The company is small, Steve has a background in marketing with Triumph, Mazda, Ford and others, and after reading a magazine where riders were complaining about what motorcycle companies were producing, he decided to start a company where he asked everyone first before building the bike. Hmm, …
I wish Steve and Mo2or all the very best, and though I support anyone willing to jump in and work on a project of their own, trying to crowdsource your way to a winning design is going to be tough. It takes no effort or commitment to fill out a wish list. If a company builds a bike based on those wishes, that same person may say, “Very nice, maybe if I get some extra money some day I’ll think about buying one.”
Perhaps, if they narrow their target or qualify individuals in some manner before asking questions, the input may be more meaningful. Getting some sort of commitment up front would make their input far more reliable, too. Just gathering the dreams and wishes of whoever stops by their website and using them as a guide seems a bit dicey, but we’ve all seen some pretty radical ideas turn into successes so, let’s see what happens. If you would like to add your input, be sure to head over to their site and indicate your preferences.
Link: Mo2or
B50 Jim says
With 16 categories, the survey is either too narrow or too broad. I don’t see that this can be valid, given the may different styles of riding. A 500cc , single-cylinder, vintage-style full-dress bagger with fairing and windscreen, under-seat muffler, rearsets and clip-ons wouldn’t be a practical machine for any purpose. This reminds me of a humorous mechanical drawing that once appeared in the old “Cycle” magazine — an overhead-cam sidevalve parallel twin. Think a flathead with cam on top and upside-down pushrods and rocker arms. It would work, but why?
I give the folks at Mo2or credit for trying to design a bike based on the potential market’s input, but I think they’ll have too much input from too many riders with different riding styles and desires. For example, I would love a light, nimble, comfortable 500 single that I can pack and ride across the country on the Interstates and carve a backroad as well. A rider I spoke with yesterday can’t imagine riding anything less than a 1200 cc heavy twin with full luggage. The two styles, while still motorcycles, are mutually incompatible.
HolyHandGrenade! says
The marauding internet hordes are going to decend to let this little company know that they EVERYONE wants a small 350cc thumper with ultra high end modern suspension and braking components yet they want it cost less than $5,000 and it also has to have some high tech engine componentry that they can brag about on the internet – and it has to have some ironic charm and not be too cool, yet still be trendy, but aloof, yet affordable, but with nice paint, but maybe it should look ratty, or maybe it should…
anon says
I picture the result being a motorcycle equivalent of the Local Motors Rally Fighter: a monstrosity.
Azzy says
That rally fighter is a beast, and using off the shelf components for the most part, makes service a lot easier.
Nicolas says
It’s a good idea, but as the majority of the web-surfing people, I don’t put my $$ where my mouth is.
Ian says
Design by commitee seldom gets good results. It’s in interesting idea but you need a very good filter in place.
It’s a similar idea to ‘Project Splitwheel’ which was intended to crowdsource a sportscar, sponsored by Caterham. Hopefully this has a bit more success as that ground to a halt as soon as it started
FREEMAN says
The filter should be a 10,000 dollar down payment and contract to buy.
Ken says
My dream bike and options were not even available on there! I filled it out anyway. I hope they build that 250CC 4 cylinder two stroke cruiser with the single sided dual shock swingarm!
Ken says
Crap. Now that I said it, I kinda want to see it. Sounds like something crazy that would be seen on bikermetric…
den says
Likewise, Ken. Where is my dream horizontally opposed flat four turbo diesel with shaft drive and girder forks
QrazyQat says
The problem for me is that what I’d really like to buy nowadays in the USA is a nice used 10-15 year old 350cc bike, like what a 1995 CB350 would be if they’d still been making such things in any numbers up until now. In the USA bikes like that are really old and they’re so comparatively rare that they cost way more than they should. Basically the bike industry in North America dropped the ball about 30 years ago and never got it back. That’s a problem that can’t be fixed, for now… maybe for folks in the future.
