The Kneeslider

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McDeeb Royal Enfield Specials – Six Days – Thruxton – Clubman – Brand New Classics from Italy

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McDeeb Six Days Royal Enfield Special
McDeeb Six Days Royal Enfield Special

It isn’t often a tip leads me to something that just makes my jaw drop, but these McDeeb Royal Enfields are stunning. All three models, the Six Days, Thruxton and Clubman are based on brand new bikes. McDeeb, if I understand correctly, is a brand developed by Classic Farm Motorcycles in Italy. Taking brand new Royal Enfield 500s, they can build one of these 3 models for customers with a variety of optional configurations, including a 612cc high performance kit.

McDeeb Thruxton Royal Enfield Special
McDeeb Thruxton Royal Enfield Special

Options on the bikes range from 4 and 5 speed transmissions, left and right side shift, the Thruxton even has an optional full fairing.

I came across one mention of parts kits that a current Royal Enfield owner could use to build his own version of one of these but I couldn’t find any more details about that. No mention of price anywhere, either.

These are beautiful variations of the standard models and the workmanship and well thought out designs merit high praise. If I owned a Royal Enfield, I’d be looking very closely at what these folks offer. If Classic Motorworks here in the U.S. who import the RE aren’t working with McDeeb to bring these versions to the U.S., they should be. They do offer custom kits but they are nowhere near as nice as the McDeeb models. I like these, I like them a lot.

UPDATE: I received a very interesting and informative email from Fabrizio Di Bella of Classic Farm Motorcycles explaining a little more about what they do. Here’s what he had to say:

I’m Fabrizio “McDeeb” Di Bella and we appreciate the reception our bikes have received on The Kneeslider.

McDeeb was my nickname since I was young, due to an “insane” passion for British classic bikes, and it started from a shortened version of my family name created by customers of mine coupling it with “Mc” to emulate the “Scottish sound”.

My career began as a motocross and road test-driver for some motorcycle magazines during my apprenticeship, my technical background was formed mainly in R&D in the Kawasaki off road and ATVs Italian branch, then 12 years ago I started my own garage and workshop: Classic Farm Motorcycles, in a quiet village in the mountains of the Camonica Valley, not far from Brescia.

Now the valley is not so quiet, thanks to some classic engines we usually drive on open roads, passion for motorcycles and metalworking culture are so strong here that we decided to plant a small workshop to manufacture specials “tailored to customer’s requests.”

The prices for our complete bikes (based on a brand new Royal Enfield Bullet) are between 10.850 Euros and 15.500 Euros, but the above prices are for fully optioned bikes, we also offer customization on customer owned bikes or less modification depending on customer’s needs. We can supply both complete specials as separate parts or full conversion kits .

At this moment we are manufacturing 12 McDeeb “Limited production” motorcycles (most are already sold) and about the same quantity of “bolt on” kits, while the second batch is scheduled for the end May. We are looking for distributors and importers overseas.

We are also official dealers for Royal Enfield for our area and after receiving good feedback from the factory about our work, we’re pursuing a closer relation with them.

Our staff is made up of seven people but a larger crew is scheduled before the end of this year, and we can take good workers from other brands, due to the poor market for “normal” bikes.

We are also planning a larger facility of 800 square meters during the next months, in order to improve our manufacturing capability: in this area lots of skill artisans are still working and this helps us maintain the high level of hancrafted detail people appreciate in our bikes.

The metalworking tradition here started two thousand years ago during the Roman age, so the “Camonica Valley ” is also called “The Iron Valley” and a lot of our suppliers are small factories run by the third or fourth generation: it provides great skill, passion and experience in metal working and allows us to offer “plastic-free” bikes.

My job is product manager and engine development (my co-worker Salvo Balli, a former Yamaha racing mechanic, also works in this role) and my responsibility of prototyping handmade alloy bodyparts is still active: I learned from an 84 year old artisan who had great experience in that field.

In our range, I’ve tried to create the bikes I dreamed of when I was a boy, and now, luckily, I own in my collection: BSA, Norton, Matchless and classic Triumphs and it seems that your readers have the same attitudes: they understand the feeling of what we are working to evoke.

