The Spirit of Munro is a salt lake racer built as a hat tip to legendary motorcycle racer, Burt Munro. Munro’s original streamliner was based on a 1920 Indian motorcycle, the bike was ancient by the time he set his last record (at 47 years old), it’s a staggering testament to his abilities as an engineer that he was able to set so many records with it, including the under-1000cc world record which still stands today.
This is the second piece in a new series on Silodrome written by the talented Jason Cormier, Jason is a writer, an avid motorcyclist,…
This bike started life as a 1982 Honda CB750 before Richard and Lex at Left Hand Cycles got their hands on it and set about creating the rather unique bike you see above and below. Left Hand Cycles is based in the Netherlands and tends to focus on motorbikes from the ’60s and ’70s, their previous work has included a Yamaha XS650 and a beautiful old air-cooled Moto Guzzi.
I love electric motorcycles, they don’t make the same thundering roar as more traditional gasoline powered bikes but they do offer extraordinary torque, low maintenance and an interesting engine noise not entirely unlike Luke Skywalkers Land Speeder.
The 1938 Indian Chief incorporated a number of improvements over the 1937 model, the engineers at Indian worked on refining each model year as best they could and so the 1938 Chief had dozens of these small improvements.
The Super 32 Rovescio, built by tiny Roman manufacturer Nembo Motociclette, is just such an iconoclastic machine. It is a motorcycle that literally turns engine design on its head – because designer Daniele Sabatini decided he could build a better motor by flipping it upside down.
The Yamaha XS360 is an interesting motorcycle, the model never saw a huge production run and were, in many respects, the slightly smaller brother of the much more famous Yamaha XS400.
Michael Mundy, the proprietor of Steel Bent Customs, has a penchant for building some of the cleanest cafe racer motorcycles you’ll find anywhere. He tends to favour the Honda CB750 and has now got the process of turning the bike from a lumbering over-weight bike into an exceedingly clean, pure example of what a cafe racer can be if the builder sticks to the core of what the genre originally entailed.
This bike is a Harley-Davidson Sportster custom by Art of Racer, it’s based on a 1991 Sportster though the only parts of the original bike are the engine, transmission and carburettor. That rather unique looking frame, modified springer front-end, suicide clutch, saddle, handlebars, rear fender and fuel tank are all custom creations.
The humble Honda CB250N isn’t the sort of motorbike you’d usually see being customised, especially not to this degree. That said, the team at Ellaspede have been making quite a name for themselves working with slightly unusual motorcycles. In fact, they’re currently giving one of them away here.
The Norton Model 50 was originally put into production in 1933, the bike was designed by Edgar Franks – the talented if not a little…
he Harley-Davidson Nightster has been a runaway success for Harley-Davidson since it was released in 2007, the bike offered people a custom look for under $9,000 USD and it was fitted with Harley’s famous 1200cc Sportster v-twin engine.
