The story of Elspeth Beard is legendary within the motorcycle community, in 1982 aged just 23 she set off on a round the world adventure with nothing more than a tent, some meagre savings from her job in a bar, and her trusty 1974 BMW R60/6. This was many years before GPS, email, cell phones,…
The idea of developing a home-built kit to convert the KTM 990 Adventure into a two-wheel drive motorcycle with hub-centre steering sounds difficult enough – but somehow also managing to reduce the weight by 40 kilograms compared to the stock bike sounds borderline impossible. Despite the litany of difficulties associated with the concept, mechanical engineer…
The Triumph Scrambler was first released in 2006, it was based on the already popular Triumph Bonneville, but it added a series of modifications to give it some off-road ability. Not off-road ability on the level of an enduro or motocross racer of course, but enough dirt road capability to have adventures down fire roads and up the occasional