, one based in Melbourne and the other in Sydney. The Sydney location, set up close to Hunwick’s Action dealer network, was the operational centre of the company. Meanwhile Melbourne was the site of Hallam’s workshop, where Paul worked on the design sketches and prototype machining during the early stages of the project. The considerable distance (600 miles) between the two sites complicated the process, with sketches and parts being shuffled back and forth between the locales, often by Paul himself. Problems emerged when Hallam’s designs were being altered without his permission in Sydney during his absence.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

This situation came to a head when a competing prototype was built. While the Boss and the first two X1Rs had been assembled in Hallam’s workshop, a street-legal Rage test mule was put together in Sydney without Hallam’s input and revealed to the public without his knowledge. Presented to the press in a barely finished state, with slapdash bodywork, datalogging equipment everywhere, and half-finished components intact, the reviewers were not impressed despite the performance on offer. Local press praised the machine but UK testers were not swayed by the home-grown pride and derided the machine. This publicity stunt highlighted the growing schism within the company, a dangerous revelation when investors were still being courted - especially when the situation became so dire that mediators were forced to step in to ease the growing tensions between Rod Hunwick and Paul Hallam.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Richard James, a member of the HH design team who would also work on the Vincent RTV and the Norton 961 Commando, provided these photos of the mule taken in his parent’s backyard in Sydney, just before he rode the machine 950kms to Paul’s workshop – he noted “The engine went like a train and the bike handled beautifully. It was a bit of a handful to hold onto at high speed though”.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

Series production of the Boss and X1R was slated to begin by 1998, with a hope of 350 machines in the first year scaling up to 800 examples by 2001, but delays and internal issues pushed the date further and further back. By 1999 promises were still being made but no new machines were forthcoming and investors were beginning to get worried. A “factory” was established in Sydney but was little more than a warehouse with offices and a machine shop, with the empty space serving as storage for Action Motorcycles inventory.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

In addition to the rift between the two centres of operation, tensions were on the rise between Rod Hunwick and Paul Hallam. A gulf was forming between the visions of the two men as time went on, with Hunwick focussing on the marketability of HH products while Hallam wanted to develop the engineering and performance of his designs. It became a classic case of marketing trumping innovation, of the considerations of production compromises that plague large companies driving a wedge between the two partners. Despite their upstart status HH was already settling into the patterns that limit larger companies and stifle innovation – Hunwick wanted to sell cruisers and turn a profit, Hallam wanted to build the best possible machine and develop the X1R. Later on, Hunwick would reveal:


So it was that in 2000 that Paul Hallam left the company and Hunwick Hallam was reborn as Hunwick Harrop, with Hunwick retaining Hallam’s engine design and reforming the company in partnership with Melbourne-based automotive engineering firm Harrop. Harrop was (and still is) a well-established supplier of high-performance parts and engineering to the Australian Ford and Holden crowds and the Harrop family had a long history of participation in motorsports. In the new arrangement it was proposed that Harrop would function as a supplier to HH - complete engines and some ancillaries would be produced by Harrop in Melbourne, while the final assembly of motorcycles would be performed in Sydney.

Australian Motorcycle News February 2001

The first product of this partnership was the Phantom 1500 Super Cruiser designed by Jeff Haggarty, which could be summarized as a heavily reworked version of the Boss concept that was more in line with Hunwick’s original vision. Hallam’s engine architecture and frameless chassis were retained but the styling was completely revised. The engine featured a 101.6X92.1mm layout giving 1493ccs, producing 106HP at 6250RPM and 101 LB/FT at 4250RPM with a 9.25:1 compression ratio. The five-speed gearbox of the Boss was retained, while the radiator was moved up behind the steering head. The chassis remained frameless, using a U-shaped alloy steering head bolted to the front cylinder, but dropped the long rising-rate lever and head mounted shock of the earlier machines in favour of a Koni monoshock in a straight-rate arrangement pivoting off the rear cylinder. The right-side up 51mm front forks came from Paoli, while braking was courtesy of Harrop-produced four-piston calipers and 320mm Beringer rotors. The 17-inch disc wheels, shod in sportbike-sized rubber, were also produced by Harrop.

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Styling was a radical departure from contemporary production cruisers and foretold the coming of the factory chopper style that plagues the market today. The rear was shrouded in a shapely binnacle that enveloped the rear of the machine before arching above the motor, with only the seat and speedometer recessed into the “tank” (actually the airbox cover) ahead of the rider disrupting the flowing curves. The 18 litre fuel tank was hidden beneath the seat along with the collector for the dual Staintune exhausts. It was a modern design that earned the company accolades from numerous sources as well as a Good Design Australia award, a far cry from the damning-with-faint-praise that the Boss had received upon its unveiling. With a low, wide butt and a lithe front end the proportions gave the machine a stance that looked far more aggressive than the 31.5 degree rake, 17 inch wheels, and 67 inch wheelbase would suggest. The Phantom looked more like a custom showpiece than a production motorcycle and it channelled the spirit of the new crop of highly-polished custom American machines that were popping up, in advance of the mass selling-out of chopper culture that would soon occur (see OCC et al). Unlike those eye-catching show machines the Phantom had a modern engine, a proper chassis, quality running gear, functional brakes, and the ability to go around a corner. And it wasn’t powered by a ubiquitous Harley-clone motor.      

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The Phantom was in line with Rod Hunwick’s vision of producing a modern power cruiser and it was a machine that was admittedly built with the American market in mind. EPA certification for the driveline was high on HH’s priorities. It was hoped that 70% of the production run would be exported, a clear sign of whose dollars Hunwick was chasing. Early plans were to only sell the Phantom in the USA and Australia, though interest from the European and Asian markets expanded the mandate. Retail pricing was announced at $38,900 AUD, which during the record drop of the Aussie currency around 2001 would have put the Phantom under $20,000 USD.

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The press was impressed with the style and performance offered by the Phantom, noting that it possessed ample power and tidy handling in spite of the long and low geometry and 530 lb dry weight. The styling was seen as fresh and was largely well-received. All looked promising and a goal of producing 325 units in 2001 was announced, with production gradually ramping up afterwards. Once the Phantom was in production it was hoped that the Rage concept would finally come to fruition after languishing on the back burner for several years, while the company website hinted at an upcoming “1350cc sport motorcycle”. Curiously the official Hunwick Harrop website continued to list specifications for the Boss and X1R despite the apparent end to those projects, as well as including quotes from earlier Hunwick Hallam reviews that were edited to refer to the company as “Hunwick Harrop” - a transparent attempt at distancing themselves from the earlier partnership.

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The Hunwick Harrop was to be sold through unconventional means. Customers would place their orders with the company through an online process and have their Phantom delivered directly from the factory. Brick and mortar dealers would be limited to “Stocking Service Providers” who would carry limited inventory and act as a liaison for prospective customers. Each machine would be built-to-order to customer specifications and colours. Preparation and servicing was supposed to be performed by volunteer “Delivery Service Providers”, existing dealerships around the world who would take on the task of caring for the machines without joining a traditional distribution/sale network or holding inventory. Requirements to become a Hunwick Harrop “dealer” were, according to the official website, “SSPs and DSPs will need to be Internet and email connected, have a digital camera for processing claims, have access to a notebook computer to simplify engine servicing, and have a credit card.” It was a new concept driven by the possibilities offered by online marketing and sales, but one that seemed rather half-baked for an upstart company that had not yet delivered any finished motorcycles.

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It was clear that Hunwick Harrop was seeking to capitalize on the recent “Business to Consumer” sales model that had achieved some limited but notable success in the motorcycle industry.  Ducati gambled on B2C as a motorcycle sales tool by offering their limited edition Pierre Terblanche-designed MH900e up for grabs online in 2000, and again when they sold the entire run of 996Rs online in 2001, but those experiments were backed by a major company producing tasty bits of hardware that were well and truly desired before the online sales started. Selling an unproven product from an unknown company that had been consistently behind schedule was far from appealing to sceptical consumers and it made Hunwick Harrop’s B2C model look suspicious rather than revolutionary.

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Four complete machines were exhibited at the 2001 Dealer Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana, marking the US introduction of the Phantom and an optimistic move into the North American market. The upstarts from Down Under received a few curious inquiries, but no commitments were made and no dealers were signed. The four machines were then sent back home to be displayed at the Melbourne International Motorshow where they proved to be a hit with the crowds, though the company website repeatedly parroted the self-deprecating comment “that the Phantom looks better in the flesh than in photos”. The Melbourne show was followed by the public introduction of the Phantom at the opening of the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island in October, where Sir Jack Brabham was handed the keys to a red example for a spirited parade lap around the circuit – four and a half years after the Hunwick Hallam X1R had been piloted around the same course by Malcolm Campbell. Apparently no one dared make the connection between Brabham and Paul's engine despite the history of Sir Jack’s Formula 1 exploits with Frank Hallam’s Repco V8.

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After a brief period of renewed interest in the media and some optimistic reports HH faded into obscurity. The venture limped along, with a claim of 51 orders and an announcement of test rides for “those holding reservations and other interested riders”, but it eventually fizzled out with a whimper.  An undisclosed number of machines were produced (some say only the four that were shown in Indianapolis and Melbourne, along with one pre-production prototype, with no evidence of any customer deliveries) before the funding ran out and the company was quietly shuttered in 2002.

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Rod Hunwick would go on to co-found Deus Ex Machina in Sydney in 2005 with surfware magnate Dare Jennings, cleverly capitalizing on the nascent custom café-styled motorcycle scene that had been brewing in sheds and back alleys for several years  - most notably in Japan where the duo had admittedly pilfered inspiration for their stripped-down and marked-up hipster rides. In a nod to Hunwick’s previous venture visitors to the new shop had the opportunity to see the Phase One X1R on display in the showroom, looking remarkably out of place alongside the various tarted-up Japanese bikes it shared space with (today it sits in the Deus Cafe in Camperdown). Deus would go on to become a successful worldwide chain of shops and cafes supplemented by the sale of branded wares and lifestyle items (“Would you care to peruse our selection of surfboards and pomade while you sip our fair-trade espresso?”) that have become the model for modern custom shops looking to cash in on the grease and nostalgia fad.

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After leaving HH Paul designed the Ecoforce EcoH horizontally-opposed twin, a fuel-injected four-stroke that used crankcase induction like a two-stroke. Crankcase pressure forced the mixture into the cylinder through a sidevalve head, harnessing the considerable pumping forces of the reciprocating internals to create an integrated supercharging effect. Gas-charged pneumatic valve control used a conventional camshaft to open the valves but closed them via pressure bled off the combustion chamber that was directly proportioned to engine speed in an attempt to remove some of the efficiency-robbing resistance of conventional springs. By their nature valve springs apply heavier resistance than necessary at lower engine speeds, as the spring rate is fixed and determined by the force needed to close the valves at the maximum engine speed. By eliminating this resistance, the EcoH exhibited better thermal efficiency and lower emissions while remaining simpler than traditional four-strokes, despite using a supposedly obsolete sidevalve cylinder head. The Ecoforce engine achieved some notoriety for its interesting mix of old and new technology applied in a unique fashion, and the claims of power and efficiency offered by the design appeared promising, but the engine ultimately never progressed beyond the prototype stage where a 86x68mm 790cc version produced 80 HP and 80 LB/FT of torque with a 8:1 compression ratio.

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Today Hallam continues to work as a tuner and engine builder alongside his brother Andrew, with Frank Hallam and Sons Engineering in Geelong now operating as Hallam Boyz. Hallam seems to be best known for his work tuning Harley-Davidson engines, a strange twist of fortune after his work on what was ostensibly going to be a Harley-murdering street rod that could do double duty as a Superbike contender.

Photo Courtesy Richard James

The Hunwick Hallam and Hunwick Harrop ultimately proved to be yet another overly ambitious business venture that failed to secure the funding and support needed to crack into the fickle motorcycle market. What could have been the birth of a world-beating Australian product instead became a poster child for broken dreams and the grim realities of the marketplace – no matter how good your product is, you still need to be capable of producing it and selling it to survive, and the demands of the marketplace are often at odds with the cultivation of innovation. Paul Hallam’s pioneering design work and his attempt to push engine and chassis design forward have proven to be tragically underappreciated, particularly in light of recent advances in motorcycle construction that echo the ideas he was developing in the mid-1990s. The failure of Hunwick Hallam and Hunwick Harrop has relegated the novelty of their prototypes to obscurity, their clever elements becoming a footnote in the infinite register of unsuccessful motorcycle ventures and ambitious “could have beens”.

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

Interesting Links
Hunwick Hallam X1R Reviews
Motorcycle.com Hunwick Hallam Technical Details
Motorcycle.com Hunwick Hallam Articles
Ian Falloon's postmortem summary of the Hunwick Hallam
Phil Aynsley's photographs of the X1R Phase One at Phillip Island in 1997
Review of the X1R Phase Three "Titanium" bike
The Kneeslider on the death of Hunwick Hallam
Archived AGSM analysis of Hunwick Hallam
Richard James' photo collection
Paul Hallam's Ecoforce engine patent
Archived Ecoforce homepage
Video coverage of the 1997 Winton race, with Malcolm Campbell's crash
Archived Hunwick Harrop homepage
Good Design Australia award for the Phantom 1500
Alan Cathcart's review of the Hunwick Harrop Phantom 1500
Bob Jenning's review of the Hunwick Harrop Phantom 1500
Jim Duncan's review of the Hunwick Harrop Phantom 1500

Photo Courtesy Phil Aynsley

The whole concept of authenticity (and what is or is not authentic) is one of those paradoxical topics that seems simultaneously important and utterly trivial. The term serves an accusation / accolade directed at whatever fad du jour is grabbing the attention of the public, but it also seems to be a product of our recent cultural aspirations. The whole business of following your passions, aspiring to greatness, and generally expecting the best for ourselves no matter how lazy or shiftless we are is a recent development that has enveloped our culture. To lack authenticity is to contrive against some notion of “true” passion – or worse, to debase those passionate pursuits with monetary concerns. To exhibit an idealized form of authenticity is to be in tune with your loves and desires without corrupting them with too much rationality or materialism. Upon reflection it’s all a bit ridiculous, but bear with me, I’m sure I have a point brewing here somewhere.



This societal push for everyone to live out their dreams (or forever live in despair because they failed to do so) is a recent development that doesn't seem to have much precedent. Our highly networked, highly public culture places a high value on success, the trappings of wealth, and some vague pursuit of happiness; our constant monitoring of each other’s progress inspires greed, jealousy, and the sort of beating-the-Jones-into-submission dick-waving that would make our ancestors cringe. And that’s what makes it seem all the more ridiculous. Did our great-great grandparents aspire to pursue their dreams? Did they tell their children that someday they could be anything they wanted to be (but today they needed to pick rocks out of the soil)? Did bean farmers in Iowa sit on their porches and gaze wistfully into the sunset, wishing they could abandon their earthly responsibilities to pursue their “passion”?

Probably not. They farmed dirt like they had for generations, and pursued the only life they knew. Those who aimed higher would either make their fortune with luck and hard work, or get browbeaten back into submission for being so vain as to aim above their lot in life.   

This pursuit of irrational desire has bred a multitude of curious trends. We live in a material culture that places high value on things, with some objects having more monetary and philosophical value than others based on their construction, performance, and the ideas that inspired them. We have gone beyond the realm of mere functionality; now we judge objects by their moral and conceptual backgrounds. High value is placed on that which is somehow “honest” and born of true workmanship (whatever that is), be it coffee, clothes or motorcycles. We've come to romanticize the notion of honest labour, of some selfless pursuit of perfection in materialism, of widgets crafted by scarred hands and inspired by hard-won experience. And in lieu of actually living this honest life, you can buy it: the products, the image, and the ideals are all up for grabs if you have the money and the poor sense to fall for the hype.

Pictured: Why Harley can get away with it.

I'll digress a bit and attempt to return to the core of this discussion, and what matters to me and my readers: how do these notions of authenticity impact on our modern motorcycle industry?

Motorcycling as a whole has seen a strange series of ups and downs over its short history, a string of failures and rebirths that have contributed to a curious mythos that is as complex as it is contradictory. In Western society we've witnessed motorcycles transition from cheap transportation to status symbols and recreational items in the course of a few generations. They've flickered in and out of respectability repeatedly over the decades, building an image of grace tempered with a tinge of outlaw culture. We reference our past and play dress up with the trappings of bygone groups, putting on pageants of leather, chrome, and noise that are as much the product of marketing as they are a contrived expression of “individuality”. We conveniently ignore the elements of our history that we dislike and parade around in references to the bits we chose to glorify. Our culture is a constantly evolving pastiche of disparate elements stitched together into some virtually incomprehensible mess that is scarcely decipherable to those outside our world (and quite a few of us inside it).    

In cultural terms we've appropriated elements of the past without understanding them, building monuments to nostalgia and tradition without substance. We have trouble moving forward as a result. Conservatism reigns and we distrust the new. We stick to the formulas and keep building bicycles with engines strapped to them without accepting meaningful progress. At the end of the day image trumps engineering.

It isn't all bad. There is something to be said for machines that channel a genuine spirit. As much as I may disparage the paint shaker-cum-motorcycles rolling out of Milwaukee, I have a begrudging respect for their single-minded pursuit of an ideal (even if that ideal is of their own design). Harley-Davidson is, all marketing aside, the only authentic cruiser. They have an unbroken lineage that has survived depressions, recessions, wars, and image problems, a purity of antiquated design that respects their heritage (aberrations like the V-Rod and Street 500/750 aside). The company can draw a nearly unbroken line from their origins to the present, and their products exhibit the hallmarks of the company’s past in a way that somehow doesn't fall completely into the trap of creaky nostalgia. They aren’t reproductions, they are continuations. If we ignore the brash and contrived commercialism and zero in on the machines themselves, there truly is no substitute for a Harley. To attempt to copy a Harley is to commit the ultimate sin: to build something that is at its core a sham, a shameless knockoff that exhibits all the elements of the original with none of the heritage or spirit intact.

Genesis.

The Japanese marques are notorious for this. They analyse, copy, and conquer. The product may be superior in rational terms of performance, value and reliability, but it has no cultural value. The result isn’t a motorcycle:  it is an attempt to lure sales away from an established niche, to build a by-the-numbers facsimile. It is not authentic. The Japanese are at their best when they are given the freedom to establish a new category, to build something distinct and advanced that doesn't reference the competition. Modern sport bikes and standards owe their existence to the arms race instigated by the Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s, a push that propelled design and performance forward at a remarkable pace. We should celebrate the birth of the superbike and the refinement of the modern motorcycle brought on by the strength of Japanese engineering, not the production of oil-tight copies of British twins and goofy Harley clones that cluttered showrooms for decades.           


There is a paradox in there somewhere, or perhaps a trap that can easily lure in the clueless followers of fashion. We place value on that which is true and pure, but which upholds an outdated standard, and we end up sitting in place and stagnating. Laziness is not authentic. Neither is grimly hanging on to past glories without looking to the future. There is a fine line between honouring your heritage and clinging to old successes. I'm as much as sucker for the idealized, Peter Egan-esque notion of the bygone purity of the old as anyone else.  There is an appeal to the image of sitting in the corner of the garage swigging a dark beer and gazing upon some antiquated machine, a crafted device that is visibly hewn from metal by human hands, as it plinks itself cool following a hard day’s ride. There is a spirit in these old barges that comes through with every ride, a personality that oozes out and puddles on the concrete of the garage floor along with so much straight-weight oil. The trick is to appreciate this old world character without remaining a slave to it. Old machines will always be there; there is no need to recreate them. And keep in mind those old machines were never harking back to some past ideal: they were the products of forward thinking designers, and they were contemporary in their design and performance when they were current. What compels us to build homages to the past, when the subjects of those homages were the result of looking to the future?

A Norton that isn't a creaky throwback.

I would argue that the British lost the plot after the collapse of their motorcycle industry. Norton was able to shamble along and renew itself with a series of remarkable rotary powered machines for a brief but interesting period, but all the other storied marques were obliterated following the arrival of the Japanese conquerors (despite a few admirable attempts to modernize right before the end). While Harley was able to cash in on its legacy early on, and sustain itself through the Eastern onslaught and AMF bungling, the British had their industry crushed and buried before a revival could take place. John Bloor’s resurrection of Triumph has been an undeniable success, but it has earned that success through the bastardization of the company’s legacy. The 1990s were an interesting period where the company moved forward with a series of unique and charming triples and fours. Then they shat out the Bonneville repop in 2001. History had come full circle: the Japanese had beaten the competition by building soulless copies of British machines, and now the British had copied the Japanese by building a soulless homage to their own past. Union jack decals distracted buyers from the “Made in Thailand” and “Made in India” stamps on all the cheap components. The “new” Bonnie was (is) as British as tom kha gai. Reliable, plodding, boring performance and wobbly roadholding was a far cry from the fine handling and snarling engines that propelled Brit iron into the hearts of riders in the 1950s and 60s. Despite this the facsimile was good enough at 20 paces to lure image conscious buyers into the fold by pandering to their nostalgia without offering any real substance. It may well have been a Kawasaki W650 - a bike that arguably recreated the spirit of the original better than the new Bonnie ever did. The Bonneville became the prototypical nouveau classique motorcycle, a runaway success that spawned a series of equally uninspired rehashes from other marques (see also: Moto Guzzi V7, Honda CB1100, or any other machine that excuses lazy design and mediocre performance by appealing to our limitless capacity for nostalgia).

Dime City "who cares what it is".

The resulting me-too hopping on the nostalgia bandwagon has done irreparable harm to modern motorcycle design. Where we once looked starry-eyed into the future aboard our sleek pastel-coloured rockets, we now look wistfully upon a past that never was while straddling wheezy appeals to the sentiments of baby boomers and their self-entitled hipster brethren. In the process you end up with weird compromises, like the new BMW R NineT abandoning the clever Telelever front fork in favour of a non-adjustable conventional fork to make “customization” easier. No, it wasn't to save costs and glean some extra margin, it was to give 1% of buyers the opportunity to swap in some better suspension components (that they will never come close to making use of). Accommodating the whims of fickle buyers forces a step backwards.

Which allows me to segway neatly to my next target:

Our current industry has managed to combine the wistful longings of senile buyers, the muddled self-images of materialistic self-entitled brats, and the myth of honest labour into a cocktail that has given birth to the second coming of the café racer. Every wrench-spinning hack and their grandma has taken to the shed to build a cobbled together monstrosity as the custom scene has exploded into an orgy of candy-flaked, header-wrapped, Firestone-tired homages to… who knows what, we were too busy selling T-shirts and moustache wax to decide.

Honda CB Cafe Racer number 4,695,345.

We have appropriated elements of the past and given them the glossy sheen of branding and rampant materialism, thereby abandoning any hope of contributing something meaningful to our culture. We will never exhibit that effortless cool of our heroes because we are trying too hard, and trying hard to make a buck in the process. Anyone who dares summon the spirit of McQueen (or Brando, or Marvin, or Eastwood, or Newman, or any other grizzled American male celebrity) in their marketing should be avoided at all costs. Beware the Steve McQueen/David Hasselhoff Conundrum. 

Fake carbon fibre is the most inauthentic thing you could possibly slap on your motorcycle.

That’s not to say that numbskulls slapping together deathtraps in their backyards is a bad thing. As long as young men and women have had hacksaws and cheap Mastercraft tools at their disposal, they’ve been butchering two- and four-wheeled devices to their perverted liking. Hot rod culture is alive and well - despite the arrival of the Prius and the Honda NC700 - and the naïve tinkering of our youth should be celebrated and encouraged, no matter how ugly it gets.

It should not, however, becoming commercialized to the point of ridiculousness. That is the difference between the authentic custom and the contrived machinations of businesses masquerading as honest builders. If they are churning out overpriced machines while selling made-in-China bolt on parts and apparel with explicit references to Steve McQueen, they are not worthy of our praise. Save your accolades for the person with blackened, calloused hands who lives in poverty, funnelling all their meagre funds into their projects. You likely won't hear about those people in the media, because they generally neglect to hire publicists or submit their work to Bike Exif.              

Yet another Honda CB cafe-whatever.

That’s the unfortunate and largely untenable ideal we have built, that of the passionate builder plying their trade free of corruption by monetary concerns. The myth of honest labour has merged with the image of the starving artist. The truth is that the most notable visionaries usually toil in obscurity, and always will. Their potential will always be limited by their lack of funds, and their impact will be blunted by their lack of exposure. Noble though their plight might be in an idealistic sense, they can rarely achieve greatness or improve our culture if they are working in anonymity with limited means. A select few rise to the top and get the breaks that allow them to soar, but most will suffer Ramen noodles and cheap beer while they skin their knuckles on their latest creation. It is a romantic image, but not a pleasant one to live through. 

"Ace Corner"

I once liked the whole aesthetic and do-it-yourself mentality that surrounded the rebirth of the café racer (and its American cousin, the chopper, which is equally the victim of a series of deaths and renewals that have tarnished the spirit of the original concept). I became disillusioned when I visited the “Ace Café Corner” at the Barber Vintage Festival in October 2013. II paid extra to gain entry (which should have been my first sign of trouble) into what promised to be a cornucopia of expressive custom machines and a gen-u-ine recreation of the fabled Ace Café. What I got was a bunch of similarly-butchered Honda CBs with gaudy paint jobs and a concession tent that was identical to the dozen other food trucks that dotted the grounds, except this one served overpriced beer in addition to the cardboard pucks they passed off as burgers. Various businesses plied their cheap wares in this “private” area, with everything from Chinese rearsets to coffee mugs on offer to the crowds of bearded, be-flannelled millennials. It was pathetic and disheartening. Bar a few original machines and an entirely out-of-place display of original Brough-Superiors, the whole scene left me cold and feeling cheated out of my admission fee. I had felt the cafe-racer culture had jumped the shark sometime prior, but seeing this pathetic display made me realize I truly disliked where our once vibrant custom scene was heading.

There is also the problem of missing the point of those old café racers and stripped-down bobbers. They were products of purpose. Their aesthetics were a result of the desire for more performance, less weight, and extreme simplification. Their builders were not deliberately trying to channel any particular "look": that came naturally from the pursuit of performance. The modern café racer is merely a pretender, an attempt to replicate the appearance of this purity without the substance. Yes, I'm deliberately drawing a parallel to those soulless Harley copies. That being said there is a place for deliberately hack-n-slash "engineering". These machines should not be presented in overwrought, high-minded terms cooked up by arts degree arrogance, attempting to channel some nonexistent spirit of rebellion (by doing the same thing everyone else is doing). Instead they should be fun, self-deprecating romps like the Dirtbag Challenge.

Magnificent, spectacularly flawed authenticity.

In my mind, true authenticity is born of a purity of purpose and design. The most notable machines are those that execute an idea with minimal compromise. They are pursuits of a focussed goal, of a certain truth. They are unapologetic. In terms of mass-produced machines, the Italians have made their mark building beautiful and uncompromised tributes to mechanical art - and that’s why I continue to ride and lust after Italian machines against all good sense. If I could only ride Bimotas for the rest of my life, I’d die a happy man. If I wanted something boring, comfortable, and easy to ride in traffic, I'd buy a scooter - or literally anything other than a focussed machine that makes no excuses for its performance. If someone hops onto one of these lithe, visceral monuments to man’s hubris and proceeds to nasally complains about how hard the seat is, or the lack of fuel capacity, or how the gearing is tall for stop and go traffic, they need to be immediately barred from ever riding anything more exciting than a Burgman.

The most egregious offenders to our sense of authenticity, wobbly café hoppers aside, are those that are borne of compromise and design by committee. Elements are dumbed down to suit cost-cutting, the bullying of environmental agencies, and the fickle demands of mouth-breathing consumers who are too busy looking for places to bolt a cupholder to notice how perfectly shaped the subframe support is. More recently the concerns of liability issues in the North American market has driven many manufacturers to abandon anything remotely novel for fear of some dolt tipping over in a parking lot and then suing the company because they didn’t explicitly inform him via A. orange warning labels, B. audible alarms, and C. flashing lights that he shouldn't ride with the sidestand deployed.

This exposes a core problem with our industry – we rely too much on the opinions of ill-informed potential buyers who are happy to disparage anything new and unusual. We are constantly forced to look backwards, to accommodate the whims of customers who refuse to accept anything unfamiliar. The classic retort of “I wouldn't buy that” echoes loudly whenever something unusual is presented to the public, despite any attempts to demonstrate that those whiners were never the intended buyer (or that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to buy it even if they wanted to). People tend to forget that the world doesn't revolve around their whims. They also fail to realize that their opinions limit progress, and that simply disliking something doesn't lessen its value or its impact on the world.

Authenticity in innovation and engineering...

The most notable projects, outside of mass production, are those built by the geniuses, tinkerers and cranks who dare to reject the norms and traditions of our otherwise conservative industry. These are the machines that often shock and inspire but are rarely well known outside of a few circles of discussion. James Parker might be one of the best known designers of weird and wonderful alternatives given his infamous association with Yamaha and the GTS1000, and JT Nesbitt continues to buck convention in the most beautifully subversive manner from his workshop in New Orleans, but for every well-known odd bike designer there are a dozen unknown visionaries toiling away beneath the public’s radar; people like Tony Foale, Ian Drysdale, and Julian Farnam to name a few. They produce the best kinds of motorcycles: bikes that draw the ire of the short-sighted individuals weaned on boring appliances. If a machine is radical enough to inflame and enrage the conservative tendencies of all the yokels who gaze upon it, then you know you are doing something right.

The commercialization of racing, and the resulting push of the cost of entry into the stratosphere, has contributed to this relegation of true innovation to the realm of the backyard tinkerer. No works team is willing to bet the farm on some quote-unquote “unproven” technology, and sanctioning bodies would be waiting in the wings to ban any progress if a development proves advantageous. A few small teams bravely try to do something different but are limited by their modest means and their lack of support. The era of the privateer racer/mechanic building and racing his/her own machine (and remaining competitive) is long gone. Racing is so expensive, so complicated, and so heavily regulated that the individual scarcely has any hope of contributing any meaningful technological progress to the sport.

...But not in their choice of name.

That’s not mentioning that entire subsets of the industry have grown to accommodate the status quo. A good example that most people would overlook is tires. Builders who have attempted to race with alternative front suspension designs have discovered that they are severely limited by tire performance. By separating the braking, suspension and steering forces acting upon the tire (which are typically muddled together by the action of telescopic forks) you reduce stress and friction on the carcass, which results in less grip because the tire can never maintain a sufficient temperature to perform properly. Tires are designed with telescopic forks in mind, and there is nothing out there that will exploit the potential of a forkless front end. This leads to builders fielding exasperated ideas like internally heating the tires, or directing exhaust heat towards the tread, or trying damn near anything that will allow a forkless suspension to perform properly in racing. Accommodating the compromises inherent in motorcycle design leads to a vicious circle that sustains those compromises.

They say racing improves the breed, so long as the breed is backed by billions of dollars and doesn't deviate too far from the formula laid out in the rulebook.

Several designers I've spoken to lament that the problem of rampant conservatism doesn't seem to have the same hold on the automotive industry as it does in the motorcycling world. In the realm of automobile design progress seems more rapid and radical ideas are often celebrated, rather than viewed with all-damning scepticism. Engineering solutions to problems are more natural – few in the automotive industry would accept the compromises inherent in a telescopic fork when a better system could easily be designed. There could be many factors at play that lead to this gulf. Some think that the hidden nature of much of the engineering in cars allows more experimentation – nobody will complain about how a suspension arm doesn't look right when it is shrouded in bodywork. It might be also due to the financial aspects: a top tier car is aimed at an elite few who expect perfection, while even the most expensive motorcycles are still within the grasp of the upper middle class who seem to be far more fickle in their desires (and always willing to make unfair comparisons to cheaper, mass-produced machines).

Time to digress again. I've meandered away from the original point of this editorial. Where does this all play into authenticity and passion? Does it really fucking matter? The problem with our industry as a whole is that we have become too preoccupied with defining what is and isn't worthy of our attention. In the meantime we've lost sight of the innovation that’s been brewing right beneath our noses. No, not those hipster dipshits wearing bubble visors and concocting new and creative ways to cut up their subframes. They are a mere distraction, a trend/fad that has been latched upon by the media and profiteers looking to cash in on what should otherwise be a pursuit of progress tempered with passion. You won't find meaning in half-baked tributes to Steve McQueen, or glossy photoshoots of models failing to look rugged in the saddle of some rolling throwback to a past that never existed.  True authenticity, in my mind, is the quest for purity in design and unchecked innovation in the face of daunting conservatism. The people who should be conquering this industry are working in isolation and anonymity. It’s a damned shame that you've likely heard about Wrenchmonkees or Classified Moto but you don’t know who Tony Foale is.

Of course I'm being harsh. I should probably avoid wholesale categorizations and unchecked disdain, but in general the priorities of our current motorcycle industry have left me frustrated. The man/woman in a shed building a bike has tremendous value to our culture, no matter how contrived their inspiration might be. They deserve praise, and don't deserve to be caught in the tides of fickle fads or transparent marketing. If they keep hacking and chopping, they might someday find the inspiration that will carry them toward building a meaningful contribution to our sport. Or they might keep cobbling together noisy deathtraps ad nauseum. Who cares? It doesn't make a difference. My hyperbolic opinions shouldn't stand in the way of your innovation/butchering, just as the vocalizations of a slack-jawed consumer base shouldn’t stand in the way of progress in our industry.

Photo Courtesy Brian Case

There are rare instances in the realm of motorcycle design when there emerges an icon. These are machines so radical that they serve as a clean break from the standards of the past, thereby setting a new template and pushing the high-water mark up the wall a few extra feet. To truly be an icon, they must influence subsequent processes and inspire a new thread in motorcycle design; one-off machines that immediately fade into obscurity won’t do. They can be new standards of beauty, or of performance, or of chassis design, or templates for hitherto untried categories (or some combination of all four). These motorcycles are often the product of years of research and countless design hours, produced by multi-billion dollar corporations that can afford to take a risk once and a rare while. They are not often produced by a tiny boutique manufacturer that has built less than a thousand machines, conceptualized by men who were not classically trained “designers” with decades of experience under their belts.

Image courtesy Brian Case

The Confederate Wraith was one such icon of that emerged from Southern Louisiana like a thundering slap in the face to all that the motorcycle industry held dear. It was an absolute break with tradition, a bold insult to the long-held standards of a conservative industry, and a new way of conceiving of the motorcycle that was unlike anything that had preceded it. It was a product of looking forward while respecting history, a curious mixture of old and new ideas blended into a stunning machine that was as brutal as it was intelligent.

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The story of the Wraith must begin, inevitably, with the story of Confederate. Founded in 1991 by H. Matthew Chambers, Confederate was as much a product of Chambers’ ideology and uncompromising principles as it was the result of a desire to introduce a new concept in American motorcycle manufacturing. A long time motorcyclist and passionate student of Southern history, Chambers was far from the prototypical entrepreneur. After a series of career changes he earned a law degree and practiced as a trial lawyer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He established a successful practice and earned a tidy income, but dreamed of contributing something greater to the world. After winning a particularly grievous personal injury case in 1990 and earning a considerable fee, he sold his share of the practice to his partner and with a million dollars of his own money set out to start his dream project: an American motorcycle that would eschew the stagnant design and commercialization of the American market in favour of an heirloom-quality machine that would have dominating performance. His plan would spark the renewal of an industry that had not existed in the Southern United States since Simplex had faded into history. In conception and execution it would prove to be a labour of love born of high-minded ideals and a desire to renew craftsmanship in an industry that had become driven by profit margin.

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Chambers’ ideas were as esoteric as they were inspiring, a lone voice in the wilderness calling for a conceptual shift in the way motorcycles were designed and built in America. Design and construction would be unhindered by considerations of profits. Individualism would be emphasized, as would mechanical detail and craftsmanship. Nothing ancillary or unnecessary would be present. The machines would be raw and would command respect from their riders, channelling their uncompromised nature through their performance. Chambers’ tenets called for a renewal of what he called “The American Way” and the abandonment of “The American System”: at its core the idea is to bring back quality, pride and craftsmanship in American manufacturing instead of promoting materialism, stagnant design, and marketing falsehoods. This rhetoric continues to inspire confusion among the masses who have been weaned on cheap mass-produced motorcycles fluffed up with contrived links to a mythos cooked up in the boardrooms of multi-billion dollar corporations.      

The name Confederate, often a source of controversy in the early years of the company, was a product of Chambers’ appreciation of Southern history and his unapologetic bucking of convention. Much to the chagrin of politically-correct followers and “Yankee” interviewers Chambers celebrated the exploits of Southern heroes, citing them as the inspiration for the company’s rebellious spirit. Racial implications were never a part of the program but were often brought up by media members who focussed on the negative aspects of Chambers’ heroes, rather than accepting the philosophical implication of his celebration of the South and a pure spirit of rebellion against an overwhelming adversary. In Chambers’ idealized view the South was railing against the Northern corruption of American ideals brought on by the imposition of centralized government, a parallel to how Confederate was fighting the stagnation and materialism that had enveloped the motorcycle industry. He pointed to the lack of industrial development in the South as a result of the history that followed the Civil War, a situation he aimed to correct by promoting manufacturing in the region. In recent years this rhetoric has been softened somewhat in Confederate’s marketing material, but the basic principles still linger.    

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Chambers approached drag-racing specialist Kosman Specialties in California to develop a chassis for his motorcycle. A stiff, well-engineered frame would be needed to ensure the good handling that most American motorcycles seemed to lack. While ideas for a chassis using a unitized engine as a stressed member were fielded, in the end the choice of a non-unit Harley-pattern big twin for motivation led to the development of a steel cradle frame with a massive three-inch backbone. A two-inch front downtube doubled as the oil tank for the dry sump engine. A triangulated rear swingarm operated a straight-rate rear suspension supported by a pair of shocks operating on a single pivot, ala HRD Vincent. Ceriani forks supported the front, with twin Performance Machine rotors and calipers providing meaningful stopping power.  A five-speed gearbox developed in conjunction with Kosman and Sputhe rotated the gear shafts 90 degrees, then flipped the countershaft to the right side of the bike, to create a vertically-stacked transmission that aided packaging and created a structure stiff enough to support the swingarm pivot - an innovation that would become a Confederate signature.

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The first prototype hit the road in 1994. Dubbed the Grey Ghost, this machine set the basic template of subsequent Confederates – a long, low chassis with top quality suspension and brakes, with minimal bodywork surrounding a hulking “radial” twin, Confederate’s term for the 45-degree layout that references the history of the V-twin as a slice-of-a-radial-engine arrangement. Power for the first machine came from a 93 cubic inch (1525cc) S&S-produced big-twin clone; production machines would use a variety of powerplants from S&S and Merch, and specifications varied considerably over the course of production. Customers could customize most elements of their Confederates, and chose from a variety of engine, suspension, wheel, and brake combinations - an American cruiser with 17-inch Marchesini wheels, fully floating Brembo cast iron rotors, and adjustable WP forks? While these first generation machines might seem relatively conventional by our current standards, what with the proliferation of factory “customs” and “muscle” cruisers in recent years, but in the mid-1990s there truly was nothing like a Confederate on the road. It was the prototypical brutish sport cruiser, a distinctly American machine that could go, turn, and stop, while looking mighty badass in the process.

Production of customer motorcycles began in Baton Rouge in 1996, later moving production to Abita Springs, with prices starting in the high $20,000 USD range, easily clearing $30,000 if you checked signed off on a few of the options. The machines bore names that drew inspiration from American history; the Hellcat, standard bearer of the Confederate line, was named after the Grumman F6F Hellcat that served as one of the United States Navy’s most successful carrier-based fighter aircraft in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War. The emblem on the hand-built fuel tanks bore the inscription that served as the company letterhead and the final throwdown to anyone who might have missed the Southern Cross engravings on some of the components: “Confederate Motors, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sovereign, C.S.A.”

Image courtesy Brian Case

         
Like many American motorcyclists who desired something that would challenge The Motor Company’s hegemony of the market, JT Nesbitt was smitten by the Hellcat. While working as a freelance journalist for Iron Horse, during the magazine’s golden years under Editor David Snow’s leadership, Nesbitt had the opportunity to ride a Hellcat Roadster for two days in Daytona Beach, Florida. At the time the magazine was a bastion for the sort of honest, irreverent, and intellectual writing that has long been absent from the mainstream motorcycle press, making it a favourite for misfits and writers with actual opinions who desired more freedom than any meddling advertiser would allow. Iron Horse in the mid 1990s was a gold mine for creativity and honesty, and helped kindle the legitimate do-it-yourself chopper culture that has since been bastardized by the hipster set.    

Image courtesy JT Nesbitt

Nesbitt had briefly met with Matt Chambers in 1995 and again in 1997 prior to testing the Hellcat, a series of encounters that would signal the beginning of a partnership that would end up redefining what constituted the American motorcycle.

At the time Nesbitt was freelancing as a writer while waiting tables, a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art under his belt. Nesbitt had dabbled in motorcycles as part of his sculptural projects and had a keen interest in their design and construction, but was not trained in industrial design through the traditional avenues – a background that would prove to be an asset.

The original Confederate went bankrupt in 2000 and closed the Abita Springs factory after producing between 300 and 500 machines, depending on who you ask. Chambers regrouped and restarted the company in New Orleans in 2001, and it was around this time that Nesbitt reached out to Chambers to ask for a job. Chambers agreed and Nesbitt began his tenure with Confederate by hitting a home run in the redesign of the Hellcat dubbed the G2.

Image courtesy JT Nesbitt

The G2, also called the F113/F124, served as a template for Confederate’s subsequent design language. While the G1 Hellcat had been a relatively conventional-looking machine supported by high-quality components and excellent attention to detail, the G2 was a mean, vicious son of a bitch that soon drew the attention of the public and the motorcycle industry, making Confederate the darling of celebrities and well-heeled riders looking for the ultimate in performance and exclusivity. The big twin and cradle frame were still present, as was the Confederate vertical gearbox, but all the details were reworked into a package that was completely unlike any other production machine on the market.

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Everything that wasn’t billet aluminum or titanium was made of carbon fibre, including the fuel tank. The G2 was ugly in the best possible way, elemental and a bit rough with no extraneous baubles distracting from the purpose of going fucking fast. It looked “purposeful”, if we can forgive a hackneyed motojournalist cliché.

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Nesbitt devised a way of using the swingarm as the exhaust, by way of a triple-layer Inconel bellows connecting the headers to the curved, hollow swingarm tube. Thus far the G2 Hellcat is the only motorcycle design to route the exhaust in this manner; the Riedel Imme R100 used the exhaust pipe as a swinging arm, but the powerplant was rigidly attached to the arm/pipe and moved in tandem with the rear wheel. Twin Penske shocks supported the rear. Adjustable 50mm Marzocchi forks and six-piston radial mounted brakes up front suggested a sporting machine, but a 240mm width rear tire and a carbon-fibre tractor saddle said something else before being drowned out by the fury of a too-much-is-just-enough 124 cubic inch S&S mill which thumped out 130hp and arm-wrenching 140 lb/ft torque at the rear wheel. These massive engines and obscene power figures proved to be more than enough to fling the 530 LB brute down the road with the sort of immediacy and drama that made motojournalists wax poetic about the capabilities of what was supposedly an “antiquated” 45-degree twin - when they weren’t busy pointing out the astonishing $60,000-plus price tag, anyway. It performed like it looked – brutal, uncompromising, and awe-inspiring.

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After years of operating in relative obscurity, Confederate and Nesbitt were suddenly on the radar with a design that had made them the bad boys of the boutique/custom motorcycle world. While other builders were busy hacking together damn-near unrideable, chrome-addled, over-commercialized odes to the chopper scene, Nesbitt had perfected a new breed of machine that created a new category overnight. The new aesthetic was not flawless chrome and airbrush paint jobs tarting up ridiculous machines with absurd chassis geometry: it was the intelligent application of functional, mechanical art that respected heritage without being a slave to tradition. It was raw materials arranged around a taut core, a big-ass motor barely contained within a modern chassis supported by the best components and no frivolous parts distracting from the singular purpose of the machine.  It had a few subtle nods to bygone designs, but applied in a way that didn’t look like anything but a vision of the future. In a way the G2 Hellcat was a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to countless imitators and more than a few Confederate wannabes who emerged to fill the newly discovered market for a modern but distinctly American custom.

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But the G2 wasn’t what Nesbitt truly desired to create. Despite the genre-defying elements and radical styling, the Hellcat was still a relatively conventional motorcycle: engine in the middle surrounded by a steel cradle frame, telescopic forks up front, and a swinging arm at the back. It wasn’t that far removed from the G1 in terms of chassis design despite the marked difference in styling.

Nesbitt had been mulling over a new conception of the motorcycle that would represent a break from previous design language. At its core, his idea is to reverse the accepted order of the machine: build the bike around the engine. While it sounds like an obvious statement, it isn’t the way motorcycles have been conceived in the past. The basic structure of a motorcycle is a bicycle with an engine clipped on – a motor added to an existing chassis. Most supposedly modern motorcycles aren’t far removed from that original formula; pull the powerplant out and remove the bodywork and the rolling chassis of a lot of machines still look like an overgrown bicycle with fancy suspensions bits. The engine almost seems like an afterthought, bolted into place wherever it will fit. Nesbitt’s idea was to start from zero and design the entire motorcycle around the engine in an effort to create a coherent whole.


The genesis of the project began as a conversation between Nesbitt and Chambers on a long cross-country drive just as the G2 was being readied for production. Nesbitt had his own peculiar formula laid out, what he called “circles and lines”. To summarize Nesbitt’s idea in the simplest, most unjust fashion: the engine and wheels are the circles, and the horizontal planes connecting them together are the lines. The 45-degree twin favoured by Confederate worked well as a slice of a pie, a fraction of a radial engine, whose form Nesbitt would complete by closing the imaginary circle around the engine with a chassis and suspension of his own devising.

These ideas were first fleshed out with endless sketches and a scale model, progressing in late 2003 when Nesbitt built a full-sized (but non-running) concept around a Harley-Davidson XR750 powerplant. The machine was utterly alien in appearance. A rolled aluminum backbone served as the frame, with the rear shock mounted inside the spine at the rear supporting a single-sided swingarm. A multilink girder fork with carbon-fibre blades, inspired by the Britten V1000, was suspended by a coilover shock set in parallel with the steering head. A simple leather saddle was perched on the frame with no subframe, the old-world seating contrasted by narrow sporting clip-ons on the front end. There were hints of stripped down board track racers and, by Nesbitt’s own admission, Italian racing bicycles.  The result was an radical mixture of old and new elements applied in a completely distinct fashion that referenced the past without attempting to recreate it.

Bodywork was limited to a scoop-shaped bellypan wrapped around the sump of the engine and tightly-fitted fenders on the wheels. The engine took centre stage, exposed and menacing within the otherwise graceful curves of the chassis, fed by a pair of open carburettors and vented through a shapely heat-wrapped two-into-one header. It looked like an elemental, stripped down motherfucker of a machine, little more than a motor with a seat attached. As Nesbitt intended, the engine dictated the design in spectacular fashion.

Image courtesy JT Nesbitt

Despite being nothing more than a visual experiment that was patched together from parts bin leftovers and Bondo, Nesbitt’s creation caused an immediate sensation in the motorcycle industry. Featured on the cover of the premiere issue of Robb Report Motorcycling in Spring 2004, the newly-christened “Wraith”. The machine was named after the Scottish colloquialism for ghost, described by Chambers as “a name derived to echo man’s notional denial of and rebellion against death”, while Nesbitt elaborated “A wraith is a willowy image of your future dead self coming back from the hoary netherworld to portend your imminent doom.” The concept sparked a flood of inquiries from parties interested in this creation that had been cobbled together in the back of the Confederate factory. In December 2004 the jury of the Motorcycle Design Association of France awarded the Wraith second place in that year’s Concept Bike Category.  Despite the interest there were no immediate plans to put the Wraith into production, or even produce a functional prototype. Nesbitt and Chambers didn’t even know how to put the design into production, as the chassis had not been developed beyond what was effectively a three-dimensional sketch.


In light of the success and innovation of his designs, Nesbitt and Confederate Creative Director Grant Ray were invited to make a presentation at the 2004 Industrial Designers Society of America Eastern conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nesbitt and Ray took to the stage in front of a group of design students, accompanied by a bottle of Maker’s Mark. While Nesbitt was wheeling a G2 Hellcat into the room in front of the crowd, a man in the audience whispered to him: “start the bike.” Nesbitt paused, then obliged, sending a thundering racket throughout the building and enthralling the audience by unleashing all the fury of his creation in an enclosed hotel conference room. With their appropriate introduction completed, Nesbitt and Ray proceeded to get properly drunk during the presentation. They showcased the G2 and shared Confederate’s modus operandi, finishing up by informing the bright-eyed students they “had wonderful futures flipping burgers at McDonalds”. In the closing minutes of the slideshow they flashed images of the Wraith mockup on the screen, hinting at the possibility of a future design in spite of Chamber’s insistence that production wasn’t feasible.

Confederate’s spirit of rebellion was flaunted in dramatic fashion, with a degree of honesty and reckless bravado that made a significant impression on many present. The man who had encouraged Nesbitt to light up the G2 against all considerations of fire codes was one of them. His name was Brian Case, a local industrial designer who ran Foraxis Design Solutions in Pittsburgh, and this was his introduction to Confederate. He vaguely recalled the relatively conventional machines the company had produced in the 1990s, and was absolutely floored by the design of this new generation of machines that Nesbitt had conjured up. Case desperately wanted to know more about who was behind this new machine that was so unlike anything else. The images of the Wraith shared during the presentation left a deep impression on him, and he wanted to be a part of the project. He approached the duo after the presentation and called them “true rebels”. He gave Nesbitt his business card, telling him he would be happy to offer his skills in CAD design to help put the Wraith into production.



Nesbitt added the card to the pile that he had amassed from eager audience members following the presentation. It might have been forgotten among the dozens of other offers to join the Rebellion, had it not been for a chance encounter later that night.

Case was invited through a friend to join a penthouse party following the IDSA conference. He arrived to find the room packed and everyone well and truly drunk. After some mingling he bumped into Nesbitt and Ray and began chatting with them, in the traditional way motorcycle guys tend to gravitate together and swap war stories no matter what the venue may be.

After some time Nesbitt addressed the elephant in the room. “What the fuck happened to your hand?” Case lamented that he had mangled his left hand in a CNC mill accident, and the resulting surgeries had left him with a fused finger. He hadn’t been able to ride a motorcycle for the past four years due to the injury, as it prevented him from operating the clutch lever. Nesbitt had a simple solution: “Dude, you've got to cut that thing off.”

Two weeks later Case had his left ring finger amputated. Ecstatic at the prospect of riding once again, he called Nesbitt just to inform him that he had done the deed. Nesbitt immediately asked him if he would like to work for Confederate.



Case was a skilled designer in his own right and particularly adept at Solidworks and CAD modelling, a skill set that would serve the company well in subsequent years. But there were still no plans to put the Wraith into production, and Chambers was adamant that the project was not feasible.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Nesbitt formulated a plan. On a Friday afternoon, one week after Case had called him, he loaded a 100ci S&S Super Stock Sportster-clone engine from the company shop in New Orleans into a van and drove to Pittsburgh without Chamber’s knowledge. In Pittsburgh Nesbitt met with Case to sit down for a beer and cigarette -fueled marathon session to finalize the chassis design of the Wraith around the engine Nesbitt had “borrowed”.

Image courtesy Brian Case

When Chambers discovered that his designer, the S&S mill, and the company van were missing, he contacted Nesbitt. He informed Chambers that he could fire him, but in four days he would return and re-apply for his position. When he returned from Pittsburgh he presented a series of CAD files detailing a monocoque chassis that he and Case had developed for the Wraith. Chambers was so impressed with the progress the pair had made in such a short period of time, and the innovation of their solution for a strong but easy-to-manufacture frame, that he greenlit the project and allowed development to continue - after re-hiring Nesbitt.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Nesbitt and Cases’ solution was to use a U-shaped formed aluminum shell that wrapped around the bottom of the engine, which was held together with fore and aft bulkheads that were fastened with shoulder bolts that penetrated through the shell and served as locating pins into the bulkhead – positively locking the skin into the bulkheads. This featherweight 14 pound carbon-fibre backbone would double as an oil tank for the dry-sump engine. Wings moulded into each end of the backbone would be bolted to the shell, which cradled the 1640cc motor as a stressed member. This monocoque “fuselage” (folded around the engine “like a taco” as Nesbitt likes to put it) required a unit construction Sportster clone – while the Sportster has a separate transmission and external primary case like a traditional Harley big twin, it is held in unit with the engine crankcases by a casing that allows the power unit to be used as a stressed member. This marked a significant departure for Confederate, who had hitherto relied on big-twin powerplants mated to their proprietary gearbox design, which necessitated a traditional (albeit strong) steel cradle frame.

Image courtesy Brian Case

The chassis was remarkably simple despite its radical appearance. All that would be required to manufacture the monocoque skin would be a flat sheet of aluminum, cut to shape with countersunk holes drilled for the mounting points, folded into the final shape by a hydraulic press. One piece, no welding, no jigs - the result would be a strong and extremely light frame that would allow the Wraith to be produced with a relatively quick turnaround by the tiny manufacturer. Fuel would be carried in a cell hidden in the hollow space below the sump of the engine, at the base of the “taco”, lowering the centre of gravity and eliminating the need for an unsightly tank up above. The exhaust collector would also be placed within the taco, fed by a pair of wrapped header pipes that snaked around the cylinders into the cavity below - this in the days before heat wrap became de rigeur for any hack builder trying to dress up their XS650. Two ports cut into the left side of the shell served as the exits. Mass centralization and simplicity was the aim, but the resulting appearance was that of the bastard lovechild of a piston-engine fighter aircraft and a board tracker. It looked impossibly badass, compact and tightly packaged, stripped down to only the barest functional elements wrapped around a massive engine.

Image courtesy Brian Case

The rear suspension would be relatively conventional, with a straight-rate monoshock mounted within the hollow backbone acting on a single-sided swingarm. The front end was what really set the Wraith apart. The basic girder layout presented on the concept machine would be refined with milled alloy rocker links and an adjustable coilover shock mounted ahead of the steering head, but would retain the carbon-fibre fork blades. It looked wild at first glance but was quite simple in execution, with far fewer components than a telescopic fork.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Girder designs are nothing new, though they are quite uncommon in modern designs: the technology has existed for a century, debuting as the Druid fork, a solid fork supported by a spring on a parallelogram linkage, introduced in the 1910s. In the early days of motorcycling when suspensions of any sort were in their infancy girder designs of various configurations were favoured for their strength and stable geometry, and their ability to separate braking and steering forces from the suspension action. Hydraulically-damped girder forks became a signature of Vincent twins, which used Brampton items before developing their own forged-blade Girdraulic design in the late 1940s as a more rigid alternative to the era’s highly flexible telescopic forks.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Nesbitt and Case set about building a running prototype, dubbed the XP-1, in mid-2004. Early on Nesbitt expressed a desire to field the completed machine at the speed trials on the Bonneville Salt Flats, scheduled a scant four months later. At the time Confederate didn't have the resources to participate in the trials. To ensure that his creation would get a proper baptism at the Flats Nesbitt “resigned” from the company while continuing to work on the XP-1, asking Chambers to withhold his salary so the company could afford to run the machine at Bonneville.  Case also worked without pay during this period, abandoning his Pittsburgh studio to work in New Orleans - completing the Wraith would be a labour of love for both of them, and both men paid expenses out of their own pockets to see it through. Seeing their passion for the project, Chambers relented and agreed to take the completed machine to the Flats.

Image courtesy Brian Case

XP-1 was completed in time to be entered into the first annual BUB Speed Trials in August, 2004. Confederate electrician Chris Roberts volunteered to ride the prototype across the salt, rising to the challenge in a stunning moment of bravery. Roberts, who had hand built the electrical system on the XP-1 (as well as all production Confederates), was a man with no experience at Bonneville who was expected to ride a priceless (and unproven) contraption, put together in a few months by a pair of iconoclastic designers, as fast as he possible could across the Flats. Testing had been limited to a few blasts along the Interstate near the Confederate factory before loading the machine into the van and heading for Utah. To add to the pressure XP-1 was earmarked for delivery as soon as the trials were over. XP-1 became known as the McKenna bike, destined to be installed as a piece of sculpture in the home of a prominent California automobile dealer owner after it had proven itself at Bonneville.

Image courtesy Brian Case

The trial was ultimately successful, but not without drama.

After several days of rain, the Flats were slicked with a thin layer of water and runs had to be delayed while the surface dried. The salt remained damp when XP-1 was scheduled to run, reducing the top speed and adding to the challenge. Bonneville’s surface is notoriously slippery even in the dry, as you might expect when you are driving a high-powered vehicle across a bed of powdery, abrasive material at ludicrous speed.

Image courtesy Brian Case

As per FIM and AMA regulations all competitors must complete a two-way pass through the course to earn their official time, their final speed calculated from the average of these two runs through the markers. Roberts and the XP-1, entry number 99, were on the course at the same time as a streamliner with entry number 999. Roberts had finished his first run and was waiting to begin his second pass in the other direction. Meanwhile 999 was waiting to begin its run at the opposite end of the course. When the call was made for 99 to complete its second pass through the markers, the driver of 999 misunderstood and took off – on a collision course with Roberts. Disaster was averted but the incident nearly had the upstarts from Confederate ejected from the trials. Video proof was presented to show that the call was made for 99 and it was the streamliner driver was at fault, not Roberts.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Roberts ran over 139 MPH across the salt and the crew shared a moment of triumph before delivering the bike to its new owner. The Confederate legacy had been established at the Flats, and all subsequent machines produced by the company would be fielded at Bonneville as a test of their performance and the company’s resolve in producing the fastest American production motorcycles. Nesbitt returned to the National IDSA conference with Case and Chambers where they showcased the results of the Wraith endeavour and screened a video of XP-1 running at Bonneville.  



With XP-1 delivered to its new owner, work began on a pre-production prototype that refined the chassis design and prepared the Wraith for (limited) series production.  While outwardly similar to the McKenna bike, aside from the liberal application of black hard anodizing, a number of notable improvements were implemented in what would become known as the Black Bike. Changes were made in the hopes of creating a more streetable (but still awe inspiring) machine - something more suitable for public consumption than the XP-1, which had been built with Bonneville in mind.

Image courtesy Brian Case

The monocoque, carbon fibre backbone, and Sportster-pattern engine would remain, but the front suspension was reworked. Instead of a coilover shock mounted ahead of the steering head, Nesbitt envisioned a spring enclosed within the steering neck, damped with a cartridge contained in a cavity filled with hydraulic fluid. It was essentially a rearranging of the internals of a telescopic fork applied in a unique way, with the suspension centred along the steering axis. The spring would be connected to the forks by a pullrod mounted to a rising-rate linkage, pulling down from the bottom of the steering head to compress the spring via a plunger cap mounted above.

Image courtesy JT Nesbitt

While the XP-1 had used a highly-tuned 100ci Super Stock engine, the Black Bike used a more “docile” 101.6x92.1mm 91ci (1490cc) powerplant built for Confederate by Revolution Performance. Fitted with two massive 48mm Super G carburettors, a reversed rear cylinder head, and Confederate’s signature vertically stacked six-speed transmission, this was not your typical Sportster mill. Power was a claimed 125hp at a screaming 7400 rpm with 104 lb/ft of torque – at the rear wheel. Semi-wet weight, without fuel, was 425lbs.

Image Source

Performance from this combination of light weight and massive torque was impressive, but the chassis also shined. Wheelbase was 58.5 inches with a rake of 27 degrees, fitted with 17 inch wheels that could accommodate sportbike-sized rubber – no slow-turning 240 rear ala Hellcat here, instead the Wraith used a 5.5 inch width Marchesini forged alloy rear wheel shod with 180mm Metzeler rubber. Traxxion Dynamics supplied the suspension units, a modified Penske shock at the rear and a custom damper for the unique front end.

Alan Cathcart was given the opportunity to ride the Black Bike in an early state of completion in 2005. His impressions were favourable, noting a very compliant ride and excellent handling. His only gripes were the odd seating position and the lack of a tank to grip with your knees when cornering (the white hot rear cylinder serving as a poor substitute), and some fueling issues from the Revolution engine that were addressed, but not fully sorted, during his test. Remarkably, the Black Bike was assembled shortly before Cathcart rode it and was not complete finished. Though he did not reveal the fact in the review the front suspension did not have any damping mechanism installed, making the tidy handling all the more impressive and serving as a testament to the stability of Nesbitt’s fork design.

Image Source

Development of the Wraith continued, with production anticipated to begin in the Fall of 2005. A target retail price of $47,500 (later revised to $55,000) was proposed – making it considerably less expensive than the existing Hellcat and reflecting the simplicity of the chassis’ production. A release party for the first production Wraith was scheduled for Halloween eve, with a procession of bikes meeting at the Confederate factory before touring the warehouse district of New Orleans. In late August Chambers and Nesbitt were invited to the Middle East to discuss a business arrangement with an undisclosed funder somewhere near the Persian Gulf, described as a prominent figure who was an existing Confederate customer and enthusiastic supporter of the company.

Plans were made to pay the debts of the company and fund the construction of three new models without compromising the American ownership of the company. A deal was struck and Chambers and Nesbitt spent the night celebrating before retiring early on the morning of August 28th. Upon their return to their private residence they tuned into CNN and watched in horror as reports were broadcast of a category four hurricane making its way straight for New Orleans. The epic high of their salvation at the hands of a wealthy patron was immediately crushed by the realization that their friends, family and business were now at the mercy of the wrath of God and nature, and they could do nothing but watch from the sidelines on the other side of the world.

Image courtesy Brian Case

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on August 29th. Chambers approached his backer and offered to annul the deal in light of the possibility that the factory might be destroyed. The backer refused to go back on his word and assured Chambers and Nesbitt that the agreement would stand no matter what the outcome of the storm.

Image courtesy Dave Hargreaves

Katrina would prove to be one of the single most destructive storms in United States history, and one of the deadliest hurricanes on record. In addition to the destruction wrought by the hurricane winds, New Orleans was devastated when the levee system failed and flood waters blanketed 80% of the city. Nesbitt returned to Louisiana and established his parent’s home in Shreveport as a safe haven for the company employees and families, all of whom were fortunate to have survived the nightmare that Katrina and its aftermath had wrought upon the city. Some preparations had been made at the Confederate factory in anticipation of possible flooding, but nothing prepared the employees for what they would encounter when they returned to the site. The West wall and the roof had collapsed, and the building that had served as the company’s factory and headquarters since 2001 was completely destroyed. The Black Bike had been on exhibition in New York at the time and was spared, eventually finding a permanent home in the Trump Tower, but the heart of Confederate was in ruins. Some frames and most of the company files were recovered but it was clear that that Confederate as it had been was no more, and another complete renewal of the company would be needed.

Image courtesy Dave Hargreaves

Chambers made the decision to relocate the factory to a new location, a move that led to a great deal of turmoil for Nesbitt. Nesbitt remained fiercely loyal to the city he loved and refused to leave, thereby parting ways with Chambers and Confederate. Nesbitt had promoted a sincere desire to inspire a renewable and sustainable industry in the region, an industry driven by skilled labour that would manufacture commodities for export in a place which had hitherto relied on cultural exports and oil money to keep the coffers filled. It was a philosophy that had endeared him to Confederate and Chamber’s desire for a renewed industrial presence in the South.  These ideals would drive Nesbitt to found Bienville Studios alongside Dave Hargreaves, another refugee from the Confederate Family, where he would continue his own peculiar brand of uncompromising industrial design in the heart of the French Quarter.

Image courtesy Dave Hargreaves

Meanwhile at the renewed Confederate Motor Company Brian Case and Nesbitt’s protégé, Edward Jacobs, were tasked with taking over the Wraith project. After a period of canvassing for locations and favourable economic conditions, the decision was made to move the company to a new facility in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Under Case and Jacob’s direction the Wraith would be reborn along with Confederate, taking on a form that was distinct from Nesbitt’s original vision but no less iconoclastic in its execution.          

Image courtesy Brian Case. Nesbitt speaks with Chris Roberts at Bonneville in 2004. Roberts, who worked for Confederate until 2006, was murdered at his New Orleans home in 2007 while trying to stop a robbery.

Interesting Links

Confederate website
Confederate chassis patent
Inc. profile of Matt Chambers and Confederate circa 2000
Review of the Confederate Grey Ghost
Review of the Confederate America GT
Announcement of the CSA line of entry level models circa 1999
Neale Bayly's review of the G2 Hellcat
Alan Cathcart's review of the G2 Hellcat
The Kneeslider details and discusses John Burn's disastrous review of the Hellcat in Cycle World
New York Times on the Wraith and Katrina
Bloomberg Business Week interview with Matt Chambers circa 2012
Alan Cathcart's review of the Black Bike
Motorcyclist interview with Matt Chambers following Katrina
Scale model recreation of the Black Bike
Matt Chamber's tribute to Chris Roberts

Image courtesy Brian Case

It is late 2005 and Confederate Motors is in shambles. Fresh from the epic high of securing a high-profile investor in the Middle East, the company’s president Matt Chambers and lead designer JT Nesbitt returned to their New Orleans base of operations to discover that their factory has been destroyed by the winds and flooding brought on by Hurricane Katrina. With their facilities in ruins and their insurance company bankrupted by the claims in the aftermath of the storm, it looks like the infamous purveyor of brutal, radical and rebellious motorcycles is no more. Katrina has seemingly crushed the hopes of bringing Nesbitt’s iconoclastic Wraith design to production.


The situation appeared dire and the circumstances were debilitating, particularly for a tiny boutique manufacturer that had constantly fought with debt, flirted with bankruptcy, and struggled to meet the demand for their two-wheeled anti-establishment icons. A few frames and components were salvaged from the ruined factory, as were most of the computer files and company books, but the operation was a long way away from building bikes - particularly when New Orleans was still wracked with instability, crime and resource shortages in the wake of flooding. In spite of the literal collapse of their New Orleans factory, Confederate’s anonymous investor/saviour had maintained his end of the agreement and would provide the capital needed to renew the company. The question remained: with the factory gone and New Orleans in shambles, where would Confederate build its bikes?




The unstable period following Katrina led to a great deal of internal turmoil and emotional conflicts within the company. Former employees of Confederate often liken their time at the company as being part of a “family”, a tight-knit and sometimes conflicted group of misfits who loved each other as much as they believed in the machines they were helping create. Many suffered long hours and paltry (or nonexistent) wages to help support the company in times of financial trouble, their contributions a true labour of love that spoke to the passion they felt for what they were building and the charismatic nature of the philosophy that Chambers espoused.


It was not a surprise, then, that following the horror of Katrina and the destruction of the factory many intense emotions would come to fore. The period following the hurricane is rife with conflicting stories, disagreements, and defensive statements that need not be repeated here. All that is important for the telling of this story was that the ultimate outcome was that Chambers made a decision to leave New Orleans and start the company anew in a more favourable location, and JT Nesbitt made the decision to leave the company and remain in Louisiana.

Image courtesy Brian Case.

Brian Case continued to work as a consultant for Confederate through his Pittsburgh-based company, Foraxis. In addition to helping Nesbitt design and build the Wraith XP1 and B91 prototypes, Case had a team of CAD modellers working on digitizing the components and blueprints for the G2 Hellcat into ThinkId files to streamline production. Following Katrina it seemed that Foraxis would lose its biggest and highest profile client, but Chambers saw a place for Case in the post-Katrina re-organization of the company and began discussing the possibility of bringing him on board. It would prove to be a difficult but momentous moment in Cases’ career – here was the possibility of leaving his stable business to join one of the most innovative and adventurous motorcycle companies in the world. Case felt that there was nothing else that could be as fulfilling as working for Confederate. It seemed like a dream opportunity, and in spite of the destruction wrought by Katrina there appeared to be promising opportunities on the horizon.



After canvassing locations across the United States an offer was extended for Chambers to visit Birmingham, Alabama in December 2005. The offer was made by local magnate and motorcycling icon George Barber. A wealthy industrialist who had made his fortune in the dairy industry and local real estate, Barber was renowned for building the finest collection of motorcycles in the world: the world-class Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum is home to largest and most thorough catalogue of rare, significant, and historically important production and racing motorcycles anywhere in the world.

George Barber is an imposing but well respected figure in the Birmingham area, a powerhouse business maven who balances his acumen with a friendly, cordial attitude that has earned him a great deal of respect in the local community. So when George Barber makes you an offer, you pay attention. Chambers was invited to the Barber Motorsports Park to discuss the possibility of moving to Birmingham, and made a point to bring Case along. Barber made a strong case for the move with some significant incentives, including a year's free rent in an 8,500 square foot downtown warehouse on Fifth Avenue South to get the operation back on its feet. An agreement was made and after several months of insecurity Confederate was set to move to Birmingham.

Image courtesy Brian Case.

Tentative plans were made to build a 25,000 square foot state-of-the-art production facility adjoined to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum two years after Confederate relocated, with production facilities and offices being setup at the downtown location in the interim. The partnership between Barber, Confederate and the city of Birmingham became big news in the local media, with an official announcement made at the museum and a high-profile photo op that saw Alabama governor Bob Riley riding a G2 Hellcat around the Motorsport Park track. Much ado was made about the economic benefits that the company could offer the region, with jobs for as many as 250 employees and tens of millions of dollars of investment going into the local economy. Chambers announced an intention to build 150 machines in 2006, with double that expected in 2007, ultimately reaching a target of a lofty 900 examples in 2008.


Confederate seemed to be a part of a series of economic windfalls that were benefiting the Birmingham area, an explosion in growth and culture that was spearheaded by a gentrification of the industrial areas of the city’s core. Confederate was among dozens of trendy businesses, restaurants and breweries that were popping up in the city and spurring on the growth of some interesting progressive cultural development within the region. Press releases made it seem like Confederate was part of some hipster gentrification movement, the motorcycle manufacturer to the stars - conveniently located across the street from an independent theatre venue. The media oversimplified the purveyors of the Art of Rebellion into a cute boutique/craft manufacturer making curious-looking bikes for wealthy clients. It was in line with Chambers’ ideals of promoting uncompromising design and craftsmanship, and the construction of “heirloom quality” machines... But it marked a noticeable softening of the abrasive damn-the-North ideology that inspired Chambers to adorn his G1 Hellcats with a decal that stated the Confederate States of America as their place of origin and to name one of his motorcycles after Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Once plans were made to relocate to Birmingham, Chambers made Case a formal offer to join the company with the ultimate goal of finishing development of the Wraith. His colleague Ed Jacobs would be tasked with the proposed Renovatio project, a radical machine that would represent the rebirth of the company (but would, unfortunately, never reach production). Case left his partner in charge of Foraxis and moved to Birmingham to become Confederate’s head of operations. Enthusiastic about the prospect of helping resurrect the company, Case also hoped to fulfil a personal promise he had made to Nesbitt several months prior – he intended to see the Wraith project through to completion and put Nesbitt's design into production, albeit in a form that would be quite distinct from the two prototype machines.

Case, Chambers and Jacobs were the first and only employees of the new Confederate. The immediate goal was to resume production of the G2 Hellcat as soon as possible, and for the first six months Case coordinated vendor relations and supply chain management. What few parts were salvaged from the New Orleans factory were put to use in the new series of machines, including the first Hellcat produced after Katrina - built for Ryan Reynolds, who had placed his order before the hurricane. Chris Roberts soon joined the company once again to continue his work as Confederate’s electrical engineer.


With production of the Hellcat underway, Chambers asked Case to continue on the Wraith project. A chance phone call from an unlikely champion helped give impetus to the project. One day Case happened to answer the phone when Eddie Van Halen called to inquire about a motorcycle he had seen featured in a two-page spread in a certain lifestyle magazine. That machine was the B91 Wraith - the Black Bike that was now in private hands, the property of a wealthy enthusiast who kept it displayed in the living room of his Trump Tower apartment. As a youth growing up in the 1980s Case had idolized Van Halen, and made a promise to Eddie that he would build him a Wraith. Van Halen, attempting to reassure Case that he was indeed THE Van Halen, sent him a surreal email – several photos to prove who he was, accompanied by a solid block of text with written without spaces because his spacebar was broken.


In early 2006 Alan Cathcart pulled some strings and earned Confederate an offer to participate in the prestigious Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England. Exhibition at the Festival of Speed is by invitation only, so this was an offer that was not to be taken lightly. Case planned to have a Wraith built in time for Cathcart to ride on the Goodwood House grounds; no mean feat considering the event was in July and there had not been a Wraith built since the B91, and the bike would have to be shipped a month in advance to make it to the event on time.


To add to the challenge the only motor available on short notice was a 131 cubic inch (2147 CC) R&R Cycle billet Evolution-clone big twin that was intended for the 2006 F131 Hellcat, which featured completely different architecture compared to the Sportster-based engines used in the prototype Wraiths. With a deadline looming and problems with mounting the big-twin engine into a chassis intended for a Sportster architecture not fully addressed, the Goodwood bike, dubbed B131, was built as a non-running prototype. The machine was completed in June and crated up for shipment to the UK a month in advance of the Festival. Case flew to overseas to setup for the event and await the arrival of the B131.


The machine never arrived. A problem with the customs paperwork meant that the B131 remained in the crate in a holding facility in the USA while Case was getting prepared for the big reveal at Goodwood. The Confederate stand was still put up, featuring exactly zero machines, with labelled plinths sitting empty. It was an embarrassing moment for the company, but one that would be rectified the following year when a Wraith and a G2 Hellcat would successfully complete the transatlantic journey to Goodwood.  

Confederate Wraith and Hellcat at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2007. Image Source

Upon his return to Birmingham Case sat down to re-evaluate the big twin Wraith idea and refine the concept. He decided that the Evolution-pattern R&R engine would not work, particularly due to the transmission mount shared with the Hellcat that would preclude using the engine cases as a stressed member within the monocoque structure.
The solution was found in a series of clone motors produced by JIMS USA under license from Harley-Davidson. Based on the Twin Cam architecture introduced by Harley in 1998, the JIMS Beta series twin features a counterbalancing system as found on Twin Cam B series engines used in Softail models from MY2000 onward. Dual counter-rotating balance shafts, placed fore and aft of the crankshaft and driven by a single chain geared off the primary side flywheel, ensured a smooth engine devoid of the usual paint-shaker primary vibration inherent in a massive 45-degree twin. This makes solid mounting possible without having the engine conspiring to rattle the chassis (and the rider) to pieces. More importantly for the Wraith, the Twin Cam engine featured direct mounting points for the transmission case at the rear of the crankcase, allowing the gearbox to be bolted rigidly to the engine to create a semi-unit structure that could be used as a stressed member. The Evolution series and all prior big twin designs have had completely separate gearboxes that needed to be mounted independently from the engine, precluding the possibility of using the powertrain as a chassis member.


Case designed a proprietary gearbox support that would bolt to the Twin Cam crankcase and house Confederate’s signature vertically stacked five-speed transmission. With this unitized design, the JIMS powertrain was a mere ½ inch longer than a Sportster unit. A "not street legal" (cough) 120 CI 4.125 x 4.5 inch undersquare (approximately 104.8mm x 114mm, 1973 CC) engine was selected, an off-the-shelf counterbalanced JIMS mill intended for use in Softail applications. Aside from a set of Screaming Eagle cams, pushrods, and valve springs, most of the components were produced in-house by JIMS, including the conrods, pistons, tappets, rockers, crankcases and crankshaft. With a 10:1 compression ratio and running premium pump gas, claimed power was 125 HP and 121 LB/FT at the rear wheel (some sources claimed 131 LB/FT - in either case it could probably be deemed adequate). In a bike that would weigh less than 450 LBS ready to ride, this would be sufficient to give some sparkling performance – without any of the retina-detaching vibration that would normally be expected from a highly-tuned big-inch Harley-clone motor.


The chassis was similar to the previous prototypes, sharing the same hollow carbon-fibre backbone used on the XP1 and the Black Bike – close inspection will reveal that the curve of the spine doesn't quite match the radius of the big twin cylinder heads, as the spine was originally drawn around Sportster dimensions. The suspension contained within the steering neck used on the Black Bike was abandoned in favour of the XP1 multilink girder setup with an external Penske coilover shock mounted in parallel to the steering axis, using a titanium shock spring to reduce steered mass. Rake was 27 degrees, with 4 inches of trail - wheelbase was 58.5 inches. Another key difference compared to the earlier prototypes was the splitting of the monocoque fuselage into five pieces. The spine and bulkhead panels supported the motor and served as the load-bearing structure, while the belly pan became an unstressed panel that could be unbolted from the rest of the chassis. As before the backbone served as an oil tank for the dry sump motor, while the belly pan contained the fuel cell, exhaust silencer, and battery. An automotive pump was needed to move fuel against gravity from the underslung tank, fed through a regulator to reduce pressure enough to feed a single 51mm Keihin carburettor.


By December 2006 Case had completed a running (but not yet rideable) “B120” Wraith prototype. Plans were made to deliver the bike to Southern California where Alan Cathcart would get some seat time and write a review for Motorcyclist magazine. Case himself would make the trip across the country with several bikes in tow – he would take the opportunity to personally deliver Ryan Reynolds’ now completed Hellcat as well as bring the Wraith to Cathcart.

Image courtesy Brian Case.

While the B120 was more or less complete, some detail work remained before Cathcart would be able to ride it. Case took the bike to Eric Schwartzkopf’s Exclusive Customs shop (now DC Custom Designs in Marina Del Rey), then a Beverly Hills-based Confederate partner located just off Santa Monica boulevard. Schwartzkopf had served as an unofficial Confederate service centre and had a favourable relationship with the company, performing repairs, maintenance and warranty work for local owners (read: celebrities), despite the fact that there was no official Confederate dealer or service network at the time.

The Confederate Wraith logo, a stylized W designed by Case so he could paint it on the road with a burnout. Matt Chambers wasn't amused.

Schwartzkopf opened his shop to Case to allow him to finish the B120. With the bike running and a quick shakedown complete, it was hastily delivered to Susan Carpenter from the LA Times for a review. Carpenter discovered a few issues, including a leaking backbone which dripped oil onto the exhaust pipes and rear wheel, and a wonky fuel pump which caused the bike to die on her first ride. The resulting review was a bit disappointing and it seemed like the test had been unnecessarily rushed, but Carpenter was still charitable to the machine and could not deny the appeal of the Wraith, despite the teething issues and a riding experience that taxed the rider. She noted the smoothness of the counterbalanced engine and the compliance of the unusual front suspension, and the massive amount of attention that riding the Wraith around Los Angeles attracted.


After Carpenter’s ride, Case made some last-minute fixes, such as sealing the leaky oil reservoir in the backbone with Kreem. Before delivering the bike to Cathcart, Case took the opportunity to take the B120 on some shakedown rides around Malibu and the surrounding backroads, including a trip to the famous Rock Store where he encountered Jay Leno (who expressed enthusiasm for the wild design). Case had to deal with an unstoppable amount of interest lavished upon the alien-looking machine on every route and at every stop. As Carpenter had discovered the sight of a Confederate of any sort on the road was cause for investigation, and the awesome-looking Wraith garnered even more attention than usual.


With the major bugs ironed out the B120 was passed to Cathcart. His review noted much improved riding characteristics compared to the Black Bike he had ridden in 2005. He praised the smoothness and power of the JIMS engine, particularly compared to the Revolution Performance powerplant used in the B91.  He also noted the good handling, commendable stability (without the need for a steering damper, though production models were fitted with one), and excellent feedback offered by the girder front suspension. Soft springing and controlled damping allowed the bike ride to absorb rough roads without feeling undersprung – it rode comfortably, even if the ergonomics would injure the rider before the suspension harshness ever would.


At this point a retail price of 55,000$ was set for the B120, undercutting the F131 Hellcat which remained the flagship of the line at 67,500$. Chambers claimed that 35 pre-orders were in hand for the Wraith, and that there were plans to build as many as 250 examples with production starting in early 2007. Plans were made for a return to Bonneville in 2007 to prove the mettle of the new Wraith. Case hoped to lead the effort and field his baby on the Salt Flats, just as Nesbitt had done with XP1. However Chambers was pushing Case further away from design and testing and more into production logistics for the company. A Haas CNC mill and CNC lathe were purchased on Case's recommendation to bring more manufacturing in-house and he was placed in charge of setting up and programming the units - once the machines arrived on site it was clear that a suite of CAM software was needed to convert the company's Solidworks files into real objects, an expensive oversight that angered Chambers. He made Case responsible for getting the critical CNC equipment running, while Ed Jacobs was gradually increasingly billed as Confederate’s star designer. Case was being pulled from the front line and relegated to daily operations, and he began to feel slighted as a result.

Alan Cathcart and Brian Case with the B120 prototype. Image courtesy Brian Case.

Period articles seem to corroborate the shift, with mention of Case’s contributions to the Wraith project steadily disappearing as time went on.* Despite the high-profile nature of the design and the favourable attention the B120 was garnering, it seemed that Chambers preferred to shift focus onto Jacobs’ work, which were more industrial, clean-sheet designs that represented a break from the pre-Katrina machines.


In March 2007 Case was sent to the Daytona Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Florida with two Wraith prototypes. Neale Bayly was invited to ride and review the B120, with Case joining him on the second machine for a friendly blast around the event. Bayly noted some ergonomic issues and clunky clutch and shifting, but was favourable in his assessment. When he rode the newer of the two prototypes he noted some noticeable improvements, what he saw as a sure sign of meaningful progress towards a polished production machine from the tiny company. Retail price was now quoted at 62,500$.


During the fall of 2007 a team consisting of Denis McCarthy, Jason Reddick and Joe Brutton was preparing a B120 for a record attempt at the BUB Speed Trials in September of that year in the Altered – Pushrod Gasoline class (A-PG 2000CC). Case had been helping the crew prepare Bonnie, the Wraith registered as entry 96 in the BUB trials, but was removed from the team by Chambers in August. He was tasked with taking a B120 and a F131 Hellcat to take to Sturgis, North Dakota to participate in the American Motorcycle Dealer World Championship of Custom Bike Building. The AMD championship is an annual showcase of all that is wild and wonderful in custom motorcycles, with entries from all over the world competing in several categories - but despite their worthiness as entries, Case failed to see how competing in the championship would play into Confederate’s brand image. The AMD championship was a showcase for over-the-top unrideable choppers and candy-coloured styling exercises that represented the sort of ridiculous excess that didn't jive with Confederate's ideology. He felt that the trip was a way of pushing him out of the limelight while his coworkers were working on the Bonneville entry. The two Confederates were entered in the Production Manufacturer Class, with the requirement that the “entry must be based on a production motorcycle with over 50 units of the model produced annually”; a definition that was probably stretched a bit for the Wraith, which at that point existed only in pre-production form. Regardless of the letter of the rules the two entries swept the class, with the Wraith taking first and the Hellcat second.


The results served as a bit of vindication for Case, but it didn't help his position with Chambers. Upon Case's return to Alabama, the two had a vicious argument. Chambers proceeded to suspend Case from work for two weeks. Frustrated by his increasingly marginalized position within Confederate, Case spent the time off work mulling over his options. He made the decision to leave the company and tendered his resignation upon his return.


With regards to the Wraith, Case felt the design was finished and he had seen it through to production. He felt that he had accomplished what he set out to do, and in so doing had kept his personal promise to Nesbitt (and, to a lesser degree, to Van Halen, who eventually took delivery of a B120 for himself and a Hellcat for his wife).

Image courtesy Brian Case.

The Bonneville run went ahead as planned in September, with Bonnie taking to the Flats with Jason Reddick aboard. Featuring a pair of board-tracker style reverse bend handlebars to allow Reddick to tuck in, entry 96 averaged 137.152 mph in the flying mile on their first outing, then 154.778 mph on their second runs. Despite the impressive performance from a naked, air-cooled V-twin powered “production” machine, their trap speeds weren't enough to secure a record in A-PG 2000CC. The team noted that the bike was running out of gearing at the top end; a subsequent attempt in December 2008 with a revised Wraith, again with Reddick aboard, netted a two-way average of 166.459 mph. With that Confederate earned their first FIM land speed record in the Altered - Pushrod Fuel class (A-PF 2000CC).

Denis McCarthy aboard Bonnie. Image courtesy Denis McCarthy.

Series production of the Wraith was underway by mid-2007, with a retail price that had now inflated to 92,500$. Given the hand-crafted nature of the machines, no two B120s are exactly the same. Some have single front brakes instead of a dual disc setup, some have stainless brake rotors while others have carbon composite, some have BST carbon fibre wheels instead of forged Marchesini items, some have open headers while others route the exhaust through the belly pan. Small detail differences and specification changes abound throughout the production run. Some complaints were addressed, particularly an extremely heavy clutch pull and clunky shifting, as well as some ergonomic tweaks that made the seating position a bit more bearable (but still far from appropriate for long rides).

Image courtesy Brian Case.

Not only are no two Wraiths alike in specification, it would also appear that no two Wraiths ride alike. Each reviewer that had the good fortune to swing a leg over the B120 had a very different opinion of the handling. Most praised the smoothness and power of the JIMS engine, and universally noted the awkward ergonomics, but each noted different characteristics from the girder front suspension. This ranged from the commendable stability and feedback that Cathcart noted in Motorcyclist in 2007 to flighty nervousness that required a maxed-out steering damper described by Mark Hoyer in a 2009 Cycle World review. In a 2008 review for The Telegraph the late Kevin Ash described the steering as vague and slightly unstable until you pushed it hard (which he was reluctant to do on a borrowed machine that retailed for £52,560)  and lamented that the multilink front end wasn't tuned for anti-dive properties like a BMW Duolever (Hossack) suspension.

Image courtesy Brian Case.

The reason for this variety in handling impressions is unclear. It may have something to do with aberrations in the front girder geometry - either intentional due to tweaking by Confederate over the years, or due to improper suspension setup, or due to minor variations in production. Girder forks tend to have odd dynamic characteristics, with consistent trail for the first few inches of travel followed by a significant change at longer strokes which can lead to odd handling under certain conditions - they work better with very short (and thereby harsh) amounts of suspension travel. The reason is the fork is moving independently of the steering axis of the frame, causing loss of trail under compression when the steering offset changes. This can be tuned to acceptable levels on the street, but is not so great if you plan on racing with a traditional girder - for that you need a Hossack or Fior fork, which links the steering axis to the fork.    


Seeing a Wraith in person you are struck by how utterly alien it looks. Like any Confederate it is stupendously well made, with the finest components liberally strewn around a massive motor. The machine is tied together with highest quality CNC milled billet, titanium and matte-finish carbon-fibre. Every fastener and fitting is of the highest quality, if not made specifically for the machine. The carbon-fibre girder blades dominate the aesthetics, but somehow look right. Time has softened the impact of the Wraith's awe-inspiring design, but not by much – these are still amazing looking machines that are unlike anything else on two wheels.


A Wraith is smaller and narrower than you imagined it would be, a 9/10ths scale replica of what you pictured in your head. The weight is carried low and the seat height is barely over 30 inches. While seated on the bike it seems to disappear beneath you. The B120 is slightly larger than the XP1 and B91 but it is still a physically tiny machine that seems like little more than a giant motor with some running gear shrink wrapped around it. You don't realize how compact it really is until you see it in person, sit on it, or witness it in motion with a rider aboard. It is little wonder that the completed B120 weighed in the neighbourhood of 410 LBS dry (some sources claimed 385 LBS), despite packing a near-as-damnit 2000 CC engine with an ungodly amount of torque on tap. The Wraith was billed as Confederate's "sport" machine - considerably lighter and more oriented towards sharp handling than the Hellcat, with a leaned-forward seating position, 120/70-17 and 190/50-17 Pirelli Diablo tires, and a compact chassis. It's hardly a sport bike by any traditional definition but it makes sense when compared to other Confederates.


The proportions of the Wraith look even stranger when a human is perched precariously over it, the minimal saddle disappearing beneath their butts, their legs set back in a semi-rearset position with arms outstretched to meet the flat streetfighter bend of the bars. The ergonomics are, to put it lightly, awkward. Without a fuel tank to grip with your knees the air-cooled engine threatens to alternately roast or shred your legs, with the rear cylinder head and open belt-driven primary drive respectively. You need to keep your knees splayed to keep your jeans intact, and be mindful of the exhaust exit on the right side (if the bike is fitted with open headers) which will likely melt the toe of your boot.


Production continued at a slow rate with steady refinements. Each Confederate is hand assembled by a team of craftsmen, and for most of the company’s history they have only built one machine at a time, with the next order starting only when the current machine is finished and ready for delivery. As a buyer, you put down your deposit and wait your turn for your machine to be built. Each machine is tested for 200 miles by Confederate staff before delivery to the customer; former Confederate engineer Denis McCarthy noted that every ride home was a non-stop barrage of dumbstruck onlookers and 20 minute fuel stops, and he had to build a ramp on his front porch to roll whichever priceless machine he was testing into his home for safekeeping.


After the year of free rent expired at their Fifth Avenue location, the much-touted plan to move Confederate to a larger facility adjoined to the Barber museum quietly fell through. The economic catastrophe in 2008 hit Confederate hard – the ultra-exclusive nature and high prices of their machines killed sales in the wake of a general sobering up of the market. Flash and conspicuous consumption had been building to a crescendo before the downturn, supporting boutique brands and a luxury market that existed in a bubble – in motorcycles as much as in cars, watches, art, boats, booze and anything else that might have graced the pages of the Robb Report. When that bubble inevitably burst the trend was towards far more discreet displays of wealth and a general shrinking of demand in the luxury market. There were still wealthy clients buying luxury goods, but they now wanted more tasteful, more understated products with solid fundamentals and better resale. Fly-by-night manufacturers of trendy, expensive and flashy goods disappeared, while more established brands like Confederate suffered greatly reduced sales. In 2008 the company produced a mere 37 machines, nowhere near the several hundred units they anticipated before the recession hit. A total of approximately 25 B120s were built, a mere tenth of the originally planned production run.

Two B120s on display at the current Confederate factory showroom in Birmingham, Alabama. The assembly area is visible to the right.

In Spring 2010 it appeared the Confederate would abandon its operations in Birmingham to return to New Orleans. A 750,000$ loan was offered by the city to entice Confederate to return to Louisiana and develop a lower-priced entry level model (which would ultimately materialize as the sub-50,000$ X132 Hellcat). Opposition from a member of the board of directors created a rift within the company and delayed acceptance of the loan. A lawsuit was taken out against the board member with the accusation that he was attempting to “deadlock” the company. Meanwhile Confederate’s benefactors in Alabama were not impressed with the about-face after the company had promised tens of millions of dollars in investment and the creation of several hundred local jobs. Ultimately the loan from New Orleans fell through and Confederate remained in Birmingham, moving to their current location on Second Avenue South in 2013.

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The B120 evolved into the R135 Wraith Combat, the last hurrah for a platform which had been gradually overshadowed by the introduction of Ed Jacobs’ P120 Fighter in 2009 and third-generation X132 Hellcat in 2010. The R135 was announced in early 2013 as a limited edition of seven examples retailing for 135,000$. The most obvious difference, aside from black anodizing on all the metal surfaces, is the fitting of a JIMS 135 CI 4.3125 x 4.625 inch (110 x 117mm, 2212 CC) Twin Cam engine. Based on the architecture of the 120 CI mill, the 135 boasted detail improvements across the board, including CNC milled heads, higher lift Screaming Eagle camshafts, and a welded crank pin. JIMS claimed power was up to 136 HP and 135 LB/FT at the wheel with 10.67:1 compression. According to JIMS the 135, like the 120, is a “race only” not-street-legal engine - but no one told Confederate that.

One of Ed Jacobs' Confederate Fighters in for servicing at the Confederate factory. The Fighter succeeded the Wraith as the company's flagship model. It uses a girder front suspension similar to the B120, but with alloy rather than carbon fibre blades.

After leaving Confederate in 2007, Brian Case set about canvassing for positions. Foraxis had closed a year after he left, leaving him without a fall-back position. In the winter of 2007 Case travelled to East Troy, Wisconsin to be interviewed by Buell for a design position on the upcoming 1125R superbike project. Erik Buell interviewed Case personally, and at the conclusion of the interview informed him that he wasn't suited for the position: not because he wasn't qualified, but because he wouldn't be satisfied with the job. Buell told Case that he would be relegated to focusing on some tiny subset of the design of the bike, a far cry from creating a radical machine out of whole cloth and running a production facility as he had at Confederate. It simply wasn't a job for him.

Case accepted the outcome with a positive outlook: here he was being interviewed by Erik Buell himself, who told him that he was too good for the job. It snapped him out of the funk that followed his resignation from Confederate. After visiting Buell he was convinced that he too could produce a new all-American motorcycle. That and the miserable, bitter desolation of winter in small-town Wisconsin didn’t impress him much after he had grown accustomed to the year-round riding season in Alabama.


Upon his return to Birmingham Case sat down with friend Lee Conn and drafted a business plan. Initial plans and sketches were for an air-cooled V-twin sportbike, but the concept eventually evolved into a longitudinally-mounted 1650 CC V4 based loosely on a small-block Chevrolet pushrod V8 powering a modern all-American sport tourer. Motus was officially born, and Case never looked back.

Image courtesy ADMCi

In 2010 Case and Nesbitt once again collaborated on a motorcycle, when Nesbitt approached Case to provide the powertrain for his Bienville Legacy. To Case working with Nesbitt on the Legacy felt like a continuation of their work together on the Wraith, as if their collaboration had never been interrupted. Pre-production of the Legacy began in 2013, and the prototype was unveiled at the Motus factory in downtown Birmingham in October of that year. Three complete Legacies were rolled out of Nesbitt’s studio a year later in October 2014 and were proudly exhibited in the lobby of the Motus headquarters, just over ten years after Nesbitt and Case had first teamed up to work on the Wraith XP1.

JT Nesbitt (left) and Brian Case (right) working on one of the three Bienville Legacy motorcycles at the Motus factory in Birmingham, Alabama.

There is a certain symbiosis to their work together, a pairing that seems incongruous but somehow works. Nesbitt is the consumate dreamer, a master craftsman with high-minded ideals that often ruffle the tendencies of more “conventional” (i.e. boring) designers. He is an artist by training, but refuses to identify as one. He is brilliant, perceptive, occasionally blunt and sometimes a bit arrogant, and he refuses to compromise his principles. Case is more grounded, more technically minded, and has a background in industrial design. He is reserved, intelligent, calm and perceptive. Despite the differences in their personalities, Case and Nesbitt mesh and work together remarkably well. It is one of those odd yin/yang pairings that seems too cliched to be true, but their collaborations have produced some of the most interesting motorcycles of the 21st century -  the Wraith and the Legacy are proof enough of that.    



* Following Case's resignation, Ed Jacobs was presented as the man who had made the Wraith a production reality and all mention of Case's contributions disappeared: a 2009 Cycle World review said Jacobs "is largely responsible for the Wraith’s current producibility and functionality." 

Interesting Links

Business Wire's announcement of Confederate's move to Alabama
Susan Carpenter's LA Times review of the B120 Wraith prototype
Alan Cathcart's review of the B120 prototype in Motorcyclist
Neale Bayly's review of the B120 prototypes in Motorcycle Mojo
Motorcycle.com details of the 2007 Bonneville trials
The late Kevin Ash's review of the 2008 B120 Wraith
Cycle World review of the 2009 B120 Wraith
Motorcyclist on the 2009 Wraith and Fighter
Ultimate Motorcycling review of the 2010 B120 Wraith
Bonhams' auction of a 2007 B120 Wraith
B-Metro magazine on Chambers and Confederate
Matt Chambers' TEDx talk on the "American System vs the American Way" and the philosophy behind Confederate
Matt Chambers speaks about the aftermath of Katrina
The Wall Street Journal profiles Ed Jacobs
Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum website
Motus Motorcycles website
Bienville Studios Website
OddBike profile of the Bienville Legacy
ADMCi Website

Image courtesy ADMCi

“So tell me what you think, man.”

JT is wearing a shit-eating grin and holding a tallboy of Coors. He’s beaming because today is the first time his incredible creation has been rolled out of his New Orleans workshop into the public eye. I’m standing outside the Motus factory in downtown Birmingham, Alabama on a warm fall evening in October 2013. I'm barely able to process what I'm seeing, let alone formulate any meaningful opinion about it.

I recall my immediate reaction as being “What the fuck does it matter what I think?”

The thought comes in a moment of pure intensity for me. It followed a long, difficult day spent running around in muggy Southern heat while attending the Barber Vintage Festival. I've dragged myself here to meet the man who I've been following and conversing with for several months, an enigmatic and controversial motorcycle designer who has been keen to share his ideas with me. Today is the day his baby gets unveiled to the public. This marks the first time I've met JT Nesbitt in person, and it’s the first time I've seen his handiwork outside of a computer screen. And I'm completely awestruck.

Image courtesy ADMCi

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Moto Guzzi has lost its way.

The boys at Mandello del Lario represent the oldest continuously operating brand in Europe in spite of operating in a near-constant state of flux due to catastrophic insolvency and unstable sales. Over the years the products emblazoned with the eagle crest have attempted to fill nearly every conceivable niche - sometimes successfully, more often not. Despite their attempts to crack into various categories with sometimes ill-advised oddball machines, Guzzis of old channelled a certain spirit that made them appealing to a certain type of rider who lusted for something peculiar. They were sporting machines, but not sportbikes. They were a bit rough and charmingly unpretentious, but refined enough to be pleasant. They were unique, but somehow familiar, and backed up by decades of heritage – passionate machines with antiquated guts. Moto Guzzi excelled at building the prototypical gentleman’s sports machine, exemplified by iconic models like the Le Mans, the V11, and the Daytona. They were not the fastest, or the most agile, or the most useable – but they were some of the most charming.

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But it was not to last. With their finances in shambles and profits needed to keep the lights on, a new strategy would be needed. It was a boring solution, with practicality and rationality taking precedence over passion. When the Piaggio Group took over Moto Guzzi in 2004, the company gradually phased out the true heirs to the company’s heritage in favour of dull, safe products that would appeal to the masses. Thus we ended up with wallflower machines like an asthmatic retro throwback, a chrome-addled American-esque cruiser, and a Teutonic-aping capital-A “Adventure Tourer”. Guzzi weathered their near-demise to fight another day, but at the cost of all that made them interesting.



Projects that promised to satisfy the lust of the rabid Guzzi faithful like the MGS-01 were unceremoniously dumped in favour of practical machines. The evergreen V11 was dropped from the lineup. If you wanted a true sporting Guzzi, you would no longer find one in the dealer showrooms - unless you could tolerate the brutish ugliness and pavement-rippling weight of the Griso.

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There is, however, an alternative - a series of machines that fill this lamentable gap. To get one, you'll need to visit Millepercento, which at first glance would appear to be a Milan-area Moto Guzzi dealership. It is here, operating quietly under the radar, that the true heirs to Guzzi’s lineage are produced. While Moto Guzzi proper languishes within the iron grip of the Piaggio group, the dealer/manufacturer Millepercento has been producing limited series of well-developed motorcycles that serve as the answer to the pleas of the world’s die-hard Guzzistas: properly quick, modern, and beautiful sporting machines powered by that iconic transverse Italian V-twin.

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There is a long and rich history of dealer hot rods in the motorcycle industry, where large dealerships with passion and capital to spare set about improving the breed. It isn't far removed from the limited production machines produced by high-quality custom shops, but when a dealer like Millepercento is involved there is a certain amount of familiarity and experience with a particular brand baked right into the mix. In the case of the BB1, Alba, and Scighera, Millepercento has applied considerable experience with Guzzi tuning and exploited several valuable contacts to create some of the most delectable road-legal Geese we've seen since Piaggio saw fit to shelve the MGS-01.  

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Millepercento is a relatively recent entry into the motorcycle market, but one that has deep roots in the Guzzi community. The Brianza-area dealer began in the early sixties and eventually grew into Bruno Scola LTD in the mid-1990s, with its namesake, a skilled Guzzi tuner, at the helm. It was during this period under Scola’s direction that the company established its prowess as a Guzzi tuner, developing ideas that would serve as templates for later projects. It was not, however, a terribly prosperous period, with Guzzi teetering on the edge of bankruptcy at the tail end of the period of DeTomaso ownership. The Aprilia takeover in April 2000 stabilized the situation, before Piaggio stepped in in December 2004 and took over both marques. In 2005 Stefano Perego, a businessman who had worked within the supply chain of the Cagiva group and had previous dealings with Moto Guzzi, stepped in to purchase the Bruno Scola operation and capitalize on what he hoped would be a renewed Guzzi resulting from the Piaggio takeover. The company was renamed Millepercento (“One thousand percent”) Moto Ltd and moved to a larger location in Verano Brianza. At the time the new facility made Millepercento the largest Moto Guzzi dealer in the world.

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Meanwhile, across town in the south end of Milan, an engineer by the name of Giovanni Mariani was finishing work on his latest project. Using technology and ideas gleaned from American pushrod V8 racing engines, mated with the hot-rod culture surrounding Moto Guzzi big-block twins, Mariani’s “Big Bore” engine would redefine Goose performance. The idea had originated several years prior as a template for a relaxed but powerful touring engine, but later evolved into an exercise of applying modern tuning and technology to the existing big block architecture, improving the basic Guzzi mill with some careful and significant re-engineering. While visually similar to the standard engine it is based on, the Big Bore used liquid-cooled cylinders and heads to facilitate a higher compression ratio and more extreme tuning without risking a meltdown. Cylinder and head fins were retained, while water passages were kept internal, preserving the air-cooled aesthetics. A water pump driven off the camshaft fed a small radiator that could be bolted ahead of the timing case between the downtubes of a Tonti-framed machine.

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Bore was bumped to 106.3mm, mated to the 80mm stroke of a V11 series bottom end giving 1420ccs, with the pushrod tubes re-angled parallel to the cylinder and further away from the center of the bore to allow more room for the massive pistons: forged slipper items with dished crowns and DLC coated skirts, matched to titanium con rods with DLC coated big-ends. The top end benefitted from a new cylinder head design that was inspired by American pushrod V8 dynamics and tuning – word was that Mariani studied a Corvette racing engine to glean some of the principles he could apply to the Big Bore. The pushrod two-valve layout was retained, but the new heads had larger ports, a pent-roof combustion chamber with a very flat 14-degree included valve angle, and massive titanium valves – 53.3mm inlets and 40.6mm exhausts. Special attention was paid to reshaping the ports to maximize cylinder filling and charge swirl to achieve optimum combustion efficiency, aided by a twin-plug ignition system necessary to light up such a huge bore surface. A hotter camshaft drove roller tappets (vs. the flat tappets of a stock setup) and chromoly pushrods, acting on billet alloy rocker arms (which retained locknut lash caps for easy adjustment). Claimed power was 123 HP at 7500 RPM, with a stunning 97 LB/FT of torque at 5750 RPM - compare that to the claimed 91 HP and 70 LB/FT of a contemporary V11 engine. Later dyno runs proved the initial claims to be conservative, with as much as 131 HP on tap in “street” tune. Released to the public in early 2005, the Big Bore was offered in a package that could fit into a stock Guzzi frame, a direct replacement for any big block from the 850 up.

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The Big Bore engine had the distinction of earning Moto Guzzi a win at Daytona, though you wouldn't have guessed it if you were not familiar with Mariani’s design. Gianfranco Guareschi had taken a victory at the Battle of the Twins race at Daytona in 2006 aboard a standard MGS-01 Corsa, but for 2007 a new trick was up the team’s sleeve. The MGS-01 chassis would be fitted with a specially prepared Big Bore engine, destroked to 76mm to fit under the 1350cc displacement cap for a pushrod twin. The addition of a massive multi-level radiator and the lack of four-valve heads gave away the ruse to those familiar with the MGS, but few were aware of the architecture of the hotrod motor slotted into Guareschi’s machine. According to Mariani power at the crankshaft was 167 HP at 8750 RPM. Guareschi won the BOTT F1 category, beating two highly-developed NCR Ducatis despite having a significant disadvantage in overall weight, and took second in Sound of Thunder. Moto Guzzi proudly trumpeted their victory in the media, but failed to mention that the winning engine was not developed in-house and was quite distinct from the quattrovalvole mill that came stock in the MGS-01.  

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In 2007 Millepercento purchased a controlling interest in Big Bore Ltd. In November of that year Millepercento Ltd. was founded as a motorcycle manufacturer.  In March 2008 MPC Ltd. hired the legendary Giuseppe Ghezzi, half namesake of Ghezzi & Brian and designer of the MGS-01 during his brief tenure with Moto Guzzi proper, to design a series of heavily reworked Guzzis that would be produced in limited numbers. The company’s first offering, announced in late 2008, was the Millepercento BB1 – a modified Griso 1100 that featured a Big Bore powerplant.

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Being Euro 3 compliant and street legal, the BB1 proved to be one of the most powerful street-going Guzzis of all time, with significantly more power and a lot more torque than the 1151cc 8V engine introduced by Guzzi in 2008. Using the full-fat 1420cc version of the Big Bore engine the BB1 knocked out over 115 HP at the wheel, a power output that eclipsed the stock 2-valve 1064cc Griso mill by over 50%. Claimed power was 135 HP at 7,100 RPM and 108 LB/FT of torque at 5,600 RPM. Aside from the heart transplant the BB1 was mostly standard Griso fare, with stock brakes, wheels, suspension and final drive. The only distinguishing items were a reshaped seat that narrowed the midsection, a carbon fibre belly pan, and carbon fibre side panels masking the presence of a huge rectangular radiator running the full height of the engine.

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Despite the extra components claimed weight was supposedly lighter than the standard Griso 1100 at 480 LBS dry.  Price was quoted at $32,000 USD (24,190 Euros, with Ohlins suspension available for an extra 3,000 Euros), with delivery slated to begin in early 2009. Testers found that the power was impressive, with ridiculous torque that had the heavy machine pawing the sky in the first three gears. The fine handling of the Griso chassis was undisturbed, but early reviews noted the custom fuel injection setup was cold blooded and extremely choppy, with very poor throttle response. Some Italian testers didn't seem to notice – either the FI issues were sorted on their test machines, or their breathlessly patriotic assessments didn't have room for criticism.


Ghezzi then turned to developing a new chassis for an upcoming sport model that would fill the gap left when Moto Guzzi dropped the V11 series in 2005, fulfilling one of Ghezzi’s desires that he felt had been denied during his time at Mandello – the introduction of a modern, street legal sport Guzzi. Ghezzi was no stranger to building fast Geese, and his work on big-block powered sportsters is well known among the Guzzi faithful. The Ghezzi & Brian SuperTwin and its naked Furia/Fionda stablemates were bikes for discerning Guzzi nuts – they mated a bespoke chassis and top-spec running gear with a standard big block Guzzi twin, with an emphasis on fine handling and component quality over outright power. Ghezzi & Brian began when Ghezzi pulled the engine out of his personal Le Mans and built a racing chassis of his own design around it, upon which he went on to win the 1996 Italian Supertwins Championship. Ghezzi’s chassis design addressed several key issues with sporting Guzzis: aside from offering a stout backbone with better suspension and brakes, they improved the intake with an airbox integrated into the spine of the frame that isolated it from engine heat, addressed drive shaft jacking with a torque arm linkage, shortened the wheelbase by several inches, and improved real-world roadholding with a rising rate rear suspension that production Guzzis lacked at the time. The resulting bikes were considerably lighter than standard Guzzis, had superb handling, and were handsome in a functional kind of way.

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At Millepercento Ghezzi penned a new chassis and styled a beautiful sporting machine that would make MPC the envy of the Guzzi faithful who pined for an up-to-date Mandello sport bike. The Millepercento Alba 1200 (also referred to as the M2S in prototype form) was unveiled at the 2009 EICMA show. The Alba was named for the Spanish Circuito de Albacete (notable for being a venue of the Endurance FIM World Championship, where a MGS-01 won its class in 2004) and featured a steel tube frame that was lighter and slimmer than any existing Guzzi chassis, hanging the engine from a tubular trellis space frame in a semi-stressed arrangement that brought the engine 40mm higher and 75mm forward of its placement in the Griso donor. Claimed dry weight was 453 LBS. Wheelbase was 57.9 inches and rake was 24 degrees, with 3.85 inches of trail – quite a bit more compact than the Griso, but not as tight as a SuperTwin. The engine, 6-speed transmission, and rising-rate CARC driveshaft were pulled straight out of a Griso 1200 8V – the internally unmodified high-cam 95x81.2mm 1151cc engine produced a claimed 108 HP and 89 LB/FT. The prototype was shown with Ohlins suspension, but production machines would come with the standard Griso 1200 Showa fork and Sachs shock while fancier bits were available as optional extras.

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A large oil cooler was mounted below the seat at a steep angle where you'd expect to see the rear a mudguard – cool air was fed to the rear via two long ducts that flanked the crankcases and swept below the cylinders, which in conjunction with a belly pan gave the appearance of a nearly-complete fairing, if it wasn't for the big cylinder heads jutting out either side. The reason for the odd arrangement and complex ducting was simple – the liquid-cooled 1420cc Big Bore engine was an option in the Alba 1500, and if so equipped the radiator would be placed under the seat to keep the front end uncluttered. The huge 24 litre fuel tank was aluminum while the rest of the body was carbon fibre. Styling was unique and modern, with sharp angles mixed with upward sweeping curves that were reminiscent of the MGS-01, but maybe not quite as handsome. Reaction to the looks were mixed, but most pundits were happy to see a proper sport Guzzi coming down the pipe.

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It took several years before the Alba would hit the streets. Final specs were announced in 2011 with a starting price of 19,752 Euros for the base model equipped with standard Griso running gear, a brushed alloy tank, and bare carbon fibre body panels (sans bellypan). Test bikes featured some subtle modifications to the engine – a quickshifter-ready Athena engine management system, a MPC accessory clutch that was 7.7 LBS lighter than the standard item, and MPC’s “Air One” intake kit. The twin 50mm throttle body intake of the standard 8V was replaced by a single 64mm Dell’Orto throttle body feeding an alloy plenum. Similar to the intake of the Big Bore, this kit is offered by MPC as a way of supposedly improving low and midrange power, with a slight penalty at higher revs. The stainless-steel 2-into-1 Zard exhaust was also claimed to boost midrange torque. Claimed power was up slightly, to 110 HP at 7200 RPM, while maintaining Euro 3 compliance.

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Testers came away impressed with what Ghezzi and MPC had cooked up. Comparisons to the BMW HP2 Sport were common and perhaps inevitable - expensive, high-spec European machines with weirdly oriented, antiquated air-cooled twins are apparently a small niche. Comfort was secondary to handling, and the Alba delivered in that department. Agile and light handling was noted, the exact opposite of almost every Guzzi reviewed since the dawn of print. Power and throttle response was noticeably improved and (unlike the BB1) fueling was noted to be quite good. High price, limited production, and a nearly invisible market presence limited the appeal, but those who had the opportunity to take an Alba for a ride came away impressed and wondered aloud why the hell Moto Guzzi  wasn't the one building it.

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In 2011 Ghezzi left Millepercento and continued his work of building hot Guzzis alongside Bruno Saturno back at Ghezzi & Brian. The Alba and BB1 remained in production, but MPC flew under the radar for the most part, only seeing coverage in European magazines and not receiving much attention outside of the Guzzi forums. With Ghezzi gone it seemed that development at MPC had slowed and was limited to building faddish customs, but in 2014 it was revealed that they were still toiling away behind the scenes on a new model. The Scighera, named after the Milanese term for morning fog, is based heavily on Alba architecture but with completely revised styling courtesy of Filippo Barbacane of Pescara-based custom shop Officine Rossopuro. The Alba space frame is retained, along with the 1151cc 8V motor, 6-speed transmission, and CARC driveshaft, but everything else is reworked to turn the Alba into an elegant, naked sportster that makes the Griso look like a lumbering Neanderthal in comparison.

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The subframe is reshaped and stylized into an abbreviated solo tail with exposed alloy framework. The tail is no longer burdened by the awkward housing and intake vents for the underseat oil cooler of the Alba – the cooler is relocated under the transmission, hidden within the bellypan and fed by a pair of air scoops. Custom tubeless Borrani wire wheels are a nod to the current retro fad, but don't distract from the modern, high quality components present: Ohlins forks and shock, Brembo radial master cylinders and .484 Custom calipers, CNC milled triple clamps, and carbon-fibre body panels. A hydroformed 2-into-1 exhaust caps it all off. The styling is by no means radical, but it shows how much nicer a naked big-block Guzzi can be with just a little care - without resorting to stupid “classic” styling cues and neo-retro clichés.

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Technically the Scighera is not far removed from the Alba. Chassis geometry is identical, aside from the slightly different specifications of the Ohlins components. The Air One intake and an Athena GET ECU are used; claimed power output for the Scighera was 105 HP at 7600 RPM and 91.8 LB/FT at 4900 RPM. The massive cone filter for the 64mm throttle body juts through an opening in the undertail, the only aberration in the otherwise clean lines of the machine. More important than the power figure is the weight, or the lack of it: the Schighera is supposedly one of the lightest street legal big-block Guzzis of all time, weighing a claimed 419 LBS. For those keeping score at home, that’s 70 LBS lighter than the claimed dry weight of the 2014 Griso 8V SE.

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The public ate it up, and attention was unprecedented for one of Millepercento’s projects, despite a projected price starting at 29,000 Euros (34,000 for the specification as shown on the prototype). Release of the Scighera is slated for early 2015. It’s clear that the market wants machines like the Scighera, and once again, the resounding question that arises is “why isn’t Guzzi building this?”

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Back at EICMA in 2009, on the other side of the hall from where MPC was unveiling the Alba, Moto Guzzi proper was showcasing Pierre Terblanche’s V12 concepts. A trio of sporting machines, based on a common chassis around the 8V engine with modular bodywork and different running gear, the V12s were seen as the much-hoped for return to form for the company. Piaggio didn't agree. Despite intense interest from the market and the media the V12s were buried immediately after EICMA, stuffed into the back of a warehouse and covered with a tarp. All requests for photographs, details or interviews about the concepts were denied. The implication was that sporting machines like the V12 would be seen as an infringement on Aprilia’s hegemony of sport motorcycles within the Piaggio group. They didn’t represent the “direction” management had in mind for Moto Guzzi. Thus, the project was killed and the prototypes forgotten.

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Terblanche was disappointed but not surprised. Despite having far less brand recognition than Guzzi and being hampered by poor marketing, Aprilia remains the golden child of the Piaggio hierarchy and any designs that might encroach upon on its sporting pretensions will be summarily executed or repurposed to suit the pecking order.

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Companies like Millepercento are happy to fill in the void left by the distinct lack of irrational passion over at Mandello, and independent projects like the Alba and Scighera continue to demonstrate how far Moto Guzzi has strayed from its ideals in the pursuit of stealing header-wrap market share from the Triumph Bonneville and building Italian BMW and Harley knockoffs. For those who crave a modern sporting Guzzi, there aren't any options in dealer showrooms. For that you'll have to open your mind and your wallet to the boys in Verano Brianza.    

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Interesting Links
Photo Gallery
Millepercento website
Archived Big Bore website
Interview with Giovanni Mariani
Details of Guareschi's Big Bore MGS-01
Motorbox announcing Guareschi's 2007 Daytona victory
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It's the new year, and a time to take stock of the new series of motorcycles that has been trickling out of the gate over the past few months. It’s also the nadir of our Canadian winter here in Calgary, so of course this is the perfect time to attend a flashy, disappointing motorcycle show to examine this year's newly minted cash grabs and dull rehashes in the hopes of finding a few gems in this post-Economic Apocalypse era.


For some sadistic reason all the major Canadian motorcycle exhibitions are held in the middle of our bitter winter, when we are at least three months away from turning a wheel in anger. It's a chance to admire shiny new contrivances of the two wheeled variety to briefly distract ourselves from the misery of our cold, cycle-free season. Really it seems idiotic. Despite optimistic displays loaded with the latest (and leftover) gear and temporary finance offices throughout the show floor, this isn't the time of year when you are going to be buying bikes. Even taking delivery of them is a chore, shuttling them home on a trailer or pickup just so you can wistfully gaze at them in your garage for 4 months, then take your first wobbly, familiarizing ride on sand and salt caked roads the moment the snow recedes... Test rides are virtually out of the question at Canadian dealerships any time of the year, outside of heavily regulated demo days where you’ll have to sign up well in advance to ride the latest base model at 5 under the speed limit for 30 minutes.


Calgary seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the show circuit. I've attended the Montreal and Toronto shows in the past, and they are usually well stocked and exceptionally well attended (i.e. crowded as all fuck). This in spite of the significant anti-biker sentiments and associated legislation (not to mention obscene insurance/registration fees) in Quebec and Ontario. Alberta is one of the most free and accommodating provinces in the Confederation and exhibits precious little meddling with its motorcycling population. From my perspective in the industry, motorcycle sales here are fantastic given the population size, with a perpetually booming oil economy feeding an amazing level of disposable income in the general population – rig pigs like their toys. Not only that, but we are less than an hour away from the Rockies and a lot of beautiful motorcycling routes, and not that far away from British Colombia where you can find some of the best roads in North America. Unlike out East, sales of shitty cruisers don’t dominate the market and colour the entire industry with a faux-badass chrome and leather sheen. Here capital-A Adventure bikes are king, along with pure off road machines and a good smattering of tourers, standards and sport bikes. Metric cruisers are sales floor deadweight. People out here appreciate bikes that are versatile and can go around corners, though there are plenty of dorky hipster gangs with unrideable choppers and café-poseurs to keep things balanced.



This should be an epicenter of Canadian motorcycling. But it isn't. And consequently the Calgary show sucks.


But I digress. My seasonal vitamin-D deficiency is manifesting itself in undue bitterness. You try being a passionate motorcyclist in a land where your riding season is six months long, on a good year, in a city where you've witnessed snowstorms in the middle of September.


I was curious to see some of the new offerings, though in general I've found this year to be quite disappointing in terms of new models. Conservatism seems to be rampant outside of a few high-profile aberrations that have (rightfully) grabbed the public's attention. This probably shouldn't come as a surprise – the fact that there are neat machines getting built at all should be the shocker. We are still in the midst of a slump and plummeting oil prices are screwing with the market, despite misplaced optimism that maybe the economy is really picking up (for real this time, honest, dear God please), and most of the models that are being released now had their design briefs finalized during the depths of the recession.


Star of the show was undoubtedly the Kawasaki H2R. This thing, despite all criticisms, is amazing - the best kind of batshit lunacy you can buy over the counter with a factory warranty. The mere fact that Kawi had the balls to build something so utterly, ridiculously over the top nearly makes up for the atrocious styling and handbag liner seat of the Z1000. We need more off-the-wall engineering exercises like the H2R to spur on an arms race in what has become a terribly boring industry that has been chasing points in worthless magazine shootouts for far too long. It doesn't matter that the H2R is ugly, exorbitantly expensive (55,000$ here in Canada), not street legal, or that the H2 street version is detuned and overweight to the point of being eclipsed by the latest batch of superbikes before it even left the factory. Kawasaki engineers have built something impressive, pointless, and excessive, a fantastic display of engineering prowess born from the mere act of leaving the bean counters out of the equation. The finish and quality of the prototype on display was superb and it is clearly ready for mass production.


Three H2Rs have already been sold in Canada, along with a handful of H2s. I wouldn't say it is better than an equivalently priced Bimota, but it's undeniably cool and the fact that the Japanese have built it marks, for me, a return to form. The Japanese are at their best when they are given the freedom to exercise their engineering prowess, not when they are busy chasing Joe Average’s bottom dollar by making budget knockoffs of more interesting machines. The former is what inspires action and pushes the industry forward, the latter is what gives accountants a hardon.


Yamaha brought along a lone YZF-R1M for the masses to drool over, and truth be told it is quite a nice looking machine. Quality appears to be higher than usual for a production Japanese machine, with glossy carbon-fibre, a brushed alloy fuel tank, sharp TFT dash, and tasty electronically adjustable Ohlins goodies on both ends. If anything the styling is dull, and it looks weird by lacking a "face" due to those minimal lights up front, but the specifications and technology on display more than makes up for it. It's a handsome machine when you see it in person. The only major gripe I can muster is the idiotic projector beams tacked under the nose like an afterthought. The LED running lights set into the nose look cool as balls, but those main beams look like streetfighter cast offs bought from the AutoZone discount bin. On the plus side they are easy to take off for trackdays, which is probably the whole point.


Whatever the specs, the new R1 will naturally deliver obscene levels of razor-sharp performance... Just like every single other superbike on the market. No matter what the those contrived magazine comparos would lead you to believe, every single one of these machines is ridiculously overpowered and has capabilities so far beyond your conception that calling one better than another and putting together absurd score cards based on press release drivel is some of the most pedantic bullshit you can engage in as a quote-unquote “journalist”. As far as I’m concerned, if you are a mortal human street rider your entire experience aboard one of these time-space disruptors should be reduced to shrieks of euphoric delight punctuated by moments of abject terror, with an overwhelming sense of relief at the end of a not-fatal ride. If you aren't gibbering like an idiot after twisting the throttle to the stop on a clear road, then you are have no soul. Only seasoned racers have any right to comment on the superhuman capabilities of these machines, which is why you should be reading the reviews in Road Racing World for accurate summaries of what is and is not good on these brutes. Otherwise ignore ALL of it and just buy whatever tickles your prostate and fits your budget.


There was a pleasant surprise found at the Yamaha booth, one that is likely going to get overlooked by everyone drooling over the R1: the FJ-09. Forget all the pretenses of it being an “adventure tourer” – it's not, and never will be. It's far too light, slim, nimble and handsome to fall into that category, and it comes with 17 inch wheels shod with honest-to-God street tires. Like the Kawasaki Versys, it's a neat little everyday middleweight that fills the gap left by the wholesale abandonment of the sport touring category. Unlike the Versys, it's good looking, has some really nice quality components, and uses the awesome little 847cc triple pulled straight out of the FZ-09 but with the shitty fuel injection and garbage suspension sorted out.


If the FJ-09 has any major flaw it is that it is innocuous to the point of being invisible – it turned out that we had two of these sitting in the showroom of the dealer where I work, and I hadn't noticed them for over a month. Oops. I hope that doesn't discourage buyers, because this is a sweet little machine that fills a niche that has long been neglected – a proper lightweight sport tourer with a fun motor and good handing that weighs under 500 lbs and isn't a BMW GS knockoff. It’s also 11 grand (CDN), which is probably the bargain of the year, though they will charge you a fair bit extra if you want the factory hard bags... Not that any company throws in free luggage on anything smaller than a Goldwing. If I was in the market for a touring bike of any description the FJ-09 would be first pick on my list.


Between the R1, the FJ-09, last year's appealing FZ-09, and the class-leading FZ-07, I think Yamaha is on a roll making good stuff for the common rider.

    
Continuing with the Japanese contingent: Honda had nothing notable on display. The most interesting thing they brought along was a clean, first generation GL1000, to give you an indication of how boring the lineup was this year. There was the updated VFR800, which looks more dated than the outgoing Interceptor despite being a fair bit lighter and more modern under the dull exterior. There was the goofy and expensive (12,499$, a mere 100$ less than a 2015 CBR600RR) NM4 Vultus, which is what happens when a company collectively forgets one their failures (DN-01) so hard that they repeat it verbatim a few years later.


Then there was the CBR300 and the latest versions of the 700 twins and… oh God I can't even muster the slightest bit of interest in any of these catastrophically tedious appliances.


Moving on.

Suzuki rounded things out by showing almost nothing new. The 2015 GSXR differs from the 2014 only in paint, they brought back the DRZ400SM virtually unchanged from when they discontinued it in 2008, along with the SV650S which is also unchanged - yes, American readers, they still sell the semi-faired SV up here right alongside the overcooked SFV. The company hasn't been doing so hot lately, what with their automotive arm imploding, so it's probably not a surprise to see they are rehashing the same ol' to save money. They did bring two of the new GSX-S750 models, which proved to be a handsome little standard and a welcome addition to a category that has been neglected for years in North America. Mercifully they didn't bring the budgie-faced GSX-S1000F, which has to be the most comically styled motorcycle I've seen since Buell went tits up.


Speaking of Buell, Erik Buell Racing was notably absent. Despite having Parts Unlimited as their, uh, parts distributor in the United States, there has been no word whatsoever about bringing EBR up into the frigid tundra, which would be presumably done through PU’s poor Northern brother Parts Canada. Motovan, a major rival to Parts Canada up here, acts as the distributor for MV Agusta so it would make sense for Parts Can to get into the game with EBR.


Or maybe it wouldn't. I don't care. I just really want them to be sold up here, and I really genuinely want them to see them succeed.


I've been quite impressed with what Erik Buell has accomplished in the years since Harley-Davidson shuttered his company. I had the opportunity to examine the new 1190RX and SX in detail while visiting the Barber Vintage Festival this past October, as well as attend a charity dinner that had Erik as the guest of honor. I had the chance to talk to Buell briefly. He is in a great position; Hero MotoCorp provides the funding and the stability, while his team in Wisconsin provides Hero with R&D. He was quite proud of his team's work for Hero, which has largely been ignored – EBR has built 13 concept vehicles for Hero since their partnership began, all of which have earned Hero quite a bit of acclaim. It might not go over so well in India if word was spread that the high-profile concepts of a local company were designed and built in America, a curious turn of circumstances in a world where Harley-Davidson is quietly putting together bikes in Bawal.


The RX and SX are nice looking motorcycles, and all signs point to them being a hoot to ride. Having had the opportunity to examine them next to the 1190RS, I can safely say that they share a lot more in common with that limited-production 46,495$ USD beast than even EBR has let on. The frame, subframe and swingarm are identical, the RX/SX have better looking bodywork, finish quality is equal (and quite good for a small startup), and power is up substantially while still meeting all the requisite emission and noise regulations. The only place the RX/SX lag the RS is in suspension components and their lack of carbon-fibre bodywork, which is acceptable considering they retail for less than half the price. Buell's trademark weirdness is still present with their fuel in frame chassis and perimeter brake, but aside from that the new frame and engine share nothing in common with the swansong 1125R– Harley still owns the rights to the Buell name and the 1125, so EBR set about reverse engineering the 1125 and making it better in every respect without infringing on HD's patents. The 1190 engine is made in-house by EBR and was heavily revised by their engineers compared to the Rotax-made 1125. The 1190 represents similar ideas to the 1125 but with different execution. I thought the 1125 was an awesome machine (marred only by some of the most godawful fuel injection subjected upon the buying public), so the thought of a highly polished successor with 40 more horsepower and far better styling is truly tantalizing to me. I want one, and I sincerely hope EBR does well, and is given a fair shake by our ever-skeptical market. They just need to get their act together and find a Canadian distributor.


Harley-Davidson was present, and laughably out of touch as would be expected. While the execrable "Urban. Authentic. Soul." Street 500/750s took centre stage alongside a couple of luridly awful custom jobs based upon them, two – count em'– TWOLivewire prototypes were relegated to a remote corner of the show.  They were setup in what looked more like a stand for a local bike club than a cost-no-object display of the forward-thinking engineering prowess of America’s  motorcycle kingpin. They proved to be an interesting distraction and the only electric machines present aside from some Oset kiddie trials bikes.

I apologize for not getting any decent shots of the Livewire. It was due to the huge crowd that was milling around the booth. The same could not be said about the Hipsterbait 500/750 display. Are you taking notes, Harley?

I poked through a tablet setup in the booth with a digital contest entry form… To win a Street model, and sign up for updates on the Street series. Sigh. They could not have missed the mark more if they tried, but this wasn't a surprise. Despite a throng of curious onlookers crowding the Livewire display, where they were letting people run up the bike on a set of rollers to get a feel for how the electric motor behaved, Harley is horny to push to their entry-level Street onto young, beginning riders who they are desperate to lure into their fold. The terrible custom jobs on display at centre stage were clearly aimed at budding chop and hack artists (and appeared to be put together by them as well).

Check out the Picasa album for more detail pictures from the show.

A chipper 20-something salesperson misinterpreted my gaze of pained disgust as a sign of interest and tried to corner me to tell me all about this cool new Street model and how these custom bikes were built by… Before he shut up and moved on to other targets when he realized I didn't remotely give a shit. The demographics are getting older and Harley is looking to seduce the youth with what looks like their budget interpretation of a Honda Shadow... Built in India (sorry, “Assembled in Kansas”) with component quality that would cost a Honda employee their head.      

Harley-Davidson's marketing strategy.

Meanwhile, the Europeans are busy doing their own thing. Ducati brought along several Scrambler models and a stage dedicated to them alone, replete with faux-woodsy motif and astroturf to complete the illusion of rugged individualism for the flannel-and-beard set. A single 1299 Panigale S (identical to the 1199 outside of the motor and some subtle chassis tweaks) was shunted into the opposite corner; long gone are the days when Ducati used their magnificent sportbikes as flagship models, apparently. There were more Diavels present than anything else, a sure sign of the apocalypse if you are a die-hard Ducatisti. I walked away from the stand with zero desire to own another Duc, a sentiment I've felt for a few years now – the 1098R or 1198SP would be the latest Ducs I'd consider owning, everything that has followed those brutes has left me cold. That's why when it came to adding another bike to my stable, I bought a used Aprilia Tuono to supplement my 916.


The Scrambler is clearly Ducati's new golden boy, and at a glance you'd be forgiven for thinking they've thrown all their eggs into that particular basket. The hype and marketing has been ridiculous, in scope and in content. In terms of the bike, it is clearly a tarted-up replacement for the discontinued Monster 696/796, a fact that most reviewers appear to have overlooked – it is thus the last Ducati to use the evergreen air-cooled 2-valve Pantah engine, which has been steadily phased out of the company's lineup due to increasingly tight emissions regulations. The fact the Scrambler uses the 2V engine came as a bit of a shock to us pundits who been anticipating this model for several years – we expected them to dump the Pantah architecture after the Monster series took on the liquid-cooled Testastrettas across the board. Whatever the grim realities of emissions laws, it serves for a cheap platform to slot into a new model, and it suits the target market – the 803cc is a good “little” motor and has a nice friendly powerband, and is stone-axe reliable and well developed as far as Ducati engines go. Also, the tooling was paid off sometime 30 years ago so Ducati should make a tidy profit on the Scrambler despite it being a brand new entry-level model.


The Scramblers are cheap, and they will sell a ton of them. They have them aimed squarely at the Triumph Bonneville/Scrambler/Thruxton, Hipsterbait Street, and Moto Guzzi V7 in terms of price and image – and in this crowd they likely won’t have much trouble kicking ass. The initial reviews have been incredibly vague, apparently pawned off onto the newbie journalists (because it's an entry level bike?) who have been so wishy-washy in their impressions they might as well be reviewing a Toyota Camry from the backseat. That being said they appear well put together and are more than likely fun to ride - they won't have much trouble burying their asthmatic competitors. Styling wise I’d call them a miss, though plenty of people seem to like them. To me they look like cartoony, toy-like facsimiles of the original bevel-head Scramblers.


I had the opportunity to sit down with Pierre Terblanche while visiting the Confederate factory last year and spent a while talking bikes, in particular about his work on the SportClassics and the design of the new Scrambler. He dug around on his computer and pulled up a photograph of a studio mockup he had made around the mid-2000s. It was clearly a “Scrambler”, but one that was far more handsome and mature than the Fisher-Price caricature that Ducati has seen fit to release. To get an idea of what he showed me, picture a Sport 1000 with taller suspension, high bars, repro Scrambler tank, and knobby tires. It was a relatively simple series of changes that would have been easy to put into production, and it looked good. It would have fit right into the whole street scrambler fad... And he had it ready to go 10 years ago. But of course at the time the SportClassics were completely under-appreciated and came out too far ahead of the explosion of the neoclassical retro motorcycle craze; with sales of the SC in the toilet Ducati took the short-sighted path and made the knee-jerk reaction of choosing to abandon the lineup instead of developing it and amortizing the costs to remain competitive. Terblanche wouldn't say “I told you so”, so I’ll say it for him: I’ll bet the management at Ducati was mighty embarrassed when they realized what they had fucked up after they unceremoniously dumped the whole SportClassic line.


I'll also say that I was once a Terblanche-hater, but time has proven him to have remarkable foresight and his designs look better today than they ever did when they were current – nevermind that he had several popular designs under his belt that his critics are frighteningly quick to forget about, including the 888, the Supermono and the Hypermotard. After having had the chance to hang out with him and talk shop and design, I’m happy to admit I was wrong and I have earned a new found appreciation for his work. How he will fare now that he is moving to Royal Enfield remains a mystery to me; there are only so many ways you can restyle a Bullet, so I hope for Pierre’s sake they are working on something new and modern upon which he can really flex his abilities.


Over at MV Agusta the latest models were present, though the long-announced (but not terribly anticipated) Turismo Veloce was AWOL. Continuing their milking of the tre-pistone architecture appeared to be the order of the day. The Brutale and Dragster RR were hogging the limelight, with flashy paint and impressive tubeless spoke rims on the Dragster - which look far better in red/black than the red/white/black. The white rimmed machine looks like the motorcycle equivalent of a pair of white Nike pumps and a sideways baseball cap. The Stradale was also on display, which has got to be one of the least anticipated successes of the past year. Somehow taking the Rivale, which was noted to be the least suitable MV for riding further than the nearest Starbucks, and slapping on some tiny bags, an ugly windshield, and a bigger fuel tank transformed it into the most streetable MV in the lineup. It's a sport tourer that should not work, but somehow does and it has been defying all expectations. It also looks like a mess, like someone vomited the contents of the Vespa accessory catalogue onto a Rivale.


The unfortunate side of this multiplication of the lineup (in the three-cylinder line alone there are six distinct models) are some signs of cost-cutting, stuff that has traditionally been beneath MV who have always been notable for their superb build quality. The triples are inexpensive as far as MVs go and they have begun to suffer when compared to the F4, which was always a benchmark in terms of component quality and tidy finishing. Cheap castings, exposed wiring and connectors, and bits made of zinc-plated pot metal are starting to pop up on the newest bikes. Not a good sign, but one that is unfortunately understandable considering they are slapping these out for thousands less and in far greater quantities than anything in the F4/Brutale 4 lines.


On the plus side, word on the street is that MV’s fuel mapping and electronics packages have been refined a lot since their introduction - meaningful progress, because according to some reliable sources they were virtually unrideable in their initial setups. Not that that is unique to MV in our ride-by-wire age – the first maps on the FZ-09 had awful throttle response, though most reviewers were happy to downplay the problem in favour of parroting the launch hype. Take note of how many reviews of the FJ-09 mention how improved the fueling is compared to the FZ.

Note the cheap zinc-plated pieces bolted on the centre of the bar clamp.

Quality gripes aside, these MVs are still exceptionally pretty motorcycles (except for the Stradale) and I still want one (but not a Stradale), all flaws be goddamned. The F3 and F4 remain benchmarks of how a sportbike should look, and will endure for a long time as mouth-watering examples of why Massimo Tamburini was one of the finest motorcycle designers of our generation.        


Nothing notable was new from Moto Guzzi aside from some new colour schemes, as you'd expect from Piaggio's perennially neglected brand. At the other end of the spectrum the new Aprilia RSV4 and Tuono 1100 were absent. The only bikes on display were 2014 models from dealer stock. The Piaggio group always has a magical way of making great motorcycles look exceptionally dull and under appreciated by way of their special blend of neglect and a complete lack of effective marketing... Especially here in Canada, where Aprilias and Guzzis seem to be slightly less common than Vincents.


Over at BMW, the boys from Bavaria were showcasing their newly revamped boxer line which included the new R1200R and R1200RS. These, in my mind, represent a move in the wrong direction for one reason alone: they dump the Telelever front suspension in favour of cheap, non-adjustable telescopic forks. I don’t care if they are excellent bikes, and have superb handling in spite of this; I don’t even care if the upside down forks they share with the R Nine T perform better than the outgoing Telelever setup. I’m sure they are great bikes and will work perfectly well. However, to me, a deranged blogger who values oddities and unique features in a sea of conservative design, BMW’s move away from their signature funny front ends represents an abandonment of the admirable cost-no-object risk taking they exhibited when they adopted those weird-ass suspensions in the first place. It is also, in my mind, a clear case of tightwad cost cutting.


The new S1000RR was nice but not particularly noteworthy outside of the usual class-chasing tweaks to put them back at the top of the spec sheet wars. The only comment I can really muster is it looks slightly less ugly with its softened face, which has abandoned its Cubist interpretation of a headlight. The updates will surely please the chicken-strip and carbon-fibre set who seem to gravitate towards them.


A pleasant surprise at the KTM booth was the inclusion of the Duke 390 and RC390. They represent a smart move towards genuinely good entry level machines that will appeal to new riders without the stigma surrounding the shitty entry-level crap that has been pawned off on North American riders for years. Sure, we haven't appreciated anything under 600ccs and our open licensing system has kept sales of sensible machines in the low-to-nonexistent range, but continuing to offer nothing better than unsexy antiquated crap like the Ninja 250-300-400 hasn't helped matters. One of my first bikes was a Japanese import Honda NC24 VFR400R, which proved to be about the most fun you could have with less than 100 hp and a fantastic introduction to sport riding with something that was cool, desirable, and not dumbed down in any way. I was totally sold on the value of high-quality small sportbikes and I've since been disappointed by how this category has been completely ignored outside of the Japanese home market.


That being said I'm not delusional - those JDM 400s and 250s would ever achieve any success beyond a cult following here because they are too small, too expensive, and will never appeal to the bigger-is-better and fastest-is-best crowd.


The 390s represent something quite special, a tentative first step towards bringing that kind of small-bore fun to the Americas – and unlike the JDM imports, they have an extremely accessible price tag while still looking like proper machines. However, the efforts to get the price down are clear at a glance – quality appears to be middling. They still look better than anything in the category right now; the Yamaha R3 was also present and looked half-decent with perhaps slightly better build quality (reviews are still pending), but they didn't exude quite the same cool factor as the 390s. And that's where KTM has a potential winner on their hands: the 390s are cool and people want them.


KTM has been on a roll lately, and had their latest 1190 and 1290 Adventures on hand (but not the Euro Regulation Special 1050). The 1290R Superduke was also present, and has been making everyone go weak-knee'd for several months. We've had a few pass through the shop already and they are truly an exceptional machine - one of the finest, maddest streetfighters of all time and a fantastic throwdown that KTM's competition had better heed. It looks amazing and the motor is apparently one of the greatest motorcycle engines of all time: owners report that it if treated gently it is docile and smooth, and easy to ride in traffic, but one stiff twist of the wrist and it will rip your goddamned face off and make you thankful for the comprehensive traction control package. 100 mph power wheelies are available. This thing is ridiculous in the best possible way. It also sounds apocalyptic with a decent pipe - the hot ticket is an Austin Racing slip-on (be sure ride it at least once without the baffle).

You've already seen plenty of pictures of the 1290R. I also may have forgotten to snap any shots of it. So here's more of the 390s!

The original Aprilia Tuono showed the way to achieve motorcycling nirvana – take a sportbike, remove the fairings, put high bars, then leave the rest the hell alone. No detuning, no dumbing down, no diluting the experience. The Superduke takes this to the next level by building a vicious naked sportbike from the ground up – it isn't based on anything pre-existing and it sure as hell hasn't been softened up because it lacks clip-ons and a fairing. It’s everything we lunatic sport riders have ever wanted, while still being entirely usable every day, and I sincerely hope it inspires other brands to follow suit. The current competition got caught with their pants down, and now they are going to have to work hard to reach the new high water mark. Yes, the retail price is high (18,999$ up here), but damned if it isn't worth it in this case.


It’s funny that the Superduke has gotten so much good press and rabid attention, because Ducati had the same kind of machine in showrooms not that long ago – the Streetfighter 1098 was a ridiculously fast, vicious, no-compromise naked sport bike that everyone claimed they wanted but nobody actually bought once they released it (see also: SportClassic). Unlike the KTM it lacked civility in daily use, which ended up being the major gripe against it, along with a high price tag. Despite giving the people what they wanted, reviews were whiny and gave the SF1098 middling marks, often making the unfair comparison between the SF and the full-fat 1198 and then concluding that the 1198 was a better sportbike (...duh?). Sales suffered for a while before Ducati finally gave up, dropping the SF1098 while leaving the far duller SF848 in production. Then, shortly after it was axed, the SF1098 earned a dedicated cult following and secondary market pricing has remained very high (see also: SportClassic).

Somehow the equally (perhaps more) nuts Aprilia Tuono V4 ended up becoming a darling of reviewers despite being worse as a daily rider than the Streetfighter - the thousands-less price tag probably contributed to it becoming the poster boy for the category while the Duc got damned with faint praise. Ducati gave up and went on to build the fat and fluffy Monster 821/1200. Rumours are circulating that they might, maybe, should build a naked Panigale, but given how they got burned on the Streetfighter I'd currently give those rumours as much credence as the imminent return of the Supermono... Unless they take a look at the Superduke and decide they want a piece of that sexy, sexy pie rather than shitting out another Diavel variant.

So long as the Superduke avoids the fate of the Streetfighter, it might be just what we need to wake up the naked sportbike market and inspire a new generation of bonkers, undiluted streetfighters. I for one welcome our new brutal overlords.


Of course you already knew that, because the Superduke has been getting praised and hyped ad-nauseum via every possible venue. I hate to propagate the myth, but damned if I don't want to get a ride on one. It won't happen though, because up here the 1290R is being treated like an exotic, unobtainable superstar. Nobody is getting seat time unless they have cash in hand or are a quote-unquote “real” journalist.

So, overall impressions for this year are that most companies appear to be erring on the cautious side. Outside of a few exceptional diversions most everything is terribly boring and barely noteworthy, much every year since the economy took a dump in 2008. We are barely out of the depths of the recession and it has really taken its toll on the market - when companies like Ducati and Harley are pushing their budget, entry-level models to the point of overshadowing their flagships, you know priorities are getting skewed in the wrong direction. Blindly chasing the consumer’s bottom dollar is never a good sign, particularly if you desperately want to see some innovation. There are, however, a few bright points - Yamaha is making good, appealing, accessible stuff, Kawasaki is making the bonkers H2 series, KTM is kicking ass and taking names at the top while also bringing in some sexy entry level machinery at the bottom, while south of the border EBR is showing that the folks in Wisconsin can build some world class sportbikes. Let's hope these stellar examples inspire some more innovation and competition: the rest of the industry should be taking note of what KTM, EBR, Yamaha, and Kawasaki are doing and ignoring the bullshit from everyone else.

Complete Picasa photo album

         

It's August, 2006 and I'm dicking around on the computer during a work break. I'm working for minimum wage as an unlicensed mechanic in Montreal at a British bike specialist while I attend McGill, completing a degree in history while getting my hands dirty during the summer months. I've been working on greasy old Brit iron for several months, fixing all manner of Triumphs, Nortons and the odd BSA or Enfield. Everything from show winners to bodged-together relics pass through the shop and while I'm semi-capable of doing the work I'm truly out of my element. I'd consider my skills somewhere around advanced-shade-tree, likely far from what you'd want to have working on your pride and joy but you really could't expect much for 55$ an hour. I muddle my way through it with the guidance of the grizzled owner without making too many egregious mistakes - though there were a few, thankfully none that manifested themselves outside the walls of the shop.


I'm idly browsing the Auto Trader wistfully looking at bikes for sale. I'm currently riding a '04 SV650 I bought new in the fall of 2004. Being a cash-strapped student I financed it for approximately a trillion years and skipped full coverage insurance because as a then 18 year old rider my insurance company seemed to view my premiums as a way of balancing their books against all those born-again middle-aged HOG riders they were undercharging. It was a fateful decision, because in 2005 I made the bonehead move of lending my SV to a coworker who claimed to be a proficient rider. After he skidded across the road in front of his house, narrowly dodged a passing car, and then flung the bike into a five-foot ditch not 100 yards from his front door I had learned, the hard way, he was completely full of shit. With no collision coverage and the bike effectively written off (severed forks, split rim, busted radiator, crushed exhaust headers, twisted bars, etc…) I made a deal with Fucknuts to fix the bike myself using GSXR takeoff parts, which is de rigueur for anyone who wishes to address the main shortcomings of the SV (i.e. garbage suspension and mediocre brakes) while still saving money compared to buying OEM replacement parts. I diligently showed up at his workplace every payday and escorted him to the nearest ATM until his debt was paid, and I ended up with a neat streetfighter once all was done.





But it wasn't a Ducati. I had pined for a Duc since I began riding, inciting much derision from the Japanese-riding squids I tended to hang around during my early years as a rider. The SV seemed like a sensible alternative – inexpensive, fun, a smarter substitute for a Monster with next-to-no maintenance needed. But it proved to be a poor facsimile. It was fun and sensible, but overall fairly dull. Everything was “good” but nothing stood out, so memorable that you'd forget what it felt like 10 minutes after you got out of the saddle. A fairly typical-to-above-average Japanese bike, in other words. I kept idly searching for a used Duc in my budget; despite modifying the SV beyond recognition it wasn't particularly endeared to it and I increasingly felt like I should flip it and cut my losses to get something more interesting.


In those good-old-bad-days you had to be slightly deranged to want a Duc. The gamechanging 1098 was still a few years off and the Monster was seen as a slow, expensive poseur mobile. Squidly types were quick to point out the marque's reputation for poor reliability, exorbitant retails, and high maintenance – all for a bike that was so much slower than just about any cheap, nasty Japanese sportbike. This was due to the fact that the only two things that matter to the average mouthbreathing Icon-clad cephalopod are A. peak dyno figures and B. the lowest possible retail price.


I got my first taste of the Duc experience taking a used ST4 out for a ride, and it impressed me with its tidy handling and sweet engine, which was stout enough to hover the front wheel in first gear despite having 125,000 kms on the clock (yes, really). A quick rip on a M900Sie left me less impressed, given that the powerband felt virtually the same as my SV's despite having a lot more ccs underhood, and the overall experience wasn't as enthralling as I imagined it would be. Despite the underwhelming test ride I wasn't discouraged; given the lazy feeling of the Monster, I set my sights upon finding a carburetted 900 SS, preferably a CR half fairing model, a bike that appealed more to my sporting sensibilities.


A four-valve model would have been more appealing, but seemed far beyond my budget. Canadian retails on Ducatis were always astonishingly high. The new 999s that were cluttering up showrooms at the time started at 27,000$, when a new Japanese superbike was around 15,000$. Given their scarcity, prices on used Ducs weren't much better – a typical 748, the most common 4V Duc available, was running around $12,000 in pretty much any condition.


This long winded aside is to explain why I paused when I spotted a 1997 916 on the Quebec Auto Trader for 9,000$. If I had been wearing a monocle at that moment, it would have fallen out.

I made a trip to the dealership to see it. It was listed at a small independent shop in Laval, north of Montreal, a place that sold a lot of used Italian bikes and served as the local Aprilia dealer. It was tucked into a corner of the showroom and wasn't much to look at. It was dusty and adorned with some seriously questionable carbon-fibre bits - chief among which was a solid CF windshield, which turned out to be heavier than the original item. It was a US import that had 19,000 miles and a rebuilt title. The frame, swingarm and wheels had been powdercoated black during the rebuild, while the stock Showa fork legs had been anodized gold for a faux-Ohlins look. To any rational shopper, it was one to avoid. High miles for a Duc, dodgy mods, rebuilt… One look should have scared me away.


But there were some highlights. It had an Ohlins rear shock, which was uncommon for Biposto models and a nice bonus during the era when the factory slapped on whatever they had sitting on the shelf. It had a Corbin seat, which turned out to be a must if you plan on riding one of these further than the nearest Starbucks. There was no damage and the powdercoating was clearly done by a pro. It seemed pretty solid, and all the servicing was up to date, checked over by the shop's technician who happened to be an ex-Ducati France race mechanic (who sadly passed away in a snowmobiling accident in 2010). I offered my SV as a trade-in and did the paperwork. After much running around sorting out paperwork and getting my parent to reluctantly co-sign I was the proud owner of 916.


Before I took delivery the mechanic offered, free of charge, to swap out the ugly Biposto setup for a solo seat using a pristine tail from a 1998 model with white numberplates ala SPS. I was elated. I finally got a Ducati, and not just that, I got THE Ducati, one that I hadn't imagined I'd ever be able to own. 916s are extremely rare in Canada, given that they retailed for 24,000$ in the mid-90s. At the time there were maybe a dozen or so examples around, several of which were dedicated track machines; that might sound hard to believe, but keep in mind that this is in a country with a 6 month riding season where Harley sells 10,000 bikes on a good year. Cagiva-era flagship Ducatis are not common here. I'd be willing to be more have been imported into the country when the US and Canadian dollars equalized than were sold here in the first place.


Why am I telling this story? Because the purpose of today's editorial, and the reason I'm revealing my nostalgic side through rosy reminiscing, is this is a eulogy for my 916.


It's not gone. It hasn't been destroyed. I'm sitting here in my living room looking at it right now. After 40,000 miles (plus another 3000 or so that aren't documented due to riding nearly a whole season with a broken speedo cable) the engine is on its last legs, with as many false neutrals as there are gears, a toasted clutch, low compression, significant oil consumption, and the final blow: a tired bottom end that started eating itself.

I knew it was inevitable. There are very few high mileage 916s out there, and not many that have more miles on their original engines than mine. ST4 owners sometimes clock up big numbers on their Desmoquattros, like that fearless rider who had put 125k on his ST4 riding back and forth across Canada, but these were built under TPG ownership when component quality and QC was much improved. I hoped it would go further. During a head refresh last winter I noted too much play in the big end, but it was one of those “it's probably not that bad, I'll just ignore it and keep riding” moments of hopeless denial.


I could shift past the false neutrals. I could flip the clutch plates and be gentle on starts. I could keep an eye on the oil level. I could pretend those rumbling noises from the bottom end were just clutch chatter. This too, I could ignore. Nothing is wrong, everything is great, business as usual, I didn't just invest 10 hours of my time to put together an engine that is on its final season. I buttoned it back up and kept riding. The next oil change revealed a pan full of glitter, as if to unequivocally challenge my state of denial. I had a moment of sombre introspection after that, returning to my apartment to sit on the balcony and silently look over the city skyline. It was a difficult realization to come to; that my most cherished possession, the one object that I had invested an inordinate amount of emotion into, was dying.

My entire period of ownership has been tempered by a constant sense of impending mechanical doom. It began on the first day. Riding away from the dealer (I stupidly hadn't test ridden it beforehand) I immediately noted that the thing felt like a clunky tractor compared to my nimble, modified SV. Within a few blocks the fuel light came on – the dealer hadn't even put gas in the damned thing. After filling up and continuing on my way home, I got stuck in Montreal's infamous downtown traffic. While idling at a stop with the temperature gauge pegged, the oil pressure light started flickering. I cursed myself for buying something that appeared to be a lemon. But I persevered, desperately hoping that my dream machine wasn't going to turn out to be a nightmare. After some research, I changed the oil for 15W50, which cured the oil light issue – it turned out to be a common problem due to an overly sensitive pressure switch combined with the use of 10W40 according to the (wrong) specs in the owner's manual.

The heavy, uncomfortable feel around town didn't inspire much confidence, but I recalled that was a common complaint among reviewers. I rode it to work the next day and my boss wasn't much impressed. Despite spending a lifetime working on leaky, cantankerous old British bikes (with a brief stint as a Ducati dealer in the early 80s) he simply couldn't fathom the appeal of an Italian superbike. I think he suspected I was a dolt for buying the thing rather than spending the same money on one of the perfectly good Hinckley Triumphs we had in the showroom.


The truth was I had no love for those Triumphs and found them underwhelming to ride. The Bonneville was a colossal disappointment, wobbling its way around corners and lacking anything resembling a powerband, suspension, or stopping ability. The Speed Triple also failed to impress, with a flat midrange and heavy feel that didn't seem to jive at all with the glowing reviews I had read in the press, my first indication that something was amiss with those “opinions” in print. The Daytona 675 was the best machine in the lineup and quite nice to ride, but I was never a fan of peaky engines.

That weekend I went for a ride with my father in the mountains north of Montreal, to spectate at a Canadian Superbike event at Circuit Mont Tremblant. That’s when the 916 started to grow on me. Out on the twisty backroads it felt sharp, and I noted the most remarkable feedback through the suspension and chassis. It felt unlike anything I'd ridden before – I could feel exactly what the tires and suspension were doing. It was an eerie feeling, like suddenly gaining a sixth sense that you had never experienced before. It added a new layer of nuance to riding I had been unfamiliar with.

While the engine and chassis felt agricultural and balky around town, it felt alive and vibrant on fast sweeping roads. The engine sparkled at higher revs, far peakier in its delivery than you'd think a 900cc V-Twin would be. It required finesse to ride properly and didn't tolerate mistakes, but remained composed and dead-nuts stable through even the roughest corners that Quebec could offer. That ride was the beginning of my love affair with this bike, and I recall it vividly more than 9 years later.


Not long after I noted a rushing noise in the fuel tank when the level was below the halfway mark. Cycling the pump with the gas cap open sent a 6 foot stream of fuel shooting inches away from my face. I removed the tank to replace the internal lines and filter, and broke one of the fuel line connectors and pinched the pump flange o-ring while trying to put it back together. Thus began the darker side of my relationship with this machine, an endless series of weekends spent fixing, tinkering and maintaining the damnable thing just to get those small hits of greatness on the right road, on the right day, in the conditions, in the right moment. High maintenance is an understatement. I've never sugar coated it like some Ducati apologists do – I have had everything that can possibly go wrong on a 916 go wrong on mine, and my nadir was riding precisely 1000 miles over an entire season because I was constantly chasing electrical gremlins and waiting for parts to arrive, and couldn't ride more than 50 miles without it buggering up and forcing me to limp home.


But not once did it leave me stranded on the side of the road. Not once did I have to call someone to pick me up. To paraphrase the old adage about Chevy trucks, nothing runs as badly as long as a Ducati. It only endeared me to the experience more in some perverse way. It was a challenge, and nursing it home in barely running condition was an exercise in the sort of intense focus that was as exhilarating as it was frustrating. That spectre of mechanical doom added a level of uncertainty and excitement to even the most mundane rides. I began referring to myself as a “masochistic Italophile”.

Back to the present – part of the reason I'm so despondent at the prospect of a rebuild is that I'm unable to afford it at this time; the price of the parts alone would run several thousand dollars, not including my labour. Fixing one of these is not cheap - cylinder honing and Nikasil replating runs 400 plus bucks per cylinder if you are friendly with the shop that does it, and Ducati charges 500$ USD for a set of rings alone. Bearings are another grand, plus about 500$ for a complete gasket and seal kit… The list goes on. Another option, and the one I'm considering seriously, is finding a used low-mileage 996 engine and slotting that in, but even that will run at least 1500-2000$ once shipping is factored in, still beyond my means as I eke out a meagre existence in city that is appallingly expensive to live in.


I'm not averse to fixing it. I truly wish I could afford it. I love this bike - and I don't use that term lightly. I have a relationship with this machine that most people are unable to understand or sympathize with. It's an emotional bond that defies rationality, where this particular motorcycle has come to define a part of my personality. It compliments me and it brings out a side of me that didn't exist before. I am at my best aboard this machine; calm, focussed and skilful, with a confidence that I lack in my daily life.

Motorcycling is the only thing that truly makes me happy; it gives me purpose and direction, and the 916 was the bike that really awoke me to the positive affect that riding had on my psyche. It's seen me through some of the best periods of my life and sustained me through the difficult ones.

I started one of my best relationships at the end of a long ride across Quebec and Ontario; she is gone, but the bike remains, and I still have pictures of it sitting in her driveway.


I've ridden across most of Eastern Canada, tracing all the routes I used to haunt when I lived there. I've done the Cabot Trail aboard it, after riding 1000 miles from Montreal. I've done 600 mile days resulting in me barely being able to stand, with my vision blurred by exhaustion. Many of these rides proved to be exercises in pure masochistic exhilaration, forcing my abilities to the limit in the pursuit of that delectable form of intense pain. Some people fast or sit in sweat lodges to achieve enlightenment. I ride my 916 for as far and as long as I can stand to the same end.


The bikes I had before I bought the 916 were mere machines, and I flipped them annually without much regret. I enjoyed riding them and appreciated their qualities but never formed a bond with any of them. The 916 was very different. It was clear from the first ride that it was going to be interesting, albeit imperfect. And that's what endeared me to it. You've heard all that bullshit about bikes having “soul” and “character” and other such anthropomorphic traits that a mobile collection of metal and plastic cannot possibly exhibit. I hesitate to use such clichés when talking about this bike because they are so hackneyed that they cannot possibly convey how connected I feel to this bike, or how utterly, maddeningly endearing it has been to me… Despite countless breakdowns, endless maintenance, and a laundry list of parts and repairs that could be tallied to a multiple of the purchase price - not including the thousands of hours of labour I've invested over a decade of ownership.

Most people would be content to toss it away, get something better, and move on with their lives. I refuse to give up and I have vowed I will resurrect it as soon as my finances allow. That's why I tidied it up, drained the fuel, and snuck it into my fourth floor apartment on a weekend when the building staff was absent. It will sit in the comfort of my home where I can admire it daily and reminisce endlessly about the good experiences I've had aboard it, until I can return it to its rightful life of screaming down fast secondary roads and occasionally being pressed into the role of improbable sport tourer.


I dread it becoming a permanent fixture. I loathe people who roll perfectly functional machines into their homes where they will never turn a wheel again, forever relegated to the position of art installation rather than fulfilling the designer's intent. I don't dare allow myself to fall into that trap, nor do I wish for it to become one of those “barn find” machines that some youngster will discover under a tarp in my shed and steal away from my next of kin for a fraction of its value because several decades earlier I had shoved it in there and declared I would get around to fixing it “some day” that never arrived.


I still needed something to ride, and with the OddBike USA Tour Part II on the horizon (more on that in the coming months) I started shopping for a new ride. Given that I work at a motorcycle dealer, I started there.

Because getting financing for a vehicle is easier than securing a more modest line of credit  to fix your existing machine - this is why our economy is fucked, and will continue to be fucked, and I'm going right along for the ride – I asked for pricing on two machine we had in stock: a 2007 Aprilia Tuono 1000R and a 2009 Buell 1125CR. There had been a beautiful 2004 Moto Guzzi LeMans on the lot several months prior that I seriously lusted after, but it was long gone by the time I was ready to buy. At the same time I tried to secure a small loan to pay for a 1998 Honda Blackbird owned by a coworker, with enough cash leftover to buy a replacement engine for the Duc.

The Blackbird idea was nixed when the bank said no, and no one will finance a vehicle older than 2007. I was disappointed, as I felt that was the most sensible option – buy a cheap, reliable machine and use the extra funds to fix my baby. That left the 1125 and the Tuono as my principal options. I left for a week to attend the 2014 Barber Vintage festival in Birmingham, Alabama, hopeful that I’d be able to finalize a deal when I got back. In my mind the Buell was the front runner. I'd ridden the 1125R before and it's a fun machine with a stonking great midrange punch that defies belief, marred only by some of the most atrocious fuel injection mapping ever crafted by man - a flaw that could be easily addressed with a remap. Sure it’s spectacularly ugly, but I run OddBike, and I like weird motorcycles. Plus I've long been an admirer of Erik Buell's determination to buck the status quo in chassis design, though I’m not a huge fan of his Sportster-based engines which tend to feel like a really quick diesel – riding through the gears you surf a big slug of torque before constantly bumping into the revlimiter, searching for revs that simply don’t exist. The Rotax engine in the 1125 fixed that problem in spectacular fashion.


The Tuono was more of a second choice, one that carried some serious baggage. The bike had been sold, then immediately returned for a refund with the customer complaining about serious running issues. The sales department treated it like a basket case, a “typical” Eye-Talian machine that was on the fritz and would never get fixed, and one salesman explicitly advised me against buying it. The service guys didn't think anything was wrong, and that the return was simply due to buyer’s remorse – the fuel filter and spark plugs were changed, road tests hadn't revealed anything amiss, and nothing was apparently wrong.

It was a perfect machine in need of rescuing, a maligned beauty that desperately needed a sympathetic owner. The derision of my coworkers towards it only endeared me to it more, much like how the vicious contempt of those squidly Japcrap riders had pushed me towards buying a Ducati just to spite them.


But I was hesitant, worried about how serious the issue might be. An ECU or immobilizer unit would cost a small fortune. The lead technician believed the symptoms were of a failing fuel pump, but lacked the correct adapter to test the pressure and confirm his suspicion. The bike had a cloud over it, and I was unsure if I wanted to take the risk.

I got home from Alabama to discover someone had tried to steal the Duc from my parking garage and drilled the ignition out. Having zero desire to spend several hundred bucks on a new lock set for a bike that was on the verge of self destructing, it seemed like as good a time as any to officially retire it for the season and figure out what I wanted to do about my new ride. When I returned to work two quotes awaited me. One glance at the numbers was enough for me to make my decision. In their exasperation with the Tuono the company was offering it to me at a significant discount, less than I expected and far below market value.  The Buell, meanwhile, had a premium tacked to it that was only slightly less than the retail price. I immediately bought the Tuono and set about figuring out what the issue was.


A quick road test instantly revealed the extent of the problem – this was no buyer's remorse, this thing was completely unrideable. It ran, but the throttle appeared to have no connection to what the motor was doing. It was dangerous - in less experienced hands it would have likely spit the rider off at the first corner. I had a pang of intense regret, but with the ink already drying on the paperwork it was now my problem. I recalled that first ride on the 916 through the streets of Montreal, feeling that same sense of exasperation and foreboding.

I set about figuring out what the issue was. I consulted with the lead technician and got his help running diagnostic scans. With nothing noted by the ECU and no obvious faults in the wiring or electrical system, his hunch about the fuel pump being the culprit seemed more and more likely.


But a fuel pump assembly ran over 600$, the main reason they chose to dump the bike onto me at a loss rather than funnel more money into fixing it and eliminating their already slim profit margin. Some quick research revealed I could purchase the pump alone, without the flange and ancillary bits, from Piaggio for a whopping 150$, something that wasn't noted on the parts fiche. One of the perks of working as a parts guy at a major dealer is you learn many tricks that you can use to your advantage when fixing your own machines. In fact all the parts were relatively inexpensive, considerably cheaper than anything from the Japanese manufacturers – suddenly my decision to buy a broken Aprilia didn't seem quite so insane.

I installed the new pump and discovered a blocked fuel vent line that resulted from water filling up the charcoal canister system. I buttoned it back up and it seemed better, immediately starting and idling easier. A quick test ride around the block revealed no issues, and newfound power from the engine. But with snow on the ground and winter in full swing, it would be quite a while before I would really know if I had fixed the issue, let alone formulate any meaningful riding impressions on a machine I'd never experienced before.


I'd never ridden an Aprilia, let alone considered buying one. I always perceived them as an also-ran, a Ducati imitator that exhibited more Japanese design and engineering style than what typically comes out of Italy. I had recalled the breathless reviews back in the day that had sung praise for the uncompromising nature of the Tuono – it was, at the time, the only pure naked sportbike, a superbike with fairings removed and high bars fitted with nothing done to neuter, detune or dilute the experience. It was virtually identical to the RSV it was based on – same frame, same swingarm, same wheels, same brakes, same engine. The only concessions to cost cutting were some cheaper suspension components, but this didn't mitigate the considerable premium they commanded over their Eastern competition. A premium that was justified by the mad, vicious hooligan character the thing exuded, just the sort of uncompromised insanity that reviewers and experienced riders love but average buyers tend to shy away from. Until the advent of the less expensive and far quicker V4 models, Aprilias were always a miniscule player in the Canadian market - they were virtually unknown, painfully overpriced, exceptionally rare, and tragically under promoted by their Piaggio overlords. The last point still stands, but at least now they have some more street cred.

So I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I knew I'd probably have fun. The Tuono's brutal reputation was intriguing and a lack of compromise is one of the most appealing selling points to someone as deranged as I am. Over the long winter months I poured over road tests and was disappointed to note that most reviewers noted this second generation machine was more polished at the expense of some of the madness, and not quite as crazy as the first generation machines. I worried that it might not be as exciting as I hoped.


This past week we here in Calgary were blessed with one of our glorious Chinooks. For brief periods in the dead of an otherwise bitterly cold winter, we get a set of conditions that bring warm air from over the Rockies that skyrockets the temperature for a few days. The snow melts, the roads clear, and the riders briefly come out of hibernation for some tentative mid-winter excursions along gravel-strewn roads. I figured it was as good a time as any to get the Tuono out and see what it was all about.

So last Saturday I pulled it out of storage and took it home for the first time since I'd changed the fuel pump. On Sunday I took it for my first proper ride, about 100 miles around the roads south of Calgary.


The first thing to note is that if this is considered the polished, refined successor to the original Tuono, then I cannot fathom how batshit insane that first generation machine must have been. This bike is ridiculous, and no review can do justice to how utterly fucking bonkers it is, and anyone who dares call one of these “boring” has to be completely unhinged. The narrow vee angle gives it a peculiar sound and feel, somewhat like a 90 degree twin played in fast forward. “Rorty” is probably the best descriptor I've come across. The bottom end feels flat, inspiring a sense of disappointment as you pull away from a stop… Then the tach hits 4000 rpm and all hell breaks loose. The torque spikes violently, the front goes light, and the thing tosses you down the road with the sort of ferocity that only a highly-tuned V-twin can offer. The power isn't as overwhelming as a modern superbike, but the violent way the midrange kicks in makes it feel like it has about 20 hp more than the dyno sheets would suggest. I have ridden faster machines, but few that felt as quick as this motherfucker does when you goose it around 5000 rpm. Roll on power is addictive, giving instant snap that wiggles the rear wheel and punts you forward without hesitation. Giving a handful of throttle in first will send the handlebars straight into your face – all of this at 3500 feet altitude. I'd bet it will do the same in second at sea level.


I recalled Hunter S. Thompson’s hyperbolic review of the Ducati 900 SS/SP:


I long thought that the Ducati was one of the hardest things in the world to ride slow. The Tuono has proven me wrong. This thing is impossible to keep restrained around town, and the close ratio transmission is geared far too tall in the first three gears for abiding by the speed limit. And that's after I installed a smaller front sprocket.

The engine dominates, but it isn't the only highlight. The seating position is damn near perfect for someone my height. The quad-pad radial Brembos are excellent and have great feel and power. The chassis feels tight and responsive. The handling is sharp but still stable, requiring a period of readjustment – you've got a sportbike chassis combined with the leverage of wide motocross bars, so steering is mighty quick. The seat is relatively comfy, albeit a little thin. Wind blast is not nearly as bad as you'd imagine, even well into (theoretical) “very much illegal” speeds.


The only flaws I have noted are a useless rear brake (which is typical Italian fare), so-so suspension bits that would benefit from a rebuild, and a tight shift action that makes it nearly impossible find neutral with the engine running (though this is apparently fixed by fitting a different oil jet for the clutch, accessible externally through a port in the side of the crankcase). It's also running rich and surges on steady throttle around town, a problem with the full-fat “Map 2” setting in the ECU that is tuned for slip-ons.

All minor niggles, none of which detract from how goddamned fun this thing is to ride. I ended up doing several hundred miles over two days, in spite of the cold temperatures and dirty roads, and reveling in how alive this machine feels. I haven't ridden something that stirred up my maniacal speed lust like this in years. There is good reason people say riding a Tuono will threaten your license – this machine make you abandon any lingering fragments of good sense you may have.

It's magnificent. It's addictive. It's just brutal enough to be entertaining, but still composed enough to be poised and controllable. It's a perfect bike for me.

My 916 may be retired for the moment, but I think I've found a worthy, younger mistress to keep me entertained in the meantime.

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Take a long-dormant name, add a proven heart, clothe it in Italian design, surround it with high hopes, then end the whole project with crushed expectations, insolvency and some ancillary criminal escapades. It is the classic story of the failed motorcycle company, a trope that gets repeated over and over every few years when someone seeks to play on nostalgia and resurrect some long-dead company to sell vapourware to unsuspecting enthusiasts... Except this story is a bit more interesting and a bit more nuanced, and the revival came that much closer to succeeding. This is the story of the Mondial Piega, a machine that was set to conquer the superbike market through an unprecedented partnership that had its roots in a simple gesture of good sportsmanship that occurred over 50 years ago.

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Mondial was one of the more storied marques that had fallen upon decades of obscurity for one simple reason: their modus operandi from day one was racing, and once they stopped the brand gradually faded away. Founded in 1929 by the four Boselli brothers, members of a wealthy aristocratic Milanese family, Fratelli Boselli (FB) began with a workshop in Bologna dedicated to the service of local GD Motobiciclette machines, later expanding into the production of light three-wheeled delivery vehicles. Allied action during the Second World War took a heavy toll on the company, with bombing destroying the factory and military commandeering snapping up the surviving machines. At the close of the war, Mondial had effectively ceased to exist. The Bosellis were fortunate enough to survive the war with their wealth, and resumed production in 1946. It was during this period that an engineer by the name of Alfonso Drusiani, son of an engine builder for GD, developed a new four-stroke 125cc single. Featuring a modern design with double-overhead cams, Drusiani’s engine was too complex and unsuitable for use in a utility vehicle, but Count Giuseppe Boselli saw its potential as a sporting motorcycle powerplant.

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With the blessing of the his brothers, the more famous incarnation of the company emerged in Arcore in 1948 as F.B. Mondial when Count Boselli began production of Druisiani’s DOHC 125. The resulting machine was the legendary 125 Bialbero (“two camshaft”), a machine that was an oddity in the new 125 class that had emerged after the war. Featuring an undersquare 53x56mm configuration displacing 123.5cc using a two-valve head, the Bialbero used a pair of camshafts driven by a bevel tower on the right side of the cylinder. An outer flywheel ala Moto Guzzi bacon slicer kept the crankcases compact (some examples show an exposed flywheel, while others feature a protective cover), while the unitized bottom end contained a four-speed gearbox and wet clutch. Power was initially 12hp at 9000 RPM, with subsequent tuning eeking out 18 hp at 12,000 RPM by the end of development in 1957.

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While most Italian manufacturers were focussing on simple and relatively quick two-stroke designs, Mondial placed its faith in a highly developed four-stroke. The gamble appeared to pay off: in its debut season in 1948 the Bialbero often ran ahead of the two-stroke competition, clocked at up to 80 MPH when most 125s were barely clearing 70. A dustbin fairing was added to improve aerodynamics, and with rider Nello Pagani aboard Mondial won the Grand Prix des Nations at Monza at an average speed of 71 MPH. Performance increased steadily over the years as the power output and the rev ceiling were raised, aided by the addition of a fifth gear in 1956, eventually resulting in a 115 MPH top speed by 1957.  

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Mondial quickly earned a reputation as a purveyor of high-quality, high-performance racing machines in an era when most Italian manufacturers were struggling to rebuild in a postwar economy. While Ducati and MV Agusta were selling inexpensive motorcycles to suit the needs of a war-ravaged market, with racing as an incidental pursuit, Mondial went straight to the top and set about building the best machines possible to compete in the 125 category, with limited production of street legal machines beginning in 1949. Even at their peak, Mondial remained a boutique manufacturer that never produced more than a few thousand machines per year.

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Mondials were superbly engineered, fast, and reliable, to the point of being the template for the competition. Legend had it that MV Agusta obtained a Bialbero to reverse engineer and use in the development of their own four-stroke racers. When Mondial revealed their factory lineup in advance of the 1949 season, the competition scrambled to rework their machines to suit. Mondial’s first real success came in 1949 when they took the 125 Constructor’s Championship, with their rider Pagani taking the Driver’s Championship. Mondial would go on to win the 1950, 1951 and 1957 125 Championships for Drivers and Constructors, along with both titles in the 1957 250 category earned with a 1st through 3rd place sweep.  In 1951 Mondial took the first four positions in the Ultra-Lightweight category at the Isle of Man TT, then again winning the 125 and 250 Lightweight prizes in 1957. All of that is not mentioning the numerous wins in Italian national events.

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Given the success of their factory efforts, it wasn’t a surprise when Mondial began building production racing machines for privateers. The 125 Monoalbera (“single cam”) was introduced in 1952, using the architecture of the Bialbero in slightly simplified form with a gear-driven SOHC valvetrain. Demand was so great that the production of delivery trikes ended in favour of building motorcycles. The company entered machines in the 175 and 250cc categories, and developed an experimental desmodromic valvetrain ahead of rival Ducati. In fact the famed Fabio Taglioni, father of Ducati’s desmodromic heritage, had been an assistant to Drusiani at Mondial from 1952-1954. He had worked on a 175cc version of the Bialbero campaigned in the 1954 Moto Giro; legend has it that he was snubbed from the celebration following Mondial’s victory at the event, and this slight led to Taglioni accepting an offer to defect to Ducati.

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Then in 1957, at the height of the company’s success, Mondial joined Moto Guzzi, Gilera and MV Agusta in announcing a cessation of factory racing programs, leaving only the privateer efforts to continue campaigning Mondials after the 1957 season. The company continued to produce production machines, diversifying into off-road models and two-stroke designs, but the glory days were over.

Giuseppe Pattoni, the chief mechanic of the Mondial GP team, and Lino Tonti, hired by Mondial as a designer in 1957, purchased equipment and spares from the now-defunct racing department and founded Paton (PAttoni TONti), which would go on to achieve some notable success with updated designs based on Monoalbero architecture. Their attempt to label their first 125 machine as a “Mondial-Paton” in respect to their former employer was met with an order from Count Boselli to cease using his company’s name, lest they make it appear that Mondial was violating the Italian manufacturer’s pact - which MV Agusta eventually did, in so doing becoming a legendary dominator of the sport until the 1970s.  

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Following Mondial’s withdrawal from racing, the CEO of a Japanese firm producing small motorcycles sent a letter to Boselli asking if he could purchase one of his now-obsolete 125cc machines. Soichiro Honda had admired the design and success of Mondial’s Grand Prix efforts and wished to obtain an example to study in the development of his own dedicated racing machines, which had hitherto been based on his company’s road-going four-stroke Dream models. With his eyes on conquering the Isle of Man TT, Honda set about building a clean-sheet design to introduce at the TT by 1959. It was a seemingly impossible goal for his company when he laid out the mandate for the racing program to his employees in 1954, mere months following a bailout that had saved the company from bankruptcy.

Remarkably Count Boselli agreed to supply Honda with a 1956 125 Bialbero, which was delivered to Japan in September 1958. Dyno testing by Honda’s race department led by engineer Kiyoshi Kawashima revealed that the company’s prototype, an early version of the two-valve, bevel driven DOHC 125cc parallel-twin dubbed the RC141, actually produced slightly less horsepower than the “obsolete” Mondial. Despite having two cylinders, the RC produced a hair over 15 HP compared to 16.3 from the single-cylinder Mondial, prompting Kawashima to redesign the engine. The result was the RC142 which retained the oversquare 44x41mm dimensions of the RC141 but used a four valve per cylinder head that raised power to 17.4 HP at 13,000 RPM. The RC142 was the first indication of what was to come from Honda: beautifully complex and highly engineered small displacement racers that would prove to be fast and reliable. Soichiro achieved his goal of competing at the Isle of Man in 1959, where his team earned 4th, 5th, 6th, and 11th place and won the Manufacturer’s Cup in the Ultra-Lightweight 125 class using three RC142s and one R141. It would prove to be the first of Honda’s countless international successes, and legend had it that Soichiro never forgot the role that Count Boselli’s generosity played in his nascent racing team’s achievement. A 1956 Mondial 125, clad in a full dustbin fairing, remains on display among Honda’s racing machines at the Honda Collection Hall in Motegi as a tribute to Mondial’s aid to a then-obscure Japanese manufacturer.

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By 1960 production of Mondial engines had ceased. The company continued building motorcycles by installing third-party powerplants into their own chassis until 1979, returning to some limited competition on- and off-road, but the glory days were long passed. An attempt was made to resurrect the marque between 1987-89 with a line of fully-faired 125cc sport bikes, and once again with a 560cc Golinelli-chassis Supermono racer powered by an overbored KTM single in the mid-1990s, but by the end of the 1990s the brand was dormant with the rights to the name remaining in the hands of the Boselli family.

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In 1999 Roberto Ziletti, the head of the Lastra group, then one of the world’s largest printing plate manufacturers, approached Pierluigi Boinini Boselli, son of Count Giuseppe Boselli and heir to the Mondial name, about the possibility of resurrecting the brand with a modern sport bike design. Boselli agreed and Ziletti began to orchestrate the rebirth of Mondial. To expedite the process an existing, proven high-performance engine would be used in a proprietary chassis. The intent was to return Mondial to competition in World Superbike, so a 1000cc V-twin seemed like a natural choice in an era when Ducati was dominating WSBK and BSB with their twin-cylinder machines. A tentative agreement was made with Suzuki to obtain 250 996cc TL1000 V-twins for the anticipated limited-production run. It seemed like a perfect match – the TL mill had a reputation as an excellent powerplant in search of a decent chassis, given the questionable (and inconsistent) handling of the rotary-damper TL series. Bimota had the same idea and had unveiled their SB8R in 1997, a beautiful machine featuring a chassis designed by Pier Luigi Marconi which cured the handling issues and gave the potent TL engine a worthy Latin home.

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With a concept bike assembled and ready to unveil at the 2000 Intermot show, Suzuki abruptly backed out of the deal. Mondial had a chassis, but now they didn’t have an engine to power it. In desperation Ziletti asked a personal favour of his friend Oscar Rumi. Rumi was the well-known head of the Team Rumi, which had achieved some notable success in World Superbike with the Honda RC30 and RC45 until the mid-1990s. Ziletti asked Rumi if he could obtain one of Honda’s newly introduced SP-1 (RC-51) V-twins as a placeholder to use in his concept bike for Intermot.

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Given that Honda would frown upon seeing one of their engines in another machine without their express permission, Rumi deferred to the corporate hierarchy and relayed the request to Honda. Ziletti soon learned that old favours were not quickly forgotten in Japan. In respect to Count Boselli’s sale of a Mondial GP machine to Soichiro Honda over 40 years prior, Honda agreed to not only supply Ziletti with a SP-1 engine for Intermot but would step in to replace Suzuki and supply engines for the entire production run. It was an unheard-of partnership. Honda had traditionally refused to supply large engines to outside parties. Any exceptions to this rule (Bimota-Honda hybrids, Rickman chassis, Harris-frame specials, and so on) were the result of privately purchased donor vehicles being sacrificed to supply their powertrains. The resulting Mondial Piega (“Bend” or “Fold”) would be the first machine to use an officially supplied Honda mill.* And their flagship engine, at that. It would be a heartwarming story if it hadn’t involved an all-conquering multi-billion dollar corporation.

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The SP-1 represented Honda’s attempt to unseat Ducati’s dominance in World Superbike by beating them at their own game. While their previous 750cc V-4 RC30 and RC45 series had been the pinnacle of HRC engineering in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, Honda found that Ducati’s benefitting from a 1000cc displacement limit was enough to keep it ahead of the four-cylinder opposition despite an apparent deficit in peak horsepower. The Bolognese big twins just seemed to have superior traction and tractability that the fours couldn’t match. Honda scrapped the V-4 program in the late 1990s favour of building an all-new V-twin.

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Despite initial beliefs that the SP-1 shared architecture with the 90-degree twin introduced in the VTR1000 in 1997, the truth was that the engine was entirely reworked with the latest in Honda’s racing know-how. Precise gear-driven double-overhead cams, a staple in RC models dating back to the 1984 VF1000R, replaced the chain driven items of the VTR. All-new horizontally split crankcases used wet cylinder liners made of a proprietary ceramic composite that did away with the need for Nikasil plating. A hugely oversquare 100x63.6mm configuration gave a genuine 999cc. That vast bore allowed the fitment of the biggest valves in the class: 40mm intakes paired with 36mm exhausts. With a PGM-FI system feeding 54mm twin-injector throttle bodies, claimed power was 133 HP at 10,000 RPM and 76 lb/ft at 8000 despite a relatively modest 10.8:1 compression ratio, all fed through a close-ratio six-speed gearbox.

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Like the RC45 that preceded it, the entire machine was built from the ground up to be a race winner. Unlike the limited-production $27,000 USD RC45, it was affordable: Honda sold the SP-1 RC-51 for a mere $9,999 USD despite it clearly being built to a standard that led to some reviewers suggesting they must be losing money on each one. Every component was designed with racing, not streetability, in mind. The twin spar alloy frame was overbuilt and stiff, the suspension was harsh, the gearing was tall, and the fuel injection was abrupt. Handling was generally good but early models suffered from a twitchy front end that could be easily overwhelmed. Weight was also an issue; at 490 lbs wet, the SP-1 was noticeably heavier than the Ducati 996 it competed with, equalling the Aprilia RSV Mille in porkiness, and surpassed only by the 505-pound gorilla that was the Suzuki TL1000R. The SP-1 was a beastly machine that rewarded skilled riders but punished everyone else, and despite excellent reliability it wasn’t a machine you’d be expected to ride everyday. It was a perfect competitor to the Ducati, in other words, but didn’t seem to fit the template of the refined and easy-to-ride dynamics typical of most Honda sport bikes. It was a brutish cult classic in the making.

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Over at Mondial, initial plans called for some serious in-house engineering to make the Piega a truly world-class machine. Work was underway to develop proprietary six-piston monoblock brake calipers, 45mm forks, a rear shock with high and low speed damping, in-house wheels, a solid carbon-fibre swingarm for racing machines, and a variable-map ECU that would automatically determine the riding conditions and select a pre-set map of varying aggression to suit (though the manner in which the computer would determine those conditions wasn’t revealed). A running prototype featuring some of these in-house components was unveiled in the spring of 2001. The styling was more or less determined but a few of the details appeared half-baked – Ducati mirrors and awkwardly hung underseat exhaust cannons revealed some last-minute scrambling and distracted from the interesting suspension and braking components on display. It seemed like a good effort, but one that was still far from being production ready. Cynical observers waited for the inevitable revelation of Mondial disappearing once again.

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The in-house components proved to be overly ambitious for a new company, and none of the came to pass; once production bikes began rolling off the line in 2002, they featured off-the-shelf 46mm Paoli forks, Brembo axial calipers, forged Marchesini wheels, and an Ohlins rear shock. Some reviewers mentioned the multi-map fuel injection but it appeared to be a passive, tunable ECU rather than a dynamic system making changes on the fly (with the promise of owner-downloadable maps available through the internet). Conventional components aside, the pre-production prototypes unveiled in 2002 featured more coherent styling and looked far more finished than the slightly awkward-looking prototype shown in 2001. Progress was being made and the media was starting to take notice. Suddenly it looked like this upstart company using a long-dormant name might not be so ephemeral after all.

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The Piega, named by Ziletti’s four year old son Mario, promised to take the already good SP-1 and make it better in every respect. Everything from the Honda donor was ditched save for the engine, throttle bodies, digital instrument panel, and sidestand. The mandate was for a high-spec sport machine that was designed for performance (and eventually racing) as the primary goal. Good street manners would be incidental.

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The result appeared to be an accountant’s nightmare, the best sort of cost-no-object Latin-Japanese fusion. Styled by Sandro Mor and designed by ex-Aprilia engineer Nicolo Bragagnolo, the Piega replaced the wide beam frame of the SP-1 with a slender, TIG-welded, chromoly vanadium steel trellis. The swingarm was a steel trellis design operating a rising rate linkage, with the framework hidden beneath a carbon-fibre skin. Wheelbase was 55.9 inches with 26 degrees of rake. The subframe was eliminated entirely, replaced by a self-supporting carbon-fibre tail section wrapped around an underseat Arrow exhaust system. There were no pretences or provisions for carrying a passenger. Everything that was made of aluminum was CNC milled, without a single bit of cast or forged alloy present outside of the engine and wheels. Bodywork was produced by Carbon Dream in, no surprise, carbon-fibre with a sleek and sexy design that incorporated a pair of stacked projector beam headlights, before Pierre Terblanche introduced the same feature in his oft-maligned Ducati 999. There were a few awkward lines and some odd proportions, but most observers found the Piega quite striking and it was an exceptionally good effort for a new company, particularly for a machine styled by a hitherto-unknown designer.

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The engine was internally unchanged and retained the Honda’s 54mm Keihin throttle bodies, but the titanium and stainless steel Arrow exhaust (homologated in Europe but apparently devoid of catalytic converters), a larger carbon-fibre airbox, and revised fuel mapping bumped the claimed output slightly to 138 HP. More importantly an amazing 45 pounds of weight was saved versus the SP-1 donor, with Mondial claiming the Piega weighed 390 lbs dry, a result achieved through the thorough (and costly) application of carbon-fibre and milled aluminum.

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Retail price was set at 23,900 Euros for the corporate blue and white liveried Piega, 27,000 for the Nero if you preferred your machine clad in naked carbon-fibre. A direct sales model was setup, where “dealer” showrooms served merely as a place to exhibit and service Piegas, with customer orders being fulfilled by Mondial directly through the internet. All components would be produced by outside suppliers with final assembly occurring at the Mondial factory, which was located near the Monza circuit at Villasanta with plans to move to the company’s historical base in Arcore later on.

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High-spec exotics are all well and good on paper, but the real proof is in the riding and despite some initial doubts the Piega appeared to do exactly what it was supposed to – give a lovely, balanced home to a rip-snorting Honda engine. Once production started in 2002, road and track tests revealed that not only was the Piega noticeably quicker than the SP-1, with stable handling that cured the quirks of the donor machine, it was also easier to ride and exhibited none of the fuelling issues that plagued the early Hondas. The chassis performed well enough to earn near-universal praise from most of the early testers. It appeared to be the perfect exotic hybrid: fast, beautiful, and lovely to ride, with a reliable, proven heart in a sorted chassis. The price was exorbitant but largely justified considering the quality of the components and the extremely limited production. The only gripes that commonly appeared was slightly awkward ergonomics owing to the wide 20 litre fuel tank (itself an internally-baffled, aluminum flourish flying in the face of cost-cutting) and the 34 inch seat height that precluded Napoleonesque riders from flat footing at a stop, but the controls were fully adjustable to suit most riders who weren’t fat old gits shoehorned into their leathers. All signs pointed to the Piega being a winner.

This is the point in the story when you will start to think things are going a little too well, where the dream will start to unravel. And you would be right.

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Later tests revealed slightly less polish than the early reviews suggested, with sometimes finicky handling and less power than the Honda donor, despite the claimed crankshaft figures being virtually the same and the engines being internally identical. Criticisms that hadn’t surfaced in the preview tests began to filter through. Weird inconsistencies popped up – some testers noted a very quiet exhaust note with the stock pipes, while others found it astonishing that the Piega had passed noise testing at all. Dyno tests showed less horsepower than expected, and the fuel injection performance was occasionally problematic. Meanwhile Honda had updated the RC-51 with the SP-2 in 2002, which corrected many of the faults present in the SP-1 while upping power, reducing weight, and improving driveability – suddenly the Piega had stronger competition from the very machine it was based on. Nobody faulted the quality of the chassis or the component quality, which remained stellar, but things didn’t appear quite as rosy as they had upon the Piega’s launch and not everyone was seduced by the bike’s exotic aura.

Funding problems began to pop up and the business side of the company became increasingly murky. Following Ziletti’s Lastra group acquisition of Mitsubishi’s graphic arts division, Ziletti found himself apparently unable (or unwilling) to deal with the running of Mondial. In early 2003 he was replaced (or, depending on the source, supplanted) by a duo of Swiss investors named Daniel Alismeno and Rafael Alfonso. There were rumours of the company courting Swiss investors for more capital, and hints that they were not successful.

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Despite the uncertainty and only having made a few deliveries of the first series of Piegas, several new models were announced. The EVO was an up spec’d Piega featuring 43mm Ohlins forks, Brembo radial calipers, restyled fairings, and revised tuning that bumped the claimed power to 143 hp. A limited run of 100 EVO Ziletti Special Editions were to be produced, featuring a unique paint scheme, a set of custom-fitted leathers, and a hardcover coffee table book detailing the history of Mondial.

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Meanwhile two naked models were presented at the 2003 EICMA show: the Starfighter was a Piega stripped naked and restyled by Massimo Zaniboni of Arkema Studio, with a new tail section mounted on a traditional tubular subframe but retaining the clip-ons and aggressive ergonomics of the Piega. The Starfighter wasn’t dumbed down compared to its fully-faired sibling, and featured the same Ohlins suspension and radial brakes found on the EVO as well as identical engine tuning. This was accompanied by the RZ Nuda which was a similarly naked Piega wrapped in styling provided by French company Boxer Design. The Nuda followed traditional streetfighter design elements, like motocross bars and bugfuck ugly projector beam lights yanked off the nearest mid-1990s Honda Civic. If you believed Mondial’s claims circa 2002, the Nuda was intended to be the company’s mass-production model retailing for around 18,000 Euros; it was hoped that up to 800 examples per year would be rolling out of the factory.

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Across the pond in the United States shady deals were being made by proposed Mondial importer Andrew Wright and his Georgia-based company Superbike Racing Inc. It was an open secret that Wright had a nasty reputation as a fraudster in the motorcycle industry. As the official importer of Benelli, his company ran afoul of the Feds and severed ties with the Benelli factory when the government came asking about bikes possessing EPA certification stickers that didn’t appear to have passed emissions testing; the whole debacle ended with Benelli and Wright engaging in a public shouting match with each party claiming the other was to blame for bungled certification and substandard products. Meanwhile Superbike Racing had made a bad name for itself as the apathetic distributor of Dymag carbon-fibre wheels, with angry customers claiming that Superbike was selling the wrong wheels for specific applications and ham-fistedly modifying parts in dangerous ways. At least one high-profile carbon swingarm failure was blamed on Superbike employees compromising the component though careless modification. Wright was also notorious for having promised prospective owners that he would import MV Agusta F4 models through the grey market to circumvent the long waiting lists during the company’s reintroduction in the late 1990s, taking deposits from numerous customers without delivering bikes. To say his position as Mondial’s US importer was suspicious is an understatement.

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Then it was all over. In the summer of 2004 Mondial Moto Spa declared bankruptcy and its assets were set to be sold off by the Monza courts. At this point a mere 35 Piegas had been produced, along with two EVOs, one Starfighter, and several prototype Superbike race machines. In the confusion surrounding the proceedings 11 Piegas were stolen by company employees as “compensation” for unpaid wages - potential buyers should note that their VIN numbers remain flagged to this day.

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Andrew Wright claimed that Superbike Racing was due to purchase the tooling and restart production, promising to release a new Mondial powered by an unspecified powerplant by 2007, but the Monza court ended up auctioning 50% of the assets in 2005. Milanese company Biemme, a company run by Piero Caronni who had previously purchased the spares to continue production of the Bimota V-Due, was the winning bidder. The other half of the assets remained in the hands of the Boselli family.

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Biemme reformed the company and restarted production of Piegas using the remaining spares in late 2005 under the name Gruppo Mondial S.R.L.; total production numbers vary according to the source, but it appears that Gruppo Mondial produced an additional 85 Piegas (including 10 Nera Edizione Finale models), 7 EVOs, and 14 Starfighters.

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In August 2006 Andrew Wright was sentenced by a US federal jury to serve 27 months in federal prison and pay over 20,000$ in restitution to defrauded customers following a conviction for illegally smuggling vehicles into the United States, in addition to a laundry list of lesser fraud charges. The court documents revealed that Wright had forged documents and certification stickers to make the vehicles he imported appear to be EPA and NHTSA certified before selling them illegally in the US market. Wright fled the United States and went into hiding, but not before sending an email to the Valdosta Daily Times that read in part: “I made plans to remove myself from the U.S.A. a tyrannical country, I carried out my plan with the utmost precision and secrecy. No one was privy to or had any knowledge of what I was about to carry out. As far as my wife was aware I was traveling to Ohio. I waited until she left for work on Wednesday 6th December 2006. I executed my plan with the utmost precision. I was very successful... I realize the seriousness of my situation, after careful consideration am prepared to carry out suicide if that is the only option I have left. You will never take me alive to be tortured in you(sic) death chambers.”

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In November 2012 Roberto Ziletti and Daniel Alismeno were charged by the Italian court with fraudulently declaring the bankruptcy of Mondial Moto Spa and sentenced to pay restitution to former creditors. Both were given prison sentences, which were suspended for those reasons of “amnesty” that somehow only apply to wealthy white businessmen, and were barred from commercial activities for 10 years following the sentence.

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Mondial has gone dormant once again, their greatest moment remaining in 1957 when Count Boselli gracefully bowed out of competition while the company was at its peak. Those victories remained unequalled despite a genuine attempt to build a world-class superbike and renew the marques’ sporting credentials. Like far too many well-intentioned attempts at resurrecting the dead, the results ended in disappointment, bankruptcy, and court sentences for a colourful cast of characters. Those few Piegas and Starfighters that made it out of the factory remain as a tribute to that vision of what might have been, striking rolling sculpture in the form of the classic Italian hybrid – though it seems unlikely Honda is particularly proud of their involvement, one that represented an attempt to symbolically honour a past favour. It was an unfortunate result, but not one that was surprising. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that a once proud marque gets dragged out of the history books by wealthy investors looking to capitalize on past glories.  

*Bernard Li’s attempt to revive the Vincent name was slated to use the RC-51 engine as well, though Li’s untimely death put an end to the project.

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In the course of working on this site I glean over a lot of road tests, previews, reviews, and rider feedback for whatever weird bike I happen to be in the process of profiling. It gives me an opportunity to get period insight into the machines, and the context surrounding their introduction, which plays an important role in telling the story. For me context is just as important as hindsight when talking about some long-dead company or motorcycle; we have a tendency to view the past through our own lens, which isn't fair or a good way to preserve history. The fact that we motorcyclists are some of the most fickle, prissy and critical assholes out there doesn't help when you are trying to do justice to a design. We will sooner remember it as a worthless piece of shit than the forward-looking product of a starry-eyed designer who must have thought he/she was going to change the world. Or vice-versa.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. I've noticed an even more interesting undercurrent in the numerous articles and comments I constantly sift through, and that's a noticeable change in the quality of motojournalism. When you read reviews from the past four or five decades and compare them to the work being published today, you notice some peculiar trends. You can trace the evolution of motorcycle journalism. And it's not good. I'd like to address it, and in so doing lay out a new model for what I'm doing here on OddBike.



Road tests and profiles of vehicles are, with few exceptions, a mere shadow of what they once were. I've read some spectacularly well done reviews, and nearly without fail they were written before 1990. Somewhere along the way we began dumbing down and fluffing up the content to do… what exactly? That much isn't clear. You can pick up an issue of Cycle magazine from the 1970s and get immersed in a long-form article that gives superb technical detail mixed with wit and engaging storytelling, all the while giving an excellent impression of the machine on review. Nowadays you can expect a formulaic, cliché-littered scrap of prose that is so inoffensive and dull that it gives no true indication of what a machine is like to ride, particularly in the North American rags. You can easily substitute the name of any other machine in the category and the format would be the same, as would the conclusions. If you do luck into finding any technical info, it's invariably regurgitated straight from the press material and the presentation often lacks any semblance of understanding on the part of the writer, if they manage to avoid egregious errors in the process. It's as if the reviewers are either A. too dumb to come up with anything interesting to write, or B. prevented from doing so by heavy-handed editors and advertisers, or C. some combination of the two.


I had a discussion with one of my coworkers about this issue several weeks ago. He had just picked up a wrecked Aprilia that he was putting back together and worried if it would be any good to ride; poring over reviews had revealed nothing about the real character of the bike, and he has been debating if he will fix it to keep it or flip it for a profit. Barring some horrifying defect I can't imagine it would be truly terrible to ride, but like him I had no real impression of what the damned thing was supposed to be like despite reading numerous reviews over the years. And it's like that for most modern machines. The ones I have been fortunate enough to ride myself almost never jive with the impressions I've read in print. Why the disconnect? I’m not a professional rider but I am capable of forming an opinion and noting the essential characteristics of a motorcycle. I can convey those qualities to another person and make them understand what it's like to ride that bike. Why are these so-called "professionals" incapable of doing the same? They get paid to do exactly that.

My coworker, an industry veteran, made an important note: there are very few opinions in print he would actually trust. He told the story of the launch of a new 450 dirt bike from a certain major brand that was held in the area. One of the shop's technicians, who happened to be a seasoned dirt racer, was asked to lead a group of journalists on an off-road ride nearby. He took them to a popular trail, which included a moderately difficult hill to climb. He rode up the hill, and then turned around to discover that most of the "professionals" present couldn't manage and were refusing to follow him.


These are the people who are writing reviews of machines that you read to determine what you are going to buy. These are the writers whose words you take as gospel. Their writing can make or break the success of a model. Talented riders around the world will be reading their impressions and deciding if that 450 is right for them. And you can be sure as shit they would have been fluffing up their abilities in those reviews, when in fact they couldn't ride up that goddamned hill outside Calgary.


I recall reading, and I apologize that my gnat-like attention span precludes me from remembering where, one of the leading writers who worked through the glory days into the modern era talking about how the exponential increase in the performance and handling of sports motorcycles in the early- to mid-Eighties inspired him to encourage his fellow journalists to become more proficient riders to suit. They needed to do track days, to become professional riders with advanced skills, because the bikes were progressing so far beyond their capabilities that they needed to learn how to be better riders just to keep up and properly evaluate this new breed of machine. There was a meaningful attempt to inspire a better breed of tester.


Where and when did that mandate get lost? Nowadays most reviewers are more likely to inflate their riding abilities and pretend to be capable of thoroughly evaluating a 200 HP Superbike because they didn't crash it on their way to the office (or in some cases, because they did). There are still a few publications I trust more than others for their ability to properly evaluate a motorcycle. Any article written by a current or former racer, amateur or professional, is worth a read. Road Racing World and Sport Rider generally seem to get it right, though the latter has a propensity for the kind of stupid nit-picking "shootouts" that I thoroughly despise. Motorcycle.com and Motorcycle-USA are not bad (also free), and might even include a real opinion on occasion. But in general it seems a lot to expect a thorough and interesting profile that lives up to those glorious old articles from the good old days.

I can say, without hesitation, that my opinion is NOT the product of rosy nostalgia – I'm young and I grew up reading the fluffy crap. I didn't discover those old articles until recently. I instantly recognized their quality, and how superficial and boring more recent work has become.


Of course there is the other extreme espoused by the cockney British sportbike mags. The ones who play up the trope of being staffed by a bunch of hooligan nutbar menaces to society. The ones who somehow manage to continue securing expensive test bikes despite crashing them with alarming frequency. Their honesty is brutal, and completely free of class. They can be entertaining for a bit but after a while their antisocial blue-collar squid shtick tends to wear thin, as does their crudity and sexism. Telling me a bike "is shit" because it spit you off and committed suicide in the nearest ditch rather than continue to be subject to your reckless technique isn't a meaningful review. It's the sort of crap you read in the GSXR forums.    


Aside from a few good articles written by the old timers who were around to learn their trade in the glory days, and the odd freelancer who isn't afraid to express an opinion, the current motorcycle writing landscape is bleak and bland. It's probably not a coincidence that Cycle World has started pushing their digital back catalogue as much as their current content. And I for one am happy to read those issues from 20-30-40 years ago, because damned if they aren't far better than the drivel they are publishing today.

Every time I go to the newsstand and peruse the latest issues of the popular mags, I think to myself "if there is some good stuff in here I'll buy a copy". I never do. I'm able to glean everything I need to know by speed reading through the copy; I might take the time to look at the sidebars and editorials for some meaningful opinions. But I'm almost never surprised, delighted or interested. So they get put back on the shelf. The only magazine I find halfway decent and that I actively seek out is Britain's RIDE - a publication that is sadly underappreciated and poorly circulated here in North America.


Even the good content you come across nowadays is usually published in painfully abridged format. When was the last time you slogged through a proper Kevin Cameron technical article, one that left you scratching your head and seeking to learn more just so you could understand what he was going on about? When was Peter Egan's last great personal tale of charming, befuddled derring-do? If you've read all three volumes of Leanings you'd know it wasn't anytime recently. Those recent stories are too short, too impersonal, too much like what everyone else is writing.

The online stuff I usually peruse isn't necessarily better, but it's free, so at least I don't feel like I've been swindled out of my 5.95$ when I read a bunch of hackneyed crap crowded on all sides by obnoxious advertising. Plus I'll get word of the latest news and releases in real time, not two or three months after the fact.

I personally uphold Hot Rod Magazine as a fantastic example of how to do things properly while still maintaining a wide readership and keeping the sponsors happy. I don't even like American cars, but I recognize the good work they are doing. A lot of the classic car magazines manage to pull this off. The content and writing is good, the technical detail is great and easy to understand, the tests and projects are fun and interesting, and in Hot Rod's case they've managed to develop strong online content (i.e. Roadkill) that blows the motorcycle media into the weeds. The subjects can sometimes be fluffy but it has still got a genuine, honest quality that most of the motorcycle magazines lack.


Why can't we have that in the motorcycle world? Where's our Hot Rod? Where's our Roadkill? I think there are two major hurdles: 1. we are a tiny, insular and isolated market compared to anything related to car culture and 2. nobody has developed a model in our realm that could support that kind of content. Hot Rod has major corporate sponsors and advertisers, but they stay honest and fun without pissing them off - and that honesty lends them immense credibility. Years ago the bike mags were supported by subscribers, and content was driven by the readership. They had enough money kicking around to do cool things, side projects and builds that kept readers engaged, and advertisers had less control over the content. In this (idealized) model the writers and editors answered to the readers, not the sponsors. Today we have the opposite situation, where the readers are merely traffic being directed towards advertisers. Content takes a backseat to advertorial clickbait. Woe be to the ones who dare spout off in a way that contradicts what the advertisers like to hear.

Maybe Hot Rod and similar publications get away with an extra helping of honesty because they cater to long-defunct products. Along those lines I've got a fondness for classic bike magazines, provided they don't start waxing lyrical about how superb the brakes are on a Scott Squirrel, or how a BSAJS-Nortriumphenfield is truly a reliable beast if you are blind to shipwright's disease and have thrown 15,000$ of modern parts at the engine and electrical system. They tend to be more honest than most, as long as they aren't nostalgizing out of their asses or trying to justify their irrational perversions toward some creaky piece of shit. They also tend to have a dearth of young writers on staff, perhaps for obvious reasons, and their content tends towards the "good but devastatingly boring" side of the continuum.


That's not to say it's ALL bad in the moto media, or that there isn't any good journalism out there. I suppose just like any other medium there is inevitably good and bad content; it just seems like the good stuff is much harder to find, and it's been watered down to the point of worthlessness, or its found well outside the mainstream and known only to a select group of readers. My big gripe is that nobody seems capable or willing to properly evaluate a machine in a memorable way. Sure, modern bikes are pretty much good across the board and there aren't many turkeys out there, but if you can't convey the dynamic qualities of a machine in print then you aren't a good reviewer.

And if you think that the results of the latest supersport or superbike or super-middle-heavyweight track day-shootout-extra-ordinaire is a reliable way to review machines, then you are an idiot. They have no value beyond satisfying the mouth-breathing masses who think 3 hp at the top of a dyno curve is what makes bike XYZ the BEST machine. Spec sheet racing is for squids and fools. I could hand you the keys to two bikes - each with the same wet weight, each with the same engine configuration, each with near-as-dammit the same power and torque figures at the rear wheel. They might even appear to have similar dyno curves. Ride them back to back and you'll realize that, despite matching on paper, these two machines are so vastly different to ride that they probably shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence, let alone compared and graded against each other on a formulaic spreadsheet.

That doesn't mean one is better than the other – I might prefer bike A, you might prefer bike B. One might be better suited to certain situations. They are probably both pretty damned good, which is the case with any supersport or superbike machine on the market today – they are all obscenely good, highly polished, ridiculously fast, great fun to ride, and trying to claim one is better than another based on scorecards is useless pedantic bullshit. Next time you see one of those dumb comparison shootouts, be sure to carefully read through the comments made by the testers outside of the main copy of the article. You'll notice that they often choose a completely different machine as their personal winner, rather than what "won" the shootout. Wonder why that is?


I've gotten on bikes that exhibited NONE of the qualities shared in the reviews I had read, which always makes me wonder if handing out press ringers is still common practice or if these journalists are just incapable of accurately evaluating a machine. Look at the dull as shit reviews of the utterly bonkers Kawasaki H2 for a good example of how wrong things can go. I've seen dyno graphs that show the stock, street-legal H2 is knocking out 200 hp at the wheel, and enough torque to tow a Freightliner, and somehow no review has conveyed how that engine feels aside from some vague statements about it being pretty gosh-darned fast. This is the most technologically advanced and hyped bike of 2015, the most powerful production motorcycle ever sold with a warranty, the most ridiculous example of hyperbolic engineering we've seen in years, and the knobs who have been allowed to ride it are writing reviews that make it sound like riding it is about as exciting as droning down the Interstate on a NC700. One twist of the wrist aboard that bugfuck insane example of man's hubris should have you pissing yourself in fear as you forever alter your conception of power, and I want to hear about how it scarred your psyche and permanently warped your sense of time and space.


But nevermind the H2, because we have lots of articles on the latest crop of Adventure Tourers and whole sidebars dedicated to explaining the function of whatever gimmicky bullshit technological doodad they slapped on their barge to one-up the competition in some worthless way. CORNERING LIGHTS?!

Recently Wes Siler came out of the woodwork to put out a call for "the next great motorcycle blog". It was an interesting piece, one that got forwarded to me immediately because Wes somehow managed to describe exactly what I was doing here on OddBike while being completely oblivious to the site. He even suggested someone should go to New Orleans and get drunk with JT Nesbitt to cover the Bienville Legacy. Ha.


In any case Wes' ideas inspired some interesting conversations in the blogosphere and got the wheels turning in my mind. But not for the reasons most readers might think. I have zero interest in monetizing OddBike in any traditional manner, nor would I ever allow this site to devolve into a bunch of Gawker-esque clickbait in the relentless pursuit of traffic. What struck me as important was the fact that Wes so perfectly summarized what I was up to without knowing anything about OddBike – and that’s a problem.


More people need to be aware of what we are up to here, and more people need to be visiting my site. Not for the money, but to keep a cool and fun project going strong. I've seen the traffic decline on my site because I'm unable to post updates frequently enough. Dumbing down the content and increasing the frequency of posts is not the answer. Quitting my day job and devoting myself to OddBike is the romantic and insane solution, one that I would love to do but cannot due to little things like "responsibilities" and "rent" and "crippling debts".

I've done well here by refusing to participate in the existing system, carving out my own strange little niche. But OddBike is limited by my own time and energy. I've been mulling over some ideas, and the development of new model to help this site grow:


We need to address the failures of the traditional media. Let's bring the readers back into the process. Eliminate the corporate sponsors and advertisers entirely, unless they are willing to support the content as readers who happen to be business owners rather than as corporate entities. For example: Michael Walshaw from Kriega USA approached me prior to the first OddBike USA Tour in 2013. He wanted to supply me with luggage for the trip. I was leery of accepting contributions from a company and politely declined. I met Michael while in was in Alabama, and it turned out that he was the real deal and a good friend of a friend. He genuinely wanted to help out and do his bit to sponsor a fellow rider; the corporate side of his contribution was irrelevant. I felt guilty for turning him down, and so I got in touch with him this year about supplying some kit for the second USA Tour that will be happening this fall. He graciously obliged. I will use his product and review it in the USA Tour Part II travelogue not because Kriega USA sponsored OddBike but because Michael deserves the exposure for helping out this site and believing in what I'm doing. That's the kind of genuine no-strings-attached sponsorship I want to cultivate for this site. It has no bearing on the content, it won't annoy my readers, and it won't prevent me from remaining honest.

Let's continue to have content drive the traffic, and use reader support and sponsorship to support the site and generate new stuff. Right now OddBike is all me, all the time. That's hard to maintain when you work a gruelling full-time job that leaves you completely braindead most evenings, limiting your productive writing time to your days off (which encroaches upon your other hobbies, like actually riding motorcycles rather than wistfully and passionately writing about them). To help supplement my own writing, I'd like to bring in outside contributors. Editorials and offbeat reviews would be welcome, with an eye towards anything unusual and interesting (and well-written) that would fit the weird little niche I've carved out here over the past 2-ish years.


Crowdfunding from readers is, in my mind, the most appealing method of generating some modest revenue to cover site-related expenses. Then I answer to the readers alone and the only expectation is that I'll continue to provide good content. I also like the idea of getting funded without putting any restrictions on the content. By which I mean you don't have to pay to continue getting OddBike, and I won't start any of that bullshit "VIP content" for paying sponsors. OddBike is and always will be 100% free and available to anyone.

The problem with that idea is that crowdfunding is limited in scope and timeframe. I've used Indiegogo in the past and the maximum amount of time I can run a campaign is 60 days. And throwing out a big fat number that covers some vague annual budget seems unlikely to succeed. I like the idea of funding individual projects and trips, where the money can be put to a use that has a clear result – you can see how your funding has benefited the site, and a specific goal is achieved within a specific timeframe. To this end I'll be running another Indiegogo campaign starting in June to help fund the second OddBike USA Tour. I'll see how that goes and determine what I'll be doing with future campaigns.

Rather than running a bunch of small campaigns, there are now longer term options like Patreon that allow me to set up continual funding. I've been mulling over the idea, but I dislike their model that pushes monthly debits rather than lump sum contributions. I'm not sure it's a great fit for OddBike. Personally I'd be happy to drop a few bucks on a campaign I like, but I sure as shit wouldn't want them snatching repeated payments off my credit card. I like to think of myself as the model OddBike follower – if I don't like it, I doubt y'all would either.


There is always the problem of overcomplicating something that has purity in its simplicity. I don't want to make OddBike a job, nor do I dare expose it to the corruptions that have felled once great sites like Hell for Leather. Making OddBike better and bigger without making it complicated and unwieldy for me to manage is a balancing act that I'm just beginning to become aware of. I don't want to repeat the mistakes of other site owners. I don't want to corrupt what is currently an elegantly simple system – me sharing my passion for bikes. I hope that remaining lucid and aware of that is enough to keep things in check.


Long term funding requires more thought. I don't need money to continue this site, and I hate the complication it brings. But getting funding for travel would be useful – it would be a great way to expand the scope of the site by performing interviews and obtaining photographs, and I adore writing travelogues. In a selfish sense, I enjoy traveling, period. I could snag some seat time aboard some of the bikes I write about and do some legitimate road tests in my own inimitable style. I've already had offers to test some of the machines I've profiled IF I can get my ass down to meet the builders, something I've so far been unable to do due to my perpetual lack of funds and extremely limited vacation time.

All of this is to say I'm thinking about ways I can expand OddBike without selling out. The model is a work in progress - and I welcome feedback and ideas. I'd also like to see if anyone is interested in publishing their work here. In the meantime, it's business as usual.


   

"Ultra Classic - that's a Touring model right? Not a Softail or Dyna?"

The customer stares at me blankly for a moment. He came in asking for an aftermarket stator for his Harley, which I've already told him is a bad idea because the only ones I can get through my suppliers are garbage, and we've already had an incident where one caught fire the first time the bike was started after installation. But he was having none of it, because somebody, somewhere, told him that HD original stators were shit and he needed to buy the cheap Chinese ones instead, because apparently those are fantastic when they aren’t shitting the bed, self-immolating, or just not fitting the application they are listed for.

After a moment he responds. 'Um, can I talk to someone more experienced than you? No offence, but you don't even know what an Ultra Classic is.'



I did my best not to visibly cringe in response to his attitude - or make a comment about his mullet - before I directed him to one of my older colleagues, who proceeded to tell him exactly the same thing I had just explained except packaged in a wrapping of grizzled indifference that only years of putting up with this shit can bring. The irony is that I'm one of the most accomplished parts guys on this counter, no mean feat because our whole crew is composed of experienced top-rate professionals, and I likely know way more about Hogs than this customer does despite the fact that I have to deal with twelve different brands on a daily basis and none of them are Harley.


It's not that I don't know that an Ultra Classic is a fucking Touring model. I'm following my usual procedure of asking redundant questions to make sure the customer and I are on the same page to avoid confusion (and placing orders for the wrong parts). I get far too many inquiries from people who have a "350 Yamaha. No, wait, maybe it’s a 450. I don't know what year it is, maybe a 1995 or 1999. Do you need that?" If I manage to wrangle a VIN number from them to verify, I'll discover it's a 1992 Suzuki LTR250.

It's the start of a long goddamned stressful week. A holiday weekend is coming up and everyone has collectively decided they need to finish the projects they've been putting off for months at the absolute last minute. You would think that people would wise up and order the parts they need well in advance, and not get elbow deep into an engine rebuild days before they absolutely positively must go riding.

These are the type of people that are stunned that you don't stock a set of standard piston rings for a 1984 IT200. The folks who admonish you, personally, because "you" are a BMW dealer that doesn't stock the BMW recommended Bosch ignition point cam grease that no one has ever asked for prior to them arriving at your counter.

Image Source

This is on top of the usual spring rush, a well-known cataclysmic event that transpires annually at any powersports dealer that operates in a region where winter occurs. As soon as the snow melts and the temperatures have crept above freezing, you will experience endless lineups of folks buying batteries they didn't charge properly over the winter. I think our record last year was 53 batteries in one day, before we stopped counting, all of which needed to be prepped and filled with acid before they went out the door.


But batteries are easy. Multiply the stress of finding and ordering parts for customers (all of them in a hurry and expecting their parts to be in stock no matter how obscure their machine) with each brand you deal with (each using a different system and categorizing their fiches in their own idiosyncratic ways) by twelvefold, not including the 15 or so aftermarket distributors I deal with regularly: that, in a nutshell, is my day job.

On some days, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the sound of my hairline receding.

All of that is to say I've been stressed out of my fucking head and I needed a small vacation to renew myself. An opportunity to get out of the city for few days and really rip around some decent twisties on my new-to-me 2007 Aprilia Tuono, something I haven't really done since I moved to Calgary. Sure, the Rockies are an hour away but most of the roads on the Alberta side of the border are pretty tame. To get to the really interesting bits you need to ride well into British Colombia, which necessitates an overnight stop - which isn't normally possible as I have to work Saturdays and never get two consecutive days off. But, as you now know, a long weekend is looming and this is just the opportunity I need to escape and ride deep into the Rockies to explore some better roads. And get the hell away from the parts counter for a brief respite.


The one that most locals rave about, and which I planned to attack, was the Creston to Nelson run along BC Highway 3A, a 100-odd kilometre stretch of road that borders Kootenay Lake. The trip would also serve as a shakedown for the new luggage and camping gear I'd accumulated in anticipation of the second OddBike USA Tour, which will be happening in August. It would be a trial run to see how the Tuono can cope with sport touring duty; it presumably has to be better suited to the task than a cantankerous old Ducati superbike with ill-fitting saddlebags and a slightly deranged rider aboard.

While planning the route, it dawned on me that this trip would also serve as an excellent opportunity to put my money where my mouth is. My last editorial admonished the motorcycle press at large for publishing dull, formulaic reviews that give no real impressions of the riding experience of a given machine. So why not make the trip and the bike the subject of the first OddBike road test, and blow the bastards away? It seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway. I'll be the first to admit the Tuono is far from an Odd Bike but this is more of an exercise to prove my mettle than it is a typical OddBike profile.

As I only had two days off, this would be a whirlwind tour. While I hate rushing past the scenery to get to a destination in time, working in a motorcycle shop during the busy season doesn't leave much time to do any real riding. Or anything at all, for that matter. After months of hurried single-day trips, a two-day jaunt seemed like a genuine vacation.

Ogio soft luggage is inexpensive and effective. It comes highly recommended if you want something light and easy to mount without skimping on quality.

I departed early Sunday morning, into the brisk cold of a typical Calgary morning. Temperatures this time of year are double-digits during the day, dipping to near freezing in the evenings. Today was no different, with snow hitting the outskirts of the city the previous night. The sort of riding conditions that make you wonder aloud if anyone has been clever enough to develop a heated helmet. One of the main issues you encounter riding through the Rockies is rapid and sometimes ridiculous shifts in weather. In the span of several hundred kilometers you might encounter a difference of 10 or 15 degrees in temperature and ride through snow, sun, and rain. Having good touring gear with removable liners is a must. You can spot the seasoned riders by their gear - no one who dares to ride beyond the city limits uses Rocker knockoff jeans and jackets, or un-insulated race-replica leather suits. They will be bundled in bulky, ugly textile gear, with wires tethered into accessory sockets for their heated undergarments. There is no room for fashion when riding through the mountains, and the fools who dare challenge the fury of the weather will be left whimpering and shivering at the first Tim Hortons along the route. There's a reason the first thing I did to the Tuono was install heated grips and a Dorsoduro handguard kit.

Handguard kit is from the Dorsoduro adapted to fit the Tuono handlebars. Tuono mirrors are good enough to be sought out as an upgrade on host of other machines, but could stand to be a little bit taller.

I had never seriously considered owning a Tuono before I was presented with a (potentially risky) opportunity to buy this one cheap due to a significant fuelling issue. The fix turned out to be relatively simple and cheap (a 150$ fuel pump), so now I'm laughing. And left wondering how I had been previously unaware of how much goddamned fun these machines are. That this bike exists and offers such a brilliant blend of comfort and usability with mad, vicious character makes me feel re-invigorated as a sport rider. This is the ultimate naked sport bike, because it is simply a naked sport bike - no dumbing down, no detuning, no compromise.

The most worrying flaw of the Tuono is the plastic fuel tank, which is prone to expanding in markets that use ethanol in their fuel. Notice how the side panel bolt no longer lines up.

It's not that I was oblivious to the Tuono. I recalled the reviews that waxed lyrical about the sharp dynamics, grunty engine, and how it often played second fiddle to the Speed Triple in most comparison reviews due to its exorbitant price and lack of peak horsepower on a dyno drum. Beyond that I didn't know much about it. Aprilia was always a boutique brand here in Canada (and the USA, really) that has suffered from a perpetual lack of exposure and marketing despite apparently building decent bikes, achieving notable race success, and ostensibly being Piaggio's flagship marque. I think I may have seen only one or two in the metal over the years; even that was quite fortunate because there was only one small dealership on the East coast in Laval, Quebec (the same place I bought my 916 in 2006, in fact). My conception was that they were also-rans that aped Ducati's sporting V-twin formula using a Rotax engine, building a "reliable" Italian sport bike that somehow seemed more Japanese than Latin.

The irony of this is that I now work for an Aprilia dealer, and we do brisk business with the V4 models. Despite still lacking a proper sales network and marketing program Aprilia is a stronger brand than it ever was, given that today it sells a competitive, premium Eye-talian product at retails that rival the ubiquitous and dull Japanese stuff. But V-twin Prillers are rare birds. The retail price of my base-model 2007 Tuono 1000R was $16,995 here in Canada. That would have been a hard sell when the allegedly better and more publicized Speed Triple was $13,995. The $19,995 price on the Ohlin'ed Factory model available in 2009 would have also nabbed you Ducati 1098. For comparison, a 2015 Tuono V4R APRC with ABS is $14,995. It's not much of a surprise these earlier bikes are thin on the ground.

Component quality is excellent throughout. You won't mind staring at the CNC milled triples and bar clamps all day. The digital speedometer is big and easy to read, but lacks contrast and has dim backlighting even on the brightest setting. Mercifully, the tach is a traditional analog item.

Looking over the machine reveals where some of that money went. Component quality is excellent throughout, rivalling anything Ducati was slapping together at the time. Not quite as nice as a MV Agusta, but far better than any of its contemporary Asian (or British) rivals. You get braided lines for the brakes and clutch from the factory, handsome OZ-knockoff wheels (the legitimate forged OZ items were reserved for the Factory), top-spec Brembo bits, adjustable controls, exposed ancillaries hidden beneath aerodynamic panels, and a stout frame and swingarm that look like they came straight off a WSBK machine. Everything oozes quality in a subtle way that will only be apparent if you've spent years mucking around with cheaper bikes. The only letdown is a pedestrian 43mm Showa fork up front and a cheap semi-adjustable Sachs shock out back. Looking at newer Aprilias it's clear that quality has been allowed to slip in recent years to get the retails down to Japanese levels (the same could be said about the latest bikes from Bologna and Varese, which are similarly cheaper than their historical models). Put an RSVR or a Tuono R next to a RSV4 or Tuono V4 and you'll notice a lot more cast parts and cheap hardware on the newer bikes, where once was found CNC machined alloy and stainless bolts. That's the price of progress, apparently.


My first leg takes me through the boring but scenic Trans-Canada highway passing through Canmore and Banff before turning south into BC along Highway 93. Riding towards the mountains for the first time is an imposing experience for Easterners like myself. Those peaks that loom distant on the horizon gradually fill your vision until you are right beneath them, and their scale is impossible to convey in print or photographs. You feel insignificant, a tiny being in a world that is beyond your control. I recall the first time I drove to Banff my reaction was being awestruck, followed by a sense giddy euphoria. I could barely process what I was seeing. Even today after many rides into the mountains I still get overwhelmed by the landscape. When I stop to look over the scene and watch a long Canadian Pacific freight train chug along the valley, dwarfed by the surrounding peaks, I can't help but hear Gordon Lightfoot's Canadian Railroad Trilogy play in my mind.


Nature dominates here. Wildlife has the right of way. Mountain sheep are the most common, and are not to be toyed with. One of my colleagues recently rebuilt a wrecked RSV4 dubbed "The Goatslayer". The legend of the Goatslayer was that it struck a bighorn sheep doing some ridiculous speed along one of the backroads near Calgary, with the terminal velocity getting higher every time the story was told. The truth is (and I've seen the video to confirm it) the rider had slowed down to 11 km/h to pass a herd on the side of the road when one of the critters bolted in front of him. He didn't even have time to brake. Hitting that bighorn was like hitting a brick wall. The bike cartwheeled over it and was completely trashed.

Out here you are no longer at the top of the food chain, and you need to respect that. I've felt mighty vulnerable tiptoeing past bears that were bigger than my bike. You pray you don't have some dumbass tourist in a car stop in front of you to take pictures while you sit eye to eye with an apex predator.

I pass the familiar sights of the Rockies: impenetrable throngs of tourists stopped gawking along the lookouts off the highway. That is the reality of all these spectacular scenes of pristine nature - just out of the shot is a noisy gaggle of visitors jostling for photos.  If you ever see photos of Lake Louise, a beautiful lake nestled high in the mountains, just to the right is a lookout that is perpetually crowded with around four tour buses worth of Asian tourists, which is in front of a massive Fairmont hotel, which is faced by several huge parking lots that are perpetually full. Unspoiled nature this is not. If you want to commune with nature alone, you'll have to hike off the beaten path. And risk getting eaten by a hungry cougar or ill-tempered grizzly.


With several hundred kilometers of highway droning ahead of me, it seems as good a time as any to collect my thoughts on the Tuono.

Apart from some optimistic early reviews, most journalists seemed to think that these second-generation machines were too dull to inherit the lineage started by the evil bastard 2002-2005 Tuonos. They were too polished, too refined. They somehow lost their edge, despite having better everything and a healthy increase in power (at the expense of some of the peak torque).

The problem is these reviews were based on bog-standard bikes. You need only do two things to correct the failures of the 1000R: visit your friendly neighbourhood Aprilia dealer and kindly ask them to switch the ECU into the "off-road only" Map 2, and address the ridiculously tall factory gearing by going down one tooth on the front and up two on the back. If you bought one of the early 2007 models (2006 in Europe) you actually got a 15 tooth sprocket tucked under the passenger seat to be installed at your discretion.

Vestigial fairing does a surprisingly good job of keeping the wind blast in check. Smoked windshield was pinched off a Factory model.

Do those simple modifications and you will end up with a pitiless, fire-breathing brute that will pitch the handlebars into your face in the first two gears and scare the everloving shit out of you everywhere else. If you think a 1000R is dull after you make these fixes then you are criminally deranged and should seek psychological help. When you uncork this son of a bitch you will end up something so absurdly fun that just looking at it will make your license shrivel up into the deepest recess of your wallet, because one twist of the wrist in first gear will convert you into an unrepentant, antisocial hooligan asshole screaming happy obscenities in your helmet. And you will love it.

This is where the Tuono is so much more than the sum of its spec sheets. Here's a 470 pound machine that puts out around 110hp and 60-odd lb/ft at the wheel that feels like it weighs  20 pounds less while putting out 20 hp more than any dyno chart would suggest. Up to 3500 rpm, not much happens. Power is almost nonexistent off idle. In your first ride you'll likely short shift a few times and wonder what all the fuss is about. You might note the abrupt throttle response at the bottom, made worse by driveline lash and surprisingly tall ratios on the first three cogs. But hold the gears a little longer and twist the throttle a little harder, and you'll quickly learn why dyno charts mean nothing. Between 3500 and 4000 rpm the airbox bellows, the torque spikes violently, and the front wheel goes airborne on anything more than 1/2 throttle. The bike lunges forward on a fat midrange surge that pulls hard through to 7000 - which is where the powerband really starts, particularly if you've liberated the engine with a de-catted exhaust. Hold it open and that 60-degree, 97x67.5mm, 998cc Rotax V990 (V60 Magnesium in Aprilia parlance) mill shunts you forward even harder until it starts to taper off around 9500. The power is immediate, sparkling, and addictive. Throttle response above 4000 is excellent and the engine reacts instantaneously to inputs - none of that rubber-band-connected-to-the-throttle delay followed by a swell of power you'll suffer with a lot of inline engines.

Aprilia called the second generation RSVR engine the "V60 Magnesium" in reference to the mag side and valve covers. Other improvements over the original V60 included reworked heads with bigger valves and reshaped combustion chambers that eliminated the need for dual spark plugs. Power was a claimed 133hp and 86 lb/ft. Real world figures are closer to 110 and 60 at the wheel.

After a few rides on a Tuono, you'll find yourself constantly holeshotting away from lights and wheelieing anywhere out of sight of a law enforcement agent. I've ridden more powerful machines, but very few that had this sort of character and immediate, elbow-straining midrange snap. It's remarkable that this is just a "boring" Rotax engine - a modified version of the V990 is used in the Can Am Spyder, for chrissake. I would have never guessed it was this much fun to ride if I hadn't experienced it firsthand. The quality of the performance shames a lot of current machines, even if the peak power isn't nearly as absurd as some of the latest big bore sport bikes.

The downside of all this excitement is that attempting to ride a Tuono slow is an exercise in frustration. Lowering the gearing makes it more useable around town, but the hard pull at 4000 and lack of power below that means you are constantly hunting and surging, trying to dodge the torque spike and avoiding lugging the lumpy engine below its happy zone. While the linkage-free shifter feels tight and precise, the gearbox is extremely notchy, even on this example with over 20,000 kms on it - with that kind of mileage, I can't claim some bullshit about the gearbox needing to be "broken in". Finding neutral at a stop is tricky and you should never trust the light. You need to use first gear below 40 km/h, which means you will be constantly fighting the cumbersome low-speed fuelling and tendency for the engine to alternately slide the rear or hoist the front (or some maniacal combination of both). Close ratio gearboxes are brilliant on race tracks and tight roads, but in the real world they make the bottom ratios too tall around town and the top gears too low on the highway. So you might as well drop it overall and enjoy the performance at the expense of some droning on the freeway.

Aprilia did a good job of cleaning up the ancillary bits with aerodynamic panels that supposedly improve stability. Note the placement of the rear master cylinder above the front header.

That is the downside of a no-compromise sport machine: living with it and trying to ride in boring, daily circumstances becomes a challenge. If you want something civilized and easy to ride, buy anything other than a Tuono. If you want hot, nasty, raw performance that will put a smile on your face every time you twist your wrist, well, now you know.

The highway jaunt reveals one of the main flaws of the fueling, a barely perceptible surge right between 3500-4000 rpm, which happens to be right where you will be cruising most of the time. It's so subtle that at first you might chalk it up to undulating pavement, but after a while you'll realize the bike is to blame. The solution is, of course, to ride faster - which is inadvisable on a holiday weekend in the Rockies, when the RCMP is busy making up their quotas by nabbing travellers like myself in a hurry to get out of the city.

The dry-sump Rotax mill requires an external oil tank, which Aprilia saw fit to place in one of the most vulnerable spots possible.

This incivility of the Tuono is offset by one of the nicest seating positions you'll find on a sporting machine. The stock bars take a lot of weight off the front end and exacerbate the tendency to wheelie, but they offer a lovely neutral seating position that keeps your back nearly straight and your arms comfortably spread out across the motocross-style fatbar. The seat is wide, flat, and tall - if you are under 5'9" you are going to be tip-toeing on this thing. Despite the seat height the footpeg position is high, identical to the RSVR, which means that taller folks are going to feel cramped while short riders like myself will find it perfect. This is one of those bikes you feel perched upon rather than sat within, with an upright seating position and a long nose that places the front wheel far away from you. The upside is that you have fantastic visibility and mobility, and you can easily move around on the flat seat to combat cramps or tuck in behind the vestigial windscreen, which is far more effective than you might think well into triple-digit speeds. My only gripe is that the seat is thin and firm and your ass will start to get sore if you stay in one position for too long.

Adjustable pedals can be precisely tailored to suit anal-retentive riders like myself. Direct shift linkage feels tight and free of slop, but the gearbox is notchy as hell. Rearsets are shared with the RSVR.

Heading into the mountains reveals the bane of our existence as Alberta riders: elevation. Calgary is situated at 3500 feet, and heading into the hills will quickly take you over 5000. Carburetted machines need serious fettling to run properly. Owners of fuel injected bikes will only suffer the indignity of losing copious amounts of horsepower to the thin mountain air. A back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that in the city the Tuono is down 15 hp compared to sea level. In the mountains it is closer to a 20 hp loss. Riding down to lower altitudes will reveal newfound midrange snap and top end rushes. When you ride in these conditions you develop odd compulsions that will be foreign to anyone who lives in flatter areas. You find yourself checking the elevation of your destinations, hoping for an extra dose of power when you get there. You start thinking about mounting an altimeter to your dash to keep tabs on how high you are, and determine if that lackluster roll on performance was due to a problem with the bike or simply because you are riding through a high point in a mountain pass.

For the record, the elevation at my destination along Kootenay Lake was 1750 feet, and I was far too excited by that fact.

While the seating position is reasonably comfortable while buzzing highways, tight roads are where the Tuono truly shines. This is a true naked sportbike, one that shares an identical chassis with its fully-faired RSVR stablemate (cheap suspension aside). In fact the only difference between an RSVR and a Tuono is the intake opening is smaller and the throttle trumpets are slightly taller on the naked machine to boost torque; otherwise engine components and tuning are identical from the throttle bodies to the exhaust tips. So you get the precise response, tight feel, and delicate feedback of a full-fledged sport bike with none of that "detuning" or "retuning" bullshit, combined with an upright seating position and massive leverage through motocross bars - it is the well-recognized but seldom executed formula for street riding nirvana.


The suspension is a bit low rent (the rear shock lacks compression adjustment) and lacking in damping, but if you are under 160 lbs you should find it quite adequate for pretty much any street riding situations. Spring rates seem quite light at both ends, and are better suited to lightweight riders. When I first took delivery I preset the suspension according to Sport Rider's recommended settings, which is usually my go-to for a baseline before I fine tune the bits to my liking. The first few rides revealed what I thought was massive underdamping - the front end felt vague and skittish, and was pogoing over rough pavement with virtually no control. I played with the adjusters and realized that the SR settings were almost at the max rebound and compression settings - dialing them back several clicks and reducing the preload a bit brought things back under control in dramatic fashion. The pogoing was due to the suspension topping out, then packing and chattering over rough surfaces. Presumably the SR setup was better suited for an "average" (175 lb?) rider on a glassy smooth track surface, not a 140 lb quasi-journalist riding on rough Canadian roads.

With that issue corrected handling is beautiful and the el cheapo suspension bits perform remarkably well, at least for someone my weight - most owners seem to complain about light spring rates and a lack of damping, particularly at the rear. The razor sharp turn-in you get from wide bars on a sport bike takes getting used to, not aided by the 55.5 inch wheelbase and 25 degree rake angle, but doesn't compromise the stability once heeled over in a turn. In fact the stability is commendable, quite surprising given that you can slam this thing from side to side with just a firm push on the bars.  In a straight line the bike tends to wander and respond to even the slightest inputs. But once you heel it over you can dial in lean and hold a line with ease, and the stability over rough pavement is nearly as good as a Ducati but without suffering any of that arm-pumping heavy steering. It's a nice balance that quickly wins you over; you get predictable handling in the twisties, but low-speed manoeuvring and slicing through traffic is so intuitive and effortless that you quickly forget you are riding a 450-plus-pound superbike.

Or at least you do until you strap 25 pounds of camping gear to the ass end of the bike. Leaving town I immediately regretted not jacking up the preload on the rear to suit. Is this what it feels like to be an "average" rider? I tend to forget that I have a built-in performance advantage over most folks, and I don't need to skip breakfast to win traffic light drag races.

Four-pad radial Brembos were once the pinnacle of sportbike hardware, and are still pretty damned effective. The 43mm Showa forks are neither, but get the job done. Stock stainless steel lines help deliver excellent feel. Initial bite could be better, and would benefit from a set of sintered Ferodo pads.

Stopping power from the four-pad radial Brembos up front is excellent - a set of Ferodo pads would likely add some more initial bite, but out of the box they are more than adequate for street riding and will never leave you wanting , as I've discovered a few time when wildlife has made incursions into my lane. The rear, on the other hand, is worse than useless - it's nonexistent. Not in the sense of it not working well enough, like most sport bikes: I mean there is no rear brake at all. The master cylinder is mounted below the engine next to the front exhaust header and gets cooked in short order. I've tried bleeding it repeatedly and using high temperature racing brake fluid, but getting stuck in traffic once is enough to fade it beyond redemption. At least one road tester learned this the hard way; when he went to bring the Factory on review down from a vertical wheelie he discovered the rear brake no longer existed and flipped a very expensive test bike.


Riding along Highway 93 into British Columbia reveals iconic scenes of log-strewn gravel riverbeds, moments after you pass the humble welcome sign that declares BC "The Best Place on Earth". It's the type of spot you'd expect to see grizzlies snatching salmon out of the perfectly clear water, and in some places you might. Continue along past Radium Hot Springs and into the Kootenays and the landscape quickly changes. The temperature rises noticeably and you descend into a large valley dotted with rivers, lakes, and rolling farmland. This is a region where winter doesn't really occur, at least not in any typical Canadian way. When Albertans get sick of the bitter cold, they need only drive a few hours into BC to escape. Some days it will be 20 or 30 degrees warmer on the other side of the mountains.


This is the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.  The dark pines and stony features of the Alberta side of the mountains give way to flat plains boxed in by the peaks of the Kootenays, the entire scene covered in lush coniferous forest and thick underbrush. To an Easterner the trees seem impossibly tall and slender, flanking the roads in walls of greenery that filters sparkling sunlight down to the well-groomed pavement. Even the highways out here are beautiful, with "rest stops" that would be a damned Provincial Park in themselves in any other part of Canada. BC's reputation for natural beauty is well known and well earned. It's a lovely place to ride.

At least it is if you mind the rules. This is a province with zero tolerance for speeders, a place where it is illegal to stand up on your pegs. Why are the beautiful ones always crazy?


I pass through small towns and scenic secondary highways, winding through Kimberly and Cranbrook on my way to Creston, where the road supposedly gets interesting. With only the 3A and a set of tantalizing twisties separating me from the campsite I've booked in Crawford Bay, I stop for fuel on last time. A group of young punks on dingy looking choppers are filling up and chatting at the pumps, deliberately ignoring me as I slip into the store to grab a few singles of beer to toss into my luggage. It's been a long day and I intend to sit down in front a fire and drink away the aches of a full day's ride. I hurriedly grab a few Coors and pay so I can get back on the bike before I get stuck behind a rolling roadblock of hipsters on hacked-up XSs and Ironheads.

At this point I've ridden 550 kms to get to the start of what is supposedly one of the best motorcycle roads in the region. To say I've come a long way for this is an obvious understatement. As I pack the drinks into my tailbag and check that my luggage is secure, psyching myself up and clearing the cobwebs from my mind, I think for a moment about whether it was worth riding this far to sample 100 kms of twisties.

Then I remember Mr. Ultra Classic and his magnificent mullet, and my decision to ride as far away from Calgary as would be possible in two days seems entirely justified.

The road begins innocently, with long sweepers passing through small communities and scenic vistas overlooking Kootenay Lake. Soon the turns begin to tighten up, the camber increasing while visibility decreases. At this moment the route is mercifully devoid of traffic. I begin twisting the throttle harder and diving deeper into the apexes, rolling off on the straights to keep my pace civil should I pass any locals. I settle on third gear and surf the fat midrange, which is pulling obscenely hard at this altitude - my hope for an extra dose of performance at a lower elevation is granted in spades.

The weight of the luggage disappears and the suspension stays composed despite the lack of rear preload. I've deliberately set the adjusters on the softer side to maintain some composure over rough surfaces but it doesn't impede fast riding. Feedback is maintained, and there is no hint of wallow even with this soft springing.


Throw it onto its ear in a tight turn and fire it out of the apex with the throttle pinned and you'll feel the tire scramble for grip, hook up, and punt you forward in a way that will make you feel a riding God. A bike with "only" 110hp has no right to feel this good and provide these kinds thrills, but it does. Where a lot of superbikes punishes you and constantly reminds you of your inadequacies as a rider, the Tuono flatters the rider and encourages silly antics. The package is a perfect complement to the mad engine; where a Ducati is a sweet motor in an unforgiving chassis, an Aprilia has a merciless engine in a composed chassis. Aprilia used to tout themselves as makers of the "everyday" Italian superbike, the machine that you could actually live with on a daily basis. While I wouldn't say the Tuono is "easy" to live with, it is easy to ride fast and inspires massive amounts of confidence without making you feel like you can never live up to the capabilities of the machine.


The thrust is relentless out of tight turns. Cracking the throttle hard above 5000 rpm yanks the bars away from you. The power is immediate and the throttle response sharp. A quick glance at the tach reveals I haven't even cleared 7000 rpm. My immediate thought is "there is no fucking way this thing only has 60-odd pound feet of torque". I twist the grip to the stop and run out of road before I even come close to tripping the shift light I've set at 9500. Gear changes are superfluous here. The engine begins to run out of steam above 160 km/h, and a lot of modern sport bikes would walk away from it above that speed, but below that slingshotting from corner to corner it is virtually untouchable.


Vibration from the narrow-angle twin is perceptible throughout the range, with the frequency changing perceptibly above 5000, but it is no worse than the secondary buzzing of any 90-degree Vee. Credit is due to the dual counterbalancers, one driven by the crankshaft and a second geared off the rear exhaust camshaft sprocket - they work quite well and a blindfolded rider probably wouldn't realize this was anything other than a traditional L-twin unless they noticed the altered cadence of a narrow-angle firing interval.


This machine is an example from the final years of the analog riding experience - this is a motorcycle free of ride by wire, driver aids, and ABS. With the current proliferation of electronic doohickery keeping our asses out of the ditch we've lost that base, visceral experience of piloting a far-too-fast machine and probing the limits of adhesion (and good sense) without a safety net. That's probably a very good thing, particularly considering a lot of current open class machines have 30-40 more horsepower pushing even fewer pounds around - but I know I feel a lot more accomplished when I cleanly slither the rear out of a tight turn using only my right wrist and a dash of good luck. I worry that the newest generation of riders weaned on the current crop of high-tech bikes will put too much faith into the false sense of security offered by nanny controls. Electronic aids are not a substitute for proper education, practice, and technique; my fear is they will become just that.


When reviewers are earnestly pleading that you never turn off the aids lest you incur disaster, you know we've pushed performance so far beyond our capabilities that we are now building the two-wheeled equivalents of inherently unstable aircraft that can only be piloted using computer aid. That's not to say these machines aren't FUN and that we shouldn't have aids in place for unforeseen circumstances… But I start worrying about the overconfidence these aids breed when I'm reading multiple reviews that mention instances when system XYZ saved John/Jane Doe from punting their test bikes into the weeds. I don't recall reading that many stories of near-misses before these aids came into vogue - is the new-age safety net inspiring more lurid, stupid antics (or dangerous lapses in concentration) and saving these riders from themselves when they should have been more cautious in the first place?

I've scarcely finished that thought when I crest a rise and face a young whitetail buck standing in the middle of the road. I stop (without drama) and scramble to find my camera as he deftly climbs a nearby embankment, cursing myself for burying it deep within my jacket. He eludes me before I can dig it out, and I continue on my way.


The corners keep coming, and I settle into a rapid pace. You need to apply a fair bit of leverage to make quick transitions from fully leaned over, in spite of the flighty feel in a straight line. Everything feels poised and unstressed, allowing you to focus on your line and enjoy the silly grunt. The chassis is so composed and the grip so predictable that you can keep it pinned without upsetting the suspension or overwhelming the tires, which in my case are a set of bargain ContiMotion sport touring radials that were installed on the bike when I bought it. This machine just digs in and slings you out of the corner without drama. This is the beauty of a twin-cylinder superbike that is often lost on the squidly types who favour peak horsepower figures over usable power. You can ride one of these hard and not get in over your head as quickly as you would with a screaming inline engine, with more than enough shove to keep a grin pasted on your face the whole time.


The scenery goes by in a blur, but what little I take in is stunning. Marinas and waterfront cottages flank the pristine beaches of Kootenay Lake. As I ride along and revel in the performance of the Tuono, occasionally glancing to the side and catching a glimpse of a scene of astonishing beauty, I come to a sudden realization: if I ever make enough money to buy a property and retire, this is where I will move. I want to spend my days terrorizing locals on this amazing road, my evenings burning driftwood on these beaches. Right here, right now, this is my dream.


I arrive in Crawford Bay and pull into the Kokanee Chalets parking lot with mere minutes to spare before the office closes. I select a campsite at the back of the lot and settle in for a meal and a beer while the adrenaline subsides.


My mind at ease and my body relaxed for the first time in weeks, I wander into a meadow behind my campsite. Ducks paddle silently across wetland ponds. Whitetail does leap across the fields and pause to glance back at me. A short walk along a sympathetically groomed path ends on Kootenay Lake, revealing a wide beach bordering the glassy water. Boats burble in and out of the nearby marina, and the stillness of the scene is only interrupted by the occasional roar of a motorcycle engine as a happy rider thunders along the 3A.


Anyone who fears that Man may overwhelm Nature needs to be placed here, in this moment, looking out over the still waters flanked by tree-choked hills as a flock of Canada geese fly overhead. Nature here is the dominant force. You would have to try damned hard to disturb it. An occasional forest fire is all it takes to cleanse the land of our impact, a fact not lost on a lot of rural residents this time of year.


I snap photos and I'm once again disappointed by how little they reveal. The scope and the beauty of the setting puts me at ease, making my stresses and my anxieties seem inconsequential. I am struck by how insignificant I am in this landscape. In the city you can become overwhelmed by how alone you are within the organized chaos of the urban environment, by how meaningless your existence is compared to the millions of lives that surround you. Here you are alone in the most perfect way possible, a figure in a sprawling landscape that you have no impact upon. It inspires a sense of calm reflection, rather than helplessness.


I grew up in the countryside, playing on shorelines, in forests, in orchard rows. While I enjoy living in the city, I occasionally need to return to an unspoiled natural landscape to renew myself and reset my perspective.


I face a long, pensive ride back to reality tomorrow. The Tuono has proved a willing accomplice, one that has saved me from a minor crisis by delivering me into this stunning landscape with a dramatic flourish. I foresee a lot more trips like these aboard that gibbering brute. All flaws aside it is a charismatic machine that wears its heart on its sleeve, and its dynamic qualities compliments my point-and-shoot riding style. Best of all, it's wonderfully free of compromise.


But all of that is of no consequence at this moment as I sit and look over Kootenay Lake, the sunlight dimming over the mountains as a flock of swallows darts overhead.

As you have likely heard by now, Erik Buell Racing is in receivership with no apparent hope for a bailout. For the second time in a decade Erik is facing the abyss, except this time he has 20 million dollars of debt hanging over his company's head and his Hero MotoCorp investors have apparently washed their hands of the whole operation despite owning a 49.2 percent share of the company. For those of us in the industry who long to see some fresh ideas in a market that favours bland conservatism and pragmatic design, the closure of EBR is a huge blow. Buell has long been the underdog, the classic American innovator fighting the status quo and achieving remarkable results despite going against the grain in every respect: he made a name for himself by breaking traditions you didn't even realize existed until he designed something different, something better.


The release of the 1190RX and SX gave us renewed hope that Buell could go toe to toe with the big boys in his own quirky way, and in so doing accomplish something unprecedented: building a competitive American superbike, when everyone else in the USA is content with either aping Harley-Davidson or being Harley-Davidson. With EBR on the rocks, once again we've been disappointed, and once again Erik has to fight and scramble to keep building his inimitable bikes.  

And it is all your fault.




I suppose I should qualify that accusation. It's not your fault in particular, unless you happen to be one of those ignorant, naysaying blowhards populating various comment threads with worthless, self-righteous declarations of "I told you so!" and "those things are ugly and stupid and expensive and a GSXR is faster anyway". Unless you are one of those internet tough guys shitting all over the dreams and ideas of an innovator who did more before breakfast this morning than you've done with your whole life you aren't to blame directly.


No, I say it's your fault - our fault - because we've bred a culture of conservatism and short-sighted traditionalism in the motorcycle industry that stacks the deck against idea men like Erik Buell, and dooms remarkable machines like the 1190 to failure before they even leave the drawing board.


I first encountered Buell's designs in my formative years of riding; I'm not sure where I first saw them, I think it was probably in a review in a magazine somewhere, but I was immediately struck by how goddamned wacky they were. I can't recall if I was initially put off or fascinated by these weird bikes, or some combination of the two - I think a lot of riders had a similar, confused reaction to Buell's designs.


The first time I rode one was around 2005, when I got the chance to try out a 2006 XB12Ss Lightning (aka the Lightning Long). My fascination tempered by apprehension remained. This was a machine that was powered by a diesel-like 1200cc Harley engine but that changed direction like a flyweight supersport, in spite of the longer wheelbase and more conservative geometry on the example I rode. I still remember how cheesy the components appeared, cheap plastic and ugly gauges and mirrors that flopped like limp dicks at idle, and how the engine felt like it had a completely flat powerband that ended abruptly at 6000 rpm. I didn't think much of it at that moment, but I was intrigued by how utterly alien this machine was in appearance, engineering, and dynamics.

Ten years later I still vividly remember the details of my first ride aboard a Buell. I've forgotten most of the ordinary bikes I've ridden since then. Even if there has been far superior machinery under my ass, the Buell was memorable in a way that most bikes just aren't.


Some years later, long after Buell was closed by Harley, I had a few days to rip around on a borrowed 2008 1125R. The owner had bought it during the fire sale following the company's closing, nabbing it off the dealer lot at 50% off retail. The fuel injection was atrocious, the worst I've ever sampled on any vehicle. The suspension was completely out of whack (probably due to owner meddling) and feedback through the chassis was poor, and I swear I could feel the ZTL brake torque the front end sideways under hard braking. But I didn't care. Once again it was memorable. The Rotax engine pulled obscenely hard in the midrange, with stunning roll-on performance from 3000 rpm up. It steered well and had good stability despite the wonky suspension setup and lack of feel. I'd step away from it and stare at the huge fuel-bearing beam frame, the squinty headlights flanked by bulbous rad shrouds, not sure if I should appreciate the "purposeful" design or throw up. It was horrifically ugly, but somehow endearing.


There was a lot to hate, but somehow that 1125 stuck in my mind enough for me to half-heartedly look at classified listings, and seriously inquire about a 2009 CR (which I ultimately didn't buy). I developed an appreciation for Buell's dogged determination to buck the status quo of motorcycle design, his attempts to apply rational engineering to how a bike was laid out. He is an engineer turned designer - his quirky bikes look the way they do because their forms are dictated by the principles of mass centralization and the reduction of unsprung weight. Styling came second to function. A distant second.


Buell was a loner doing something different because he believed he could build a better motorcycle by rejecting traditional design ideas, which aren't as far removed from the formula laid out by those bicycles-with-an-engine-attached of the 19-teens as you might think. While he didn't go so far as to adopt a radical suspension design and do away with teleforks, which would have been the next logical step in solving one of the key problems with modern motorcycles, his work was subject to the same knee-jerk criticisms that any alternative chassis faces: motorcyclists hate change, and are quick to belittle anyone who dares challenge their conservative conception of what a bike should be and should look like.


Buell has become dogmatic in response, clinging to his ideas and his designs with grim determination. He is certain that his designs are the best, even if there is evidence of flaws. It's a common sentiment I've encountered among designers who dare to challenge tradition, a result of their marginalized position within this industry. They have to be inflexible because we as an industry are constantly disparaging and ignoring them. It's a form of reverse conservatism that you need to adopt to succeed in building anything different in our strange little world.  


I encounter this sentiment a lot in the course of researching subjects for OddBike. My mandate, such as it is, is to profile the weirdest, rarest, and most interesting motorcycles out there. In effect I have become some inadvertent custodian of nearly forgotten machines, and a vocal proponent of alternative ideas. Doing what I do you quickly realize that this industry is based on very old precepts that are not easily given up, due to a combination of slow-moving corporate entities that resist expensive shifts in design and an unfortunate degree of conservatism among buyers who favour traditionally styled machines sold at the lowest possible retail price. If it looks different or is priced any higher than a Honda, motorcyclists generally won't like - worse, they will sit at their keyboards and loudly disparage anything and anyone that dares to be different, as if a motorcycle has no right to exist simply because they won't (or can't) put one in their own garage. It’s a fickle, short sighted attitude of "If I don't like it, then you shouldn't either."


Why do we feel the need to cut down people who are driving innovation? Why do we demand the same crap over and over again? Why don't we appreciate new ideas? These are some of the questions I've come to ask myself over and over again, without ever coming up with a good answer. The failure of EBR has renewed those questions in my mind.


Aside from being an iconoclastic designer, Buell led the only company that challenged the hegemony of Harley and Harley-patterned/powered machines in American motorcycling, at least until Brian Case and Lee Conn started working on the Motus MST in 2008. Buell had a hand in designing the first and last Harley superbike - Buell built a fuel-in-frame prototype chassis for the VR1000 way back in 1988, and it was his idea to use a liquid-cooled narrow angle V-twin in the first place. The V-Rod retains some of the basic dimensions of his first blueprints. That's not mentioning his work on the chassis of Lucifer's Hammer II, or his own Sportster-powered RR Battletwins.


Buell has designed the only true American sport bikes of recent memory, the only successful road racers built in America by Americans - in a town of 4000 people in Wisconsin no less. The 1190 was as close to a world-class superbike you could possibly imagine coming out of a sleepy town like East Troy, and all signs pointed to it being an awesome street bike and a capable race bike to boot.


And this was after Erik Buell managed to pull his name out of the ashes and reform it into EBR following a calloused shutdown by Harley-Davidson, a corporation he had been serving loyally since the 70s. While their money and support had certainly helped make Buell a household name, their meddling was notorious. The 1125 was an 1125 because Buell was explicitly directed to not exceed the capacity of the flagship V-Rod, which was then displacing 1130ccs, even though the two machines would never, ever compete with each other. He was forced to use belt final drive when a chain would have been far more suitable. So many compromises were made that by the time it hit the market the 1125 ended up being some ugly quasi sport bike that was far from the all-conquering superbike Erik had hoped it would be. Before that, his had bikes were foisted upon indifferent dealers who preferred to sell traditional Harley products, and Buells were presented as an entry-level machine that would be a stepping stone for riders to trade up towards a "real" Harley. Buell's brand identity was curbed to suit the HD marketing machine. Then when everything looked rosy, with good sales despite the economic downturn, and the 1125 beginning to achieve success on the track, HD unceremoniously and unexpectedly pulled the plug in 2009 to save money and bolster their core values.


Following his split with HD, what Buell accomplished with EBR was remarkable: going from out on street and losing the rights to his own name to mass-producing an all-new superbike in the span of 6 years, with the aim of conquering the most viciously competitive segment of the motorcycle market. Because HD retains the patents to the 1125 and the rights to Buell's own name, he had to start from scratch and subtly rework all of his own designs to create something that was unmistakably a Buell but wouldn't incur the wrath of HD's lawyers. He would fix all the problems with the design of the 1125 and build the superbike he envisioned before Harley interfered.

If that isn't determination, I don't know what is.

But no. Buyers thought it was too expensive and it didn't make enough power on a dyno to seduce fickle buyers away from continuing to buy conventional Yamondakawasukis. We let the most interesting sport bike on the market die on the vine and the company shrivel into receivership because somehow 185 hp and a metric fuckton of torque in a capable chassis just isn't good enough nowadays. You didn't want to spend a few extra bucks to get something built and designed in America, by Americans, to take on the world. You didn't want something cool, something different, something smarter than the average sport bike.


It didn't matter if it got rave reviews. It didn't matter if the 1190s almost seem conventional because the rest of the industry has just begun to catch up to the ideas that Erik introduced 30 years ago. It didn't matter that they were downright handsome compared to Buell's previous work, and that the quality was miles ahead of what he was building under HD's ownership. Nobody wants anything different. Conservatism reigns. Underdogs are doomed to failure.


The support of the frighteningly powerful Hero MotoCorp apparently wasn't enough to secure EBR's future. After their initial investment and their taking advantage of EBR's remarkable talent pool (the gang in East Troy provided R&D work for the Indian giant, including 13 cutting edge concept bikes and scooters, and some tantalizing work on electric powertrains) Hero was quick to abandon EBR when the walls started closing in. Word from the company since EBR filed for receivership has been exactly what you'd expect from a multi-billion dollar corporation pumping out scooters by the millions: they would find R&D support elsewhere and the closure wouldn't affect them in the slightest. Amidst the bickering and disappointment following EBR's closure, rumours are circulating of EBR failing to hold up an important part of their agreement with Hero: starting a distributorship for Hero products in the US and Canada.


Then there is the issue of the highly-ambitious EBR racing program sucking up massive amounts of money that the upstart company just didn't have. Throw in lackluster sales to an indifferent market and you have a recipe for failure. Maybe the closing of EBR isn't that surprising; just another case of a company being too ambitious for its own bottom line. Which, in my mind, makes EBR seem all the more endearing - they failed because they were trying too hard and aiming too high.

Maybe us fickle motorcyclists aren't to blame after all. Maybe EBR's failure is just another example of capitalism at work. But it doesn't change the fact that we as an industry need to pull our heads out of our collective asses and start recognizing talent when it kicks us in the nuts.


Whatever the reason, it isn't the first time Buell has been cast out into the cold, and with any luck he will bounce back once again. Or at least I sincerely hope he does, for his sake, for the sake of the American motorcycle industry, and for the sake of motorcycling in general. We would do well to have more strange bikes like the 1190 on the market, something that those mouth-breathing troglodytes who have smugly embraced EBR's demise don't seem to understand: even if YOU don't want to buy a machine, that doesn't give it any less reason to exist, and the motorcycling world will be a better place if it does. We need more alternative ideas. We need more weird machines. We need more underdogs to challenge the hegemony of soulless corporations pumping out endless variations of the same two-wheeled shit.

We need Erik Buell, and more folks like him.

With the fanfare of the initial announcement over, Honda’s RC213V-S streetbike has been garnering mixed “reviews” as the impact of the “latest and greatest, fastest ever, MotoGP bike for the road”-type headlines wear off.  Most of the news following the initial press reaction has been centered on the price and the power output of the bike.

The RC213V-S has been one of the most anticipated headline bikes for MotoGP fans, literbike lovers, and Honda diehards for the better part of the last 2 years. Rumors about the possibility of a Honda MotoGP bike for the street have been circulating amongst V4 fans since the sport-touring VFR800 was replaced by the “Goldwing with 170 HP and sport ergos” VFR1200 in 2009.

The rumor mill started gaining traction when a few Japanese magazines started showing renderings of what such a bike would look like. Eventually (after a seemingly endless period of half-baked speculation - Ed) Honda confirmed a prototype was in the works and late last year at EICMA we finally saw the bike in the flesh, albeit as what Honda called a mere “concept”.

The Finished Product

The cat was let out of the bag a little early, diminishing the impact of the production bike’s official launch before the Catalan Grand Prix, and Honda was left showing a bike that everyone already knew most of the details about, except for the one major detail that mattered: price.

That price was announced to be $184,000 USD. More expensive than their current CBR1000RR superbike by a factor of 10!


Although the bike appeared to be everything Honda fans hoped it would be (or at least it was until the spec sheet hit the web) the high price tag disappointed those who hoped to own the next top dog in the currently red hot literbike war.

Honda was left scratching its head, wondering why there was large scale disappointment from its fans when they had just brought Marc Marquez’s bike - complete with headlights, turn signals, and emissions equipment - to the public for a set “you-own-it” price. As their PR department has noted this is the first time Honda has offered its factory-level race equipment to the public market at any price.

The Secrets Under the Skin

Honda has never before brought a pure-bred bleeding-edge race bike to market, and the reason is because their position has always been “Honda doesn’t sell its secrets”. Honda has never sold anything on the bleeding edge, unless they had to do so in order to secure a top place in motorsport.

They have been so secretive across all of their race divisions that Indycar teams were only allowed to “lease” their V8 engines used up until a couple of years ago to power the whole series, Le Mans teams were forced to defer mapping adjustments to Honda employees assigned to each team running the power plant, and only one mechanic on the MotoGP team was allowed to even see inside the “magical” seamless transmission which has put Marquez at the top of the podium for the better part of the last two-and-a-half years.

Honda’s HRC division has been known for some pretty great limited-production homologation specials from the first of the lineage, the CB1100R, through to the iconic RC30 and RC45, but to date it has always used street bikes as a basis to turn into race bikes to win their respective classes, rather than the other way around. With the RC213V-S, they have turned that model on its head, and will sell their top-dog racing machine directly to the public, just with a part of the dog locked in the vet’s office and available for another $12,000, provided you live outside the USA and only intend (promise?- Ed) to use it on the track.


Thus the version being imported to the United States is only going to have 99 hp. Less than a certain V4-powered sport-touring Honda from 15 years ago. The reason for this is somewhat interesting, because it gives us an insight into how Honda thinks as a company.

Honda claims it is due to the dB limit on street machinery, and due to limited space available to place sufficiently-sized mufflers into, the installed exhaust system isn't restrictive enough to meet US EPA and DOT requirements so they simply limited red line to 9,400 rpm. Quite a bit less than the full race tune’s song of 14,000 rpm. Other markets with more relaxed rules will only see that figure being cut by a few thousand rpm, which is where the 159 hp figure comes from.

Packing was one of the major concerns; race bikes are usually 10 lbs of engine in a 5 lb bag

Combining the price and those horsepower figures, it seems that there’s no way not to be absolutely pissed at Honda for pulling a money-grabbing stunt like this. But there may be a method to the madness. Honda has often acted in ways which were prescient in methods that weren’t immediately clear, but which ended up cementing their position in motorcycling history. I believe that is what they are doing here.  

Their marketing techniques have flown right over everyone's heads, and thus, disappointed the general public. The purpose of this machine is not to be marketed to those concerned with mere horsepower and a price. The whole point of this bike is that it is a homologation special. It is not a road bike. It was never intended to do that duty, it is simply a necessity for the role this bike is set to fulfill. That role is to take podiums and create a halo product, and the associated hype surrounding it, before the debut of a series of (upcoming) V4 models.


If you wanted to win every racing title possible, you'd do it by supplying the top teams in each series with your MotoGP bike that has won the championship 2 years on the trot.

The price was set to discourage collectors. $200K for an underpowered showpiece for the corner of your living room is ridiculous for all but sultan-level barons.  Two-hundred-thousand dollars to a road-based consumer seems idiotic. However, $200K to a world-class race team is not too far out of line for a theoretically race-ready machine that could win straight out of the crate.

Price: Near-as-makes-no-difference to $200K (after the rumored $12K price tag for the 212 hp power kit, to get it back near factory spec).  It certainly looks the part.

If you could devote a larger initial outlay of cash for a finished machine that only requires a change to the exhaust and ECU to be at the front of the pack, instead of buying a couple CBR1000RR SP’s from a showroom and overhauling nearly every component on the bike to bring the specs up to World Superbike level, you might be seen as “ahead of the curve” to go with the RC213 approach, and if you are big enough, Honda will probably help you out with that $200K issue as well. There’s a reason why they’re screening every customer.

They have over-priced it for good measure, in the case of people with more money than sense, they've taken away all the "most powerful, best ever, MotoGP bike for the road" titles that a bike like this would normally have. They've attempted to make it unattractive, so that they can supply as many as possible to people who will actually earn a return on their investment, by putting them on the top of world-class podiums everywhere.


Honda is time-limited with this bike, stating that it takes a day to make each one, so the more they can get to racers before the start of the season the more their marketing approach would work and they could build more hype for what's rumored to be coming in 2017.

The reason everyone is disappointed is because they think this bike was supposed to be the replacement for the CBR1000RR SP (…and that it was somehow going to be aimed at the Everyman rider - Ed). If I was expecting something like that, I'd be disappointed too, but that's not where they're going with the RC213V-S and it never was. Honda has even said that if they ended up selling this bike, it would carry a price tag to match the fact that it is simply their MotoGP bike with some lights and blinkers thrown in. It just goes to show how badly the Honda faithful are wishing for another world-dominating 1000cc class V4.


Honda, as a company, reacts similarly to the (pre-meltdown) General Motors of Japan. They are huge, with loads of money to develop whatever they want, but remain very conservative, and are usually the last to market with their new ideas so that they don’t outpace themselves. They operate as a sleeping giant, having the power to pursue most ideas, but the restraint not to do so unless absolutely necessary. It has been described as a very “Japanese” method, and all of the big four Asian marques exhibit similar techniques.


Over the past 50 years, usually about once per decade, Honda will come out with an all-beating halo piece and show the world that, even though they choose not to, they still have the ability to develop something far beyond everyone’s conception.

When Honda went to the Manx TT for the first time, they developed a four-stroke inline-four racer and then brought it to the Mountain Course and blew everyone away. In the late 1980's, after ironing out the teething problems of their V4 architecture, they did the same thing with the RC30 and RC45. Both were race derived and, for the time, unimaginably expensive. This is what they are doing once again, per their playbook, with the RC213V-S.


The RC213V-S serves as a marketing piece for the road division, being a stopgap before the CBR line gets a refresh. Interviews with various Honda personnel associated with the RC project have yielded comments revealing a “coming V4 revolution” but also that “for the time being, the inline engines will be sold alongside the V4 machinery”.

I believe a logical path of product development for Honda will be to sell and race the RC213V-S for the 2016 season, in the series they can meet the requisite production numbers, before revealing a replacement for the aged CBR1000RR at EICMA in fall of 2016. The RC213V-S will never be produced in significant enough numbers to qualify for a second season of competition. With a new V4-powered mass-market bike on sale in 2017, taking the RC213’s place on the grids, Honda will have completed its lineup refresh which started with their small displacement bikes a few years ago.


For the past few years, comments have been rampant about how “long-in-the-tooth” the CBR1000RR is getting. The SP was Honda’s attempt to milk the formula for a few years longer while the V4’s are readied. When the first Honda V4’s came out in the early 80’s, they were rushed to market and met with many teething problems, most famous of which was their notorious “chocolate cams” (not to mention poor top end lubrication, cam misalignment due to not line-boring the heads, issues with quality control and poor assembly tolerances due to new automated production methods, etc… - Ed). Learning from that experience, they know that there is one chance to get a complete redesign right and cement their position in the market, and with such stiff competition coming from the rest of Japan and Europe, they cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

In true Japanese fashion, slow and steady wins the race…eventually. In the meantime, we all await the next generation of motorcycles which will put them back on the same playing field as the recent offerings from Yamaha, BMW, Aprilia, and Ducati.


Now that it is not only the consumers that are talking openly about how the bikes are behind the curve, but the moto press at large, the sleeping giant has been agitated. Expect great things, just be wary of expecting them too quickly. A moment for Goliath is an eternity for David.

Honda has always been about going after whatever it is they want with all their might, conquering it, and leaving it behind, and that is what I believe we'll see in coming race season.  One year of competition and hype building with the RC213V-S and the following year is what we’ve all been waiting for. Expect great things.

The Butcher's Dog, LA

As part of the OddBike USA Tour Part II, I'm pleased to announce the first OddBike Night Meetup, set for Saturday, August 29th at the Butcher's Dog located at 11301 West Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. Hosted by myself in association with Abhi from Bike-urious.com and Alicia from MotoLady, we will be reserving the patio for OddBike fans, faithful, groupies, and hangers-on from 7 to 11pm.

Come join us for drinks, food, and passionate banter about all that is weird and wonderful in motorcycles. I can guarantee the quality and intensity of my stories and anecdotes will improve in direct proportion to how many drinks I've had. Bonus points if you show up on a cool bike, but don't you fucking dare drink and ride!

Free underground parking (with validation) is available, look for the mass of greenery on the corner of Olympic and Sawtelle and go through the above ground parking lot to get to the garage entrance, located right next to the restaurant.

Look forward to meeting with some of my fans and boring you all to tears in person, rather than in print, for a change. See y'all there!

RSVP on the Facebook event page
Butcher's Dog Website
Bike-urious.com
The MotoLady

Sacha Lakic Design

For any Italophilic sport rider, there are few marques than can equal the beauty and desirability offered by the motorcycles produced by Bimota. Starting with their fortuitous decision to start building bikes instead of HVAC equipment in 1972, Bimota has earned its reputation producing some of the most delectable two-wheeled exotica in the world by assembling world-class sport machines around proven, bought-in powertrains. They are one of the few companies that can consistently take top-shelf engines from already capable machines and then make those donor bikes look staid, slow and boring in comparison to what the folks in Rimini have been slapping together in their laughably tiny "factory" since the Nixon administration.

The DB3 Mantra is not one of those machines. Nor was it ever intended to be. The Mantra represents one of Bimota's bigger missteps, an attempt to crack into a wider market that failed to win over many fans. It was expensive and saddled with some of the most controversial styling ever put into production. It was also one of the most useable real-world street bikes ever produced by the company, a fact lost in the unending stream of negative commentary that has dogged the Mantra since it was unveiled in 1994.




Bimota in the mid-1990s was apparently on a roll and producing more units annually than anyone would have dreamed they would back in the dark ages of the 1970s and 80s, when they were selling more all-assembly-required chassis kits than complete motorcycles. This growth was product of circumstance as much as good luck and clever management - by the early 1990s the company had stretched their resources to the limit in the development of their flagship Tesi platform, which had been met with a resounding "meh" amongst buyers who were happier to puzzle over the workings of the hub-centre front suspension from afar than to actually put money down on what was a horrifyingly expensive engineer's wet dream. General Manager Walter Martini spearheaded a new strategy that sought to expand the model range with a series of conventional (at least compared to the Tesi) machines that would be easier and cheaper to build, allowing the company to broaden its share of the market and increase production to hitherto unfathomable levels - which, in Bimota's case, meant more than 1000 units annually.


From 1993 onward Bimota appeared to be growing exponentially. New models powered by Ducati, Suzuki and Yamaha engines were proliferating and the company appeared poised to step up from boutique constructor to proper (albeit small-scale) mass production. But all these machines remained hard-core sportbikes with varying levels of superfluous performance on tap tempered with sometimes lackadaisical assembly quality and poor setup. This wasn't out of character, of course, considering that Bimota had founded its reputation on dedicated race machinery and uncompromised, barely-streetable sportsters that often required some significant fettling to perform properly. Bimota management decided that continuing to pursue what Bimota did best, with all the baggage it carried, just wasn't going to cut it and that a new bike with more relaxed dynamics was needed to round out the expanding model range. It would be Bimota's take on a sports roadster, a laid-back machine that would give their patrons a more comfortable ride while ostensibly retaining the traditional qualities that Bimota was known for (superb chassis, top-notch components, third-party engines, quirky designs, and questionable reliability). In other words, they needed to sell more bikes and some compromise was needed to appeal to a new group of buyers.

Styling for the new machine was entrusted to Sacha Lakic, a Yugoslavian-born designer who grew up in France. Lakic was no stranger to motorcycle design and had earned a favourable reputation designing avant-garde concept machines for several firms. He had started his career in the automotive realm, working for Peugot under the legendary Paul Bracq, designing his first two-wheeled project following his move to the Alain Carré design studio in 1986. It was there that he penned the Axis 749, a reworked Yamaha FZ750 that was built in cooperation with Toulouse-based Boxer Bikes, with whom he would collaborate on numerous future projects.

Sacha Lakic Design

In 1988 Lakic became the head of design for MBK-Yamaha, a joint venture that had formed after a series of purchases and mergers that culminated in Yamaha purchasing a controlling stake in the French manufacturer MBK Industrie (neé Motobécane) in 1986. By the late 1980s MBK-Yamaha was dedicated to producing small displacement scooters and Lakic began to earn a reputation as a talented designer through a series of eye-catching, modern designs that culminated in the Black Crystal concept unveiled at the Paris Motorshow in 1993. A carbon-fibre monocoque sport scooter with sharp, organic styling, the Black Cristal would prove to be the genesis of the modern sport scooter, with aesthetics that would set the pattern for countless designs that would follow in the 1990s and 2000s.

Sacha Lakic Design

Following the success of his work for MBK-Yamaha, Lakic founded his own design studio in Paris and soon began offering his services to other companies. Executives at Bimota had taken note of Lakic's work for MBK and hired him to help with the forthcoming DB3 project. He was essentially given carte blanche by Bimota; he was told by the company's marketing manager to design something "spectacular" to make the DB3, which would be the first naked Bimota, a true head turner. The only constraint was that Lakic would be limited to the bodywork and styling, and was required to use a chassis designed by Pier Luigi Marconi, Bimota's gifted long-term engineer/designer and father of the Tesi.

This was a new move on Bimota's part, who had traditionally relied on in-house designers like Marconi to provide chassis and aesthetic design for their machines. While Marconi would once again provide the bones of the machine, Lakic was entrusted with developing the styling. It would be touted in the press as the first of several machines to be designed by Lakic for the boys in Rimini, but ultimately it would be the first and last machine he would design for Bimota.


While Bimota had made its name producing steel tubular spaceframes, later moving on to twin-spar alloy beams starting with the YB4, the DB3 would use a new frame design that shared its architecture with the BMW (Rotax) powered BB1 Supermono that would ultimately be introduced alongside it. Oval-section aluminum tubing would be welded into a trellis that cradled the engine in a semi-stressed arrangement, with the swingarm pivot supported only by the crankcases of the air-cooled Ducati engine. The resulting frame weighed a mere 11lbs, with enough rigidity to have never elicited any complaints from riders of the DB3 (or the later DB4 which shared the same underpinnings). That swingarm was a mixture of square and round alloy sections, triangulated up to a straight-rate rear monoshock that was offset to the right side to clear the rear cylinder head of the 90-degree twin.


Front suspension was courtesy of the Bimota-signature 43mm Paoli conventional fork, matched to an adjustable-length Paoli shock out back. Chassis geometry was virtually the same as the steel trellis-framed DB2 despite being an entirely new design: 54 inch wheelbase, 24 degrees of rake, and 3.6 inches of trail. 17-inch Marchesini three spoke alloy rims were shared with the Ducati 900SS which contributed its engine to the design. Brakes all around were naturally the mid-1990s Italian staple of Brembo Goldlines, with four-piston axial-mount P4 calipers biting 320mm cast iron full floating Brembo discs up front and a twin-piston caliper with 230mm rotor at the rear.

The engine selected for the DB3 was an unmodified air-cooled 904cc SOHC Ducati twin that would have powered the contemporary 900SS, the same unit that had been put to widely-acclaimed use in the DB2. In Bimota guise the evergreen 92x68mm twin was fed by a pair of 38mm Mikuni carburettors with a proprietary airbox design. This configuration produced a claimed 86 hp and 66 lb/ft of torque at the crankshaft (typically in the 70 hp range measured at the wheel), which was as near as dammit the same numbers that Ducati claimed for the 900SS. Anyone who complained about the powertrain should have directed their ire towards Ducati, not Bimota. Or whoever was in charge of spec'ing the carburettor setup at the factory.


Lakic ultimately provided three sketches to Bimota: the first was a machine based on Tesi architecture, the second was a "radical" design based on Marconi's DB3 chassis, and the third was a DB3 with more conservative styling. Bimota selected the "radical" DB3 sketch as the basis of the Mantra. Lakic began shaping his creation at Bimota, earning the nickname "Michelangelo" at the factory for his use of modeling clay to sculpt the mockup.    

Revealed in December 1994 at the Cologne motorcycle salon, the DB3 Mantra (named after the Sanskrit term for "instrument of thought" or some such vague translation that would provide fodder for awkward analogies from moto journalists for years to come) sparked a lot of debate. It was, and still is, one of the most controversial motorcycle designs ever made. While there was nothing unusual about the chassis or engine, Lakic's styling was so far beyond what anyone expected that it tended to inspire either applause for its bold design, or complete revulsion towards the unusual forms - and not much in between. The Mantra became a prototypical "love it or hate it" design that would reveal the inherent conservatism prevalent in the motorcycle industry.  Regardless of the reactions it inspired, to Lakic and Bimota's credit the Mantra was not something that would go unnoticed.

The shape was unusually organic with a low profile, narrowing into a square headlight enclosed in a bezel that was inspired by the nose of a Ferrari Daytona. The bodywork seemed to flow from the headlight straight back into the seat, enclosing the steering head and creating a straight line that gave the Mantra its unusual proportions.

The 16 litre fuel tank was split into wings that flanked the frame, ostensibly to lower the centre of gravity and provide more room for the long-runner downdraught intakes lifted from the 900SS while retaining a low silhouette. The electrical system ran off a pair of 12 volt batteries wired in parallel, mounted above the front cylinder behind the oil cooler with the intake runner passing between them, as Bimota felt that a single battery was inadequate for the application and two smaller units would be easier to package into the design. On historical models it was a curious Bimota signature to run two 6 volt batteries in series to power a 12 volt system, so the Mantra seemed to update the odd practice. A tiny glovebox was incorporated into the rear portion of the tank ahead of the seat. Clip-ons were mounted above the top triple on four inch risers to give the requisite upright seating position. Topping off the cockpit was an ostentatious burlwood dash panel set with an analogue speedometer and tachometer shrouded in carbon fibre binnacles. Despite the presence of a mere two cylinders, Lakic saw fit to install four exhaust canisters. A swoopy bellypan and body-coloured rear hugger completed the abbreviated bodywork, which was neither entirely bare nor fully enclosed, offering a glimpse at the mechanical workings of the machine while still maintaining some limited wind protection.

Note the carbon fibre panel, which replaces the typical faux wood dash.

 As a concept, the Mantra was a show stopper that got a lot of tongues wagging. Curiosity was piqued among onlookers, but most didn't realize this was no mere styling exercise - it was, more or less, the bike Bimota intended to put into production. Lakic notes:


In addition to Marconi's adjustments, a few minor details were altered in the transition to production. The glovebox in the tank was enlarged to make it large enough to contain something bigger than a passport. The racy full-floating cast-iron Brembo discs up front were replaced with more forgiving semi-floating stainless steel items (shared with contemporary Ducati models). The walnut dash was switched out for cheesy burlwood-patterned plastic straight out of a mid-1990s Japanese sedan that would presumably hold up to the elements a bit better than genuine wood. Aside from these modifications Lakic's wild styling was more or less intact and production began in earnest in September 1995.


Reviews were remarkably favourable towards the new machine, aside from the expected jabs at the weird styling - in spite of numerous short-sighted critiques of the styling, no one denied that it wasn't a head turner and that the Mantra often attracted the attention of curious onlookers on every ride. Marconi's chassis offered excellent manners, with good composure from the Paoli components for most testers even if the front forks lacked adjustability and damping was on the firm side (an optional fork kit was available that offered titanium sliders as well as preload and compression adjustment). While the design of the low-hanging exhausts and footrests precluded supersport lean angles, the impressive 400-ish pound wet weight and DB2-esque geometry allowed the Mantra to be far more capable on a twisty road than its fashionista-baiting looks would have suggested. It was also comfortable, with a sensible seat and high clip-ons that allowed riders to adopt a neutral seating position with a slight forward lean that was neither streetfighter nor roadster, but something in between. An optional windscreen mounted over the instrument binnacles offered enough protection from the elements to satisfy most riders, but disturbed the clean sweep of the front fairing and made the front end appear awkward. Comparisons to the Ducati Monster were inevitable, and most agreed that the DB3 offered superior handling and comfort if you were willing to overlook the massive gulf between their suggested retail prices.


Aside from the usual Bimota quirks (electrical faults, beautiful components let down by occasional lapses in build quality, and a complete indifference to ease of repair or access to the inner workings of the machine) the Mantra appeared to be the best all-rounder had Bimota ever put into metal. In regards to the aim of building a Bimota you could conceivably ride ever day, the mission was accomplished - if you could ignore the exorbitant price tag, anyway. In 1996 you'd part with $19,000 USD to get your mitts on a Mantra, with the price coming down to a mere $17,000 the following year. This was about 15% less than the flagship SB6 and YB11 models that it shared showroom space with, making the DB3 a veritable "entry level" machine for the brand. But it was still nearly double the price of the 900SS it borrowed its engine from. You did get a three year warranty in exchange for your hefty outlay, back in the days when most Japanese brands would give you a year before they'd tell you to pound sand. Not that you'd ever want to deal with Bimota's parts and service network, especially the mid-1990s Bimota's parts and service network.


The well-proven Ducati powerplant offered its usual likable character, a smooth and midrange-focussed powerband and pleasant six-speed gearbox marred only by the notoriously grabby, noisy and fragile dry clutch. The DB3 exhibited the same breathless feel at higher revs that would be familiar to anyone who has ridden a carburetted air-cooled Ducati, the result of retaining the extra-long intake runners supplied on the SS and Monster that boosted torque but starved the two-valve heads at higher engine speeds. Regardless of any deficiencies in outright horsepower, the 904cc mill served the Mantra well and offered the sort of relaxed real-world performance that was suitable for a sporting roadster, offering a top speed in the neighbourhood of 125 mph.

Lakic himself has a succinct summary of the Mantra and its dynamic qualities:

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Production of the first generation Mantra ran from 1995 through to 1997, with a slightly revised second-generation machine unveiled at the Milan show in late 1997. While mechanically identical to the previous machines, the 1998 Mantra featured some cosmetic changes: a restyled and more streamlined windshield was standard, a reshaped headlight bezel softened the snouty effect of the front end, the tail section was altered to lengthen the mudguard and shorten the rear hugger, tubular handlebars on risers replaced the high clip-ons, and three-spoke Antera wheels replaced the Marchesini items. Optional red paintwork was offered as well - all Mantras had hitherto been yellow, save for some red examples produced for the Japanese market. A mere 50 of these final Mantras were built before production ceased in 1998, with two kits available from the factory to update the earlier bikes to the new look.

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In hindsight many have remembered the Mantra as a flop that was universally reviled, but the reality is that they sold quite well - by Bimota standards, anyway. 454 examples would roll off the line, which sounds insignificant until you realize that the company only built 665 DB2s, which was a far more revered machine in popular conception. Their most prolific model of the 1990s was the SB6, which was churned out to the tune of 1744 machines, which was exceptional - most of their machines could scarcely have been expected to clear 500 units in total. Lakic notes that there was never any intention to build thousands of Mantras given that Bimota's production capacity was miniscule at the time. A radical, attention grabbing design that gave traditionalists aneurisms wasn't such a hindrance when you consider that Bimota never expected to build more than a handful of them. Such is the beauty of small-scale production: you can build whatever the hell you please without worrying about appealing to the lowest common denominator of the focus groups.


By 1996 priorities at Bimota were beginning to shift. The Tesi was viewed as an albatross that sold in too limited numbers to justify continued production, and it was discontinued in 1997 by Walter Martini to focus the company's meagre resources on the forthcoming "BB 500" project, which would ultimately become the disastrous V-Due 500. The Mantra was discontinued in 1998 but its legacy lived on in the well-received DB4, which clothed the DB3 chassis and powertrain in more conventional bodywork as a replacement for the discontinued DB2.


In most respects, the Mantra achieved the aims set out for it, and unlike some of Bimota's more obscure models from the same period, it has been well remembered - if not well respected. Lakic's quirky styling was mostly viewed with curiosity at the time, rather than the revulsion that seems to have become the common reaction since then. Lakic sought to design a machine that was a sort of "naked sport tourer" that would be comfortable and capable of pulling away from most machines on a tight backroad, and given the (mostly) positive tone of period reviews it seemed that he achieved this aim with the aid of Pier Luigi Marconi's excellent chassis. Unfortunately, Bimota and Lakic learned a hard lesson in the unrelenting conservatism of the motorcycle market. The fine qualities of the Mantra and the shift it represented in the company's priorities remain forgotten amid the sneers of smartassed riders and reviewers who preferred to shit on the styling rather than evaluate the qualities of the machine.

Sacha Lakic Design

Lakic's perspective on the whole experience and the reception of the Mantra has largely been ignored. If he was mentioned at all in reviews or retrospectives, his input was usually summarized in an unfair manner with a few smarmy statements that painted him as a high-minded, artsy designer who was out-of-touch with the whims of the market. The Mantra would be his only contribution to Bimota prior to the company's near-annihilation at the beginning of the 21st century following the V-Due debacle. He would go on to develop a series of well-received designs for French company Voxan, including the Roadster, the Black Magic, the Charade, and most recently the Wattman electric concept - which could have been the world's most powerful electric motorcycle if the whole project hadn't recently been dumped by parent company Venturi.