Link: McDeeb no longer active

McDeeb Clubman Royal Enfield Special
McDeeb Clubman Royal Enfield Special

Comments

  1. Bad enough we cannot buy Royal Enfields in California and now we get another dose of the wants and gimmes.Pretty stuff, but the retro look needs to stop before they put the drum brakes on. How about a 5 valve head instead? Or a TT based street tracker? The importer should bring in a roller with engine and then work the build from a net based parts list…..Maybe this would allow registration as a special construction. Bike in a basket?

  2. I am sure there will be lots of comments about all the things wrong or impractical about these but they would be wrong, enjoy these for what they are. If the six day model or thruxton doesn’t make your mouth water you really need to appreciate where motorcycles have come from.

  3. Schwing. I’ll take one of each, please. But wait, I’m in california too. I remember reading something about a 2010 CARB / EPA unification act where there will no longer be a 49:1 compliance issue but I can’t seem to find that again. Smaller manufacturers were to be given a little leeway – not that RE is a small manufacturer.

    -todd

  5. The new RE engine passes all the EU emissions regs so maybe it can pass in Cal soon as well, beaut bikes, the new classic bullet looks great straight from the factory too, but as well excecuted as these McDeebs are the high performance kit seems the most interesting.

  6. Nice stuff! I can see the Enfield, with it’s low price and good looks, becoming a favorite with home customizers.

  13. Vellocete Thruxton and BSA Victor reincarnations, great job and with the up to date engines,hopefully without the reliability issues of the past.Nice looking and simple air cooled motorcycles,and love that kickstart,wish I could get one for my BMW1150GS On those remote outback trip’s it would be a great backup for a failed battery, there aint no way I can push start it .

  14. has the “six days” been unitized? the bottom-end/tranny combo on enfields has always looked goofy to me, but that looks great. cool stuff.

  16. Six Days is the New EFI Unit Engine
    Thruxton Replica is the AVL Electra Engine
    Clubman is just the straight old Bullet engine that they have been making forever.

  17. What a refreshing break from Buell news…

    These bikes warm the cockles of an old geezer’s heart…

    Now, how about someone building a replica of a Zundapp in cafe racer trim?? 🙂

  18. I go along with the WOW! Really great looking “new” classics. I brand new replacement for the BSA Gold Star I wish I never would have sold. I did find a couple of links. The Royal Enfield site has talk of the McDeeb’s and someone who has purchased one, I believe. The other is the factory site and it has photos and specs of the bikes and the 612 kit. Oh, Italian seems to be their language of choice, so try through a translator link if you can.

    http://www.royalenfieldlesite.com/

  19. Man this is the stuff of Motorcycling for me , these machines are what I started oh so many , many years ago, I had a Matchless 500 twin, nice machine if you could keep her going!! The reliability issues of the Royals seem to be solved, but when you take one of the stock machines apart to repair or change something you can tell they are a little behind in the quality control department,, but overall if I had a kit like this to put toghether, I can see yet another cross Canada trip in the making??? It never really made sense to me to have a 1400cc machine when I started touring we did alot of it on these old bikes and we did just fine for highways and byways

    PS, BYWAYS are better anyways, lol.
    RATS

  21. The 6-Day bike looks awesome! However, anyone that puts an Amal Concentric on their bike as a “Performance Upgrade” needs counseling. Or a lobotomy.

  22. Wow, proof that all bikes don’t need to be covered in plastic to be awesome. No matter what one likes, one of these would be perfect in anyones stable. So refreshing to see the past in the present. I can see the Six Day as a bike I would like in my rural country side just like the 441 Beeza I had in ’68.

  25. Oh if I were a young man again……….the Thruxton and I would travel the byways for sure……..very nice bike.

  26. The 6 days version – yes WOW great bike – better looking than the English off road version offered. Also there’s a guy in England building 750cc big bore engines..that would make it a good mudslugger… no, it’s too pretty to take off road.

  27. Also I notice they got rid of the plastic indicators. Real metal and chrome – a real bike and a new retro too.. Harley take note

  28. The Enfields look good in trials trim, not so sure about the Clubman version. An easy way to see if the engine is the new RE injected model is too look and see if there’s a separate geabox, as visible in the six days bike. A guy I know has the older 500 bored out to about 625cc. He says it spins up more freely than the bigger versions, although they are more torquey. The old stock 500 is quite restricted so a different carb, bigger valves and a more free-flowing exhaust can make a difference. Not sure how many tuning kits there are yet for the new unit engine but I’m sure some will be along soon.

  30. Lovely workmanship, and I especially like the Clubman. Given the financial wherewithal, (I have no idea what the price would be in dollars), I wouldn’t mind having one of these at all, but what I would really love to see would be what McDeeb could do with a modern version of my all-time favorite Brit bike, the Royal Enfield 750 Interceptor. Now that would be a real wish-list item.

    • I smiled when I read your post.

      I had a red 1965 Royal Enfield Interceptor TT.750. I regularly rode it from Santa Maria California to LA and also to Monterey. I believe the Interceptor TT was the most beautiful factory vertical twin that was ever made. That would include the two black Norton Atlas 750s that I had. I have an ’06 ZX-14 and I would love to have a Red Interceptor TT parked next to it. I’d ride that m/c all the time.

      CAVEAT: The TT had to be kicked ALL the way through, or it would backfire and tear you ankle up, when it kicked back. No compression release. Also, the Interceptor was marketed in the mid fifties as the Indian Tomahawk. I rode a brand new one.

  31. They all certainly ‘look the part.” If they can “go the part” is another question.
    At 612cc they quite possibly could…

  32. Simon, I have a good friend who worked in a shop that sold RE’s in the day. He told me the Interceptors would toss a rod before they even left the showroom floor. They looked pretty but I think they suffered from Britsh quality control in the old days. A new version would most likely be similar to a new Bonneville. By the time you do all the necessary updates, it would no longer have the original’s charm.

  33. I see that RE has lined up California dealers & will be selling soon and also the Sachs Madass 125 is being sold here. I wonder if the smaller manufacturers finally got some relief.

  34. Mule, I knew two people who had Interceptors and rode them quite a lot without any trouble. One kept it more or less stock, the other picked one up years after they stopped making them and chopped it (a sin, in my opinion), so I guess they were a lot like Nortons….some ran well, some crapped out. I am old enough to recall British quality control from those days, and that part of the Brit bike was definitely not charming! But they did have a look that I think the McDeeb bikes capture, and of course, the Dreer Nortons, too. Perhaps, one of these days, when I can get some spare change together, I will see if a “Britification” of my Sportster might prove fun.

  35. Totally cool retro rides! Reminds all of us why we began riding in the first place! Re: Sportster Mike; “Harley take note”; as a knucklehead owner, I can say, sadly, that HD will be happy to just fade away. They’ve failed, so miserably, time and time again, at opportunities, lost, to produce variations of product for which there are very strong markets. Why is it that guys all over; in garages, barns, flats, even apartments, are creating purpose-built Harleys? Desire. Need. FUN! That’s how McDeeb attacks his projects. Very impressive!

  36. The McDeeb Thruxton looks very like the Velocette Venom “Thruxton” I had in the late 1950’s

  39. Hi mates,
    thanks for your warm appreciation of our works.
    I’m glad to introduce to all Kneeslider’s friends a pre-view of the ultimate version of our video, with the On Any Sunday original soundtrack.
    We think is the proper music for our crazy running…
    Look at this link:
    http://www.mcdeeb.it/Filamato%20six%20Days%20Fabrizio.htm

    Note: AT THIS MOMENT IT IS FOR KNEESLIDER MATES ONLY !

    Have a nice day with full throttle, guys!

    Fabrizio from Italy

  40. The 2010 Royal Enfields are now available and for sale in CA. My local dealer, NoHo Scooters in North Hollywood, has them and say they’re selling briskly. They’re apparently popular with Indian immigrants, who see them as the “Cadillac of India.” There are some really nice versions and Enfield may have a cafe racer styled model next year. From what I hear, the new injected 500s all have performance boosts from previous models.

    I’ve also been seeing some of used older Enfields coming into CA, as these have been grandfathered out of CARB emissions regs and can be registered here now.

  41. In 1966 & 1967 I rode a hard 20+K miles on a TT Interceptor and it gave me no problems and it never leaked a drop of oil.

  42. I have a Bullet Deluxe and although it can be a finicky bike, I wouldn’t trade it for anything (except perhaps a Conferderate Hellcat). It handles like a dream and I never fail to comments from almost everyone. This is what cycling is all about.

  43. Hi guys
    No disrepect to the McDeeb six day, but i think i have done a better job with my special,the RRE500 please let me know yours thoughts cheers Tommy.