B50 Jim says
If nobody wanted a 1200 cc, 190-mph crotch rocket, the major manufacturers wouldn’t have built them. If nobody wanted an 1800 cc, 900-pound bagger, ditto. The market does respond to customers’ tastes and desires, and for the past 30 years, most customers haven’t cared much for “small” bikes below a half-liter. Enough do to justify building a few lines of “entry-level” 250s, but the days when a 650 is a ‘big” bike are never going to come back. Like it or not.
rohorn says
Does anyone remember the results of the BMW “Innovation Design Contest” or whatever it was called about 2 years ago? It was infested with all sorts of “innovations” such as “hackability” and “iPhone integration”. Which tells me that, for an awful lot of the “I need a cheap high quality modern original thinking retro minimalist well equiped high tech simple 350 single” set, motorcycles are a distant interest to electronic game fondling and social (sic) media device masturbation. Which is why I ignore (occasionally) or ridicule (the rest of the time) them.
Brian says
As a rider that is 6′ 7″ I need a bike that fits me. At 210 lbs I need it go get up and go. They make this type of bike but I do not have 10K+ to spend.
Markets design for lowest common denominator not what is really wanted.
Steve says
Hi,
Many many thanks for the post, the response has been amazing with over 50 submissions from Kneeslider alone. When I first came up with the idea I was more than aware that asking the general public what they want? Could lead to a lot of data with no actionable results.
But so far the requests have been great, yes, some ask for a 2 Stroke 250cc Turbo with hubcentre steering (I actually like that). But the majority of submissions are actually very straight forward and we are already seeing a pattern of the things riders don’t want with some surprises.
I would have loved to have already known what bike riders want or even 4 bikes riders might want, but I wanted to see what experienced riders wanted and if i’m honest I wanted to build a level of rider engagement which is currently missing (from UK bike industry anyway) and get people more involved and passionate about bikes.
So there you go, a big thanks to everyone it is greatly appreciated… and the name is pronounced MO-TOOR
Cheers
Steve
Andrew says
Dear Steve,
My name is Andrew. Over the last few years I have been working on a tilting/ leaning suspension design for a three wheel ( reverse trike ) style of motorcycle. The manner in which the design enables the trike to lean and turn through a corner is completely different and much more effective than any other design in existence for a number of reasons. A patent has been applied for. Picture a two person Trirod that tilts as it turns through a corner ( does anyone know if they are still making the Adrenaline ? ). After closely following every development not only within the motorcycle industry but the transportation industry as well it appears as though it would be exceptionally hard to base a companies business model on what is important to the average consumer at this point and time when it’s tough to know what will be important to them in let’s say five years from now when technology is evolving so quickly. I do think that there is alot of opportunity to capitalize on certain areas of the industry due to the fact that the large motorcycle companies are so reluctant to change. Please feel free to respond with any questions or comments.
Thank you,
Andrew Donaghue
afdonaghue@gmail.com
FREEMAN says
I think it’s a cool idea and I”m sure they’ll get a few patterns for bikes that the general internet traffic wants. However, I don’t see many putting their money where their mouth is. Talk is cheap. It costs you nothing. And no matter what they come up with, there will still be complainers about whatever they build because you can’t satisfy everyone with one bike.
That said, I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
FREEMAN says
This reminds me of these guys.
Richard Gozinya says
Huh, you can select a 1300cc turbocharged 2 stroke thumper. Now I want one.
GenWaylaid says
You can simulate the riding experience by throwing a bag of cement in the dryer. Still…wow. Some custom builder needs to get on this.
WillyP says
Some of the fields were required but the answers did not apply. Like, rear-sets on a sport tourer? And I didn’t want to answer what kind of frame, because I don’t care, I just want a good frame. But it would not let me submit without that answer. And a few others.
JustCallMeRabbit says
When I saw this article, I immediately thought of Local Motors. The difference between this company and Local is that although both are crowd sourced, Local took a single ideas that were sketched out by separate people and then voted on by the public. That type of crowd sourcing makes the most sense to me. This avenue of approach seems to me like it will just produce a cluster of a sub-par product.
I love this guys idea of crowd sourcing motorcycle design. When you have the crowd involved in the production process then you have a group that wants to active participate in the process. Look at Wikipedia as an example. A crowd sourced online encyclopedia whose online group takes care of it and makes a solid effort to put forth quality, unbiased information. Wikipedia is now available in over 300 different countries. Compare that to Wikipedia’s predecessor Nupedia that was essentially the same thing except it wasn’t crowd sourced and the process of checking sources through a single entity was a hassle and overwhelming. Nupedia never got off the ground.
I think Mo2or has the perfect opportunity to create a fan base that is more likely to buy it’s product by letting the fan base be a part of the process than a similar company who doesn’t. Both companies could have equally sized fan bases, unfortunately, a fan base does not necessarily equal a consumer buying your product.
