Now that Royal Enfield has a new engine for their new Bullet, Oberdan Bezzi thought, why not work up a sport version? Although Royal Enfield has long had a cafe racer kit to spiff up their old Bullet, the 500cc thumper was never what most of us would call a sporty engine, simple and reliable, [...]
From the category archives:
Motorcycle Design
François Knorreck, a French motorcyclist with a passion for building things to suit his own vision, bought a Laverda in 1976 and turned it into a nicely modified sportbike. He rode the bike perfectly satisfied until 1993 when he began to conceive the idea of a new project and got the urge to build again, [...]
Italian motorcycles are often recognized for their beautiful styling, but one brand (Ducati) tends to overshadow all of the other smaller marques. When you step outside of the Ducati world and look at the other bikes, there’s much to appreciate. Recently, I’ve been noticing more and more really nice examples of the Moto Guzzi lineup, [...]
Piers Prendergast, a 2009 graduate of Transport Design at Coventry University, sent me these images of his final year project. It’s a fuel cell motorcycle concept with hubless wheels which are kind of unique:
The hubless wheels work though a fixed inner rim and a rotating outer rim that spins on internal bearings. The concept doesn’t [...]
Remember my recent articles saying it’s a great time to start a motorcycle company? Well, I’m not the only one who thinks so, here’s another one that just popped up across the pond in the UK, it’s Mac Motorcycles and they have some really sweet designs, every one looks like it would be a blast [...]
Mechanical nostalgia is a powerful force, if you love old machinery of most any type, you know what I mean. Just looking at it, gazing at the wheels, gears, levers, gauges and even the materials and methods of construction can bring a smile to your face, it certainly does to me, however, there’s a point [...]
Builders of incredible homebuilt machines keep popping up and here’s another example of a very impressive motorcycle designed for the purpose of handling the twisty roads of California’s canyons. This bike consists of a Kawasaki 500cc 2 stroke triple engine, front and rear suspension from a ZX9 and everything else “Jaybuilt.” Total weight is 310 [...]
The BMW R1200GS is one of BMW’s really popular models, functional in both capabilities and looks. BMW customers like it a lot, but, there’s no reason you can’t make a few modifications and rework the functional appearance a bit, so, Machineart Industrial Design did just that, creating bodywork a bit lighter, smoother and smaller, it [...]