Involve people in the process, earn their loyalty by including them in the masses and they will be more obliged to buy the end product.
Do you agree or disagree?
HoughMade says
Apparently they have determined that no one wants a parallel twin, mid controls or forward controls…..so They aren’t choices. Well, have fun with your cruiser of touring bike with rearsets.
GenWaylaid says
That’s an interesting point. There do seem to be a lot of requests–around here at least–for a light, simple bike in the 350 to 500 cc range. I’d certainly like one. The idea is to have a bike that’s just big enough to comfortably handle today’s traffic and adaptable enough to jump between commuting, weekend back roads, and the occasional road trip while also being easy to maintain.
It all sounds great, but all too often there isn’t enough money on the table to go along with these requests. Why should there be? The idea was to have a bike that can do all the basics cheaply!
There’s another funny thing going on: thousands of motorcycles of that basic description already exist. Practically any middleweight UJM from the seventies or early eighties would fit the bill, as would a number of classic British bikes if something could be done about their reliability.
So there’s a vocal demand backed not by new-bike money but by used-bike money at best, and plenty of used bikes to meet it. Where’s the problem? Well, older motorcycles take a lot of effort to get back in top shape. That doesn’t square well with the “reliable do-it-all bike” idea.
If there’s a real opportunity right now, it’s not in motorcycle manufacturing, but in motorcycle re-manufacturing.
jar says
+1 on that thought – Falcon, but not too such an extreme.
Still think a guy would have a tough time keeping it “affordable”…..in particular if the intent would be to make “improvements” or “upgrades”, bringing a CB back to working condition is far different than attempting to bring it closer to the current “standard” – disc brakes, stiff forks, lighter weight….
Even if not, to go thru a vintage motor (20 years old), old carbs, old rubber, old forks and seals…..quite a bit of work. Even if a start point is a $500 “parked in 79”, covered, and pest free – a guy would have a fair bit in just to get back to stock, useable, reliable condition….
did I just talk myself out of a plus one?
GenWaylaid says
I think one of the guiding principles of motorcycle re-manufacturing would have to be, “if it works, don’t mess with it.” Let the basic package be the “like-new vintage” specification and offer optional upgrades as they can be sourced from outside. Harley dealers find plenty of good profit in bolting on parts from the options catalog. With vintage bikes there may be some machining involved, but as long as you’ve done it before and kept the drawings, no big deal. Plus, the take-offs would provide valuable parts for reconditioning other bikes, or to sell online.
The rebuild process can look daunting if you’re just one guy, buying and shipping one of each part (I know from experience). However, if you’re running a shop that has dozens of bikes in flow at once, all going through the same basic procedure, and if you’ve strategically stockpiled NOS parts for all the common wear items, it’s a whole different game.
jar says
stupid people don’t ask questions
these guys at least asked. I say yeeha.
One can’t even begin to measure the process without seeing a result, and I for one am interested to see what sieves out….
QrazyQat says
“The market does respond to customers’ tastes and desires, and for the past 30 years, most customers haven’t cared much for “small†bikes below a half-liter.”
As I have been pointing out a lot recently, this is the exact argument given for why riders in the USA were not offered cafe racers, or what are now called sport bikes. It simply wasn’t true.
WOL says
As the adage goes, “A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee”, I am looking forward to see how a bunch of characteristics with limited options and no connections, will come together. All good fun and good luck!
WillyP says
A lot of people seem to think, ‘whatever gets the most votes will get built’ and some others see it as an order sheet.
but I don’t see that at all. I would assume this is more like an opinion poll, I am sure whatever gets built will be within reason. As Steve said, above:
“I would have loved to have already known what bike riders want or even 4 bikes riders might want, but I wanted to see what experienced riders wanted and if i’m honest I wanted to build a level of rider engagement which is currently missing (from UK bike industry anyway) and get people more involved and passionate about bikes.”
todd says
As is evident by the current marketplace, people don’t want to be asked what they want, they want to be told what they want.
Most wouldn’t know what they wanted unless they saw or knew someone “cool” who had the first one. Then it’s just a matter of trying to emulate that person.
I worked for a company that sold a highly configurable product. The only version that sold was the one we featured on the glossy brochure.
-todd
Random says
As for my dream bike, I’m going for a partially-faired, single-cilinder motard. 🙂
Random says
oops, this should be below my own comment…
Random says
Even if the purpose is to generate one kind of bike, I wonder if some sort of grouping (cluster analysis in statistical lango) could be done to find a bike niche still unexplored. After all, most bike wishes may fall on already available or not profitable segments, but if many people want a bike with characteristics that cannot be found in current bike categories a new class (or a twist from an existing one) may be found. After all, “adventure” tourers, sportbikes with upright ergos and supermotos are essentially existing bike types with a twist.
But even a new, undefinable kind of bike could result from it. Who knows? That would be interesting.
zipidachimp says
so, where do I input my 650cc street tracker? a better idea would have been to ask for an internet link to a photo of the bike you would buy, assuming it was available. http://www.advrider.com has thousands of photos that could be used for reference.
instead of this survey, he should put his money where ‘his own mouth’ is and build his own dreambike, maybe a lot of others would agree with him.
this appears to be another wasted effort. dream on.
Simon says
Crowd sourcing or mass customisation? (a new buzz word in manufacturing (actually a new paradigm)) to please everybody you need a manufacturing model that can satisfy everybody’s desires whilst achieving cost and throughput similar to mass production and the quality and reliability of lean manufacturing – not sure how this would be achieved but people are already highlighting the problems of mass customisation is that people don’t really want or know how to carry out detail design.
Cameron Nicol says
Looking at what Honda has done in the last few years with the CB125 and now the 250 I would bet a 350-400 single is next. They won the world over with the Cub and I think they are looking forward again. My vote was a 400 single cafe racer. Keep it light!! That is always the death strike to me. Get off your huge rocket ships and ride a small light bike. They’re way fun. I own a CRF230. I’m waiting for the new (cross my fingers) CB400 single.
B50 Jim says
WOL—
“A camel is a race horse designed by a committee”?
Have you ever seen a camel run? It can leave a race horse in the dust, and the next six race horses as well. The “committee” that designed the camel is Natural Selection, and it did a pretty darn good job.
Nicolas says
excellent …
plus the camel gets much better (water-)mileage than the race horse … lol
Joe says
This is what Yamaha tried before developing the MT-1 for production.They used all the feedback and produced the bike everyone supposedly wanted and would buy.The idea was a failure,very few people bought them and they were still trying to sell 2005 bikes in 2010. Trying to sell a secondhand one is near on impossible, unless its at a fire sale price.
Mike says
Bart & Lisa participate in a focus group, along with several other kids including Milhouse, Nelson and Ralph.
MAN
Alright, thanks for participating in our focus group, kids. Today, we’re going to show you some Itchy & Scratchy cartoons.
The kids cheer in delight.
NELSON
Cool!
MAN
We want you to tell us what you think. And, be honest, because no one from the show is here spying on you. (chuckles)
A sneezing sound comes from a large mirror on the wall.
LISA
Why is that mirror sneezing?
MAN
Ah, look, it’s just an old, creaky mirror, y’know, sometimes it sounds a little like it’s sneezing, or coughing, or talking softly.
LISA
Hmm…
The man gives a thumbs-up to the mirror.
MAN
Now, you each have a knob in front of you. When you like what you see, turn the knob to the right. When you don’t like what you see, turn it left.
RALPH
(with knob in mouth) My knob tastes funny.
MAN
Please refrain from tasting the knob.
First up, Itchy & Scratchy play pool. Itchy knocks out Scratchy’s eyeballs with a cue ball and Scratchy replaces them with two pool balls. The kids laugh turn their knobs to the right. The next cartoon is set on an island. While Itchy & Scratchy sunbathe, a muscle-bound man in bikini trunks flexes in front of the camera. Nelson turns Milhouse’s knob repeatedly to the right.
MILHOUSE
Hey, quit it!
From behind the mirror, Meyers and two other people watch on a monitor.
MEYERS
They like Itchy, they like Scratchy, one kid seems to love the Speedo man… what more do they want?
Back with the focus group.
MAN
Okay, how many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day? (the kids all cheer and agree) And who would like to see them do just the opposite – getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers? (more cheering) So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show… that’s completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots? (The kids agree)
NELSON
Yeah, good.
Azzy says
Well, the results are in… and 800 and 1000 CC bikes.
*yawn*
Seeing places do more with less gets my interest up. More because then it means that the end product can many times be in an affordable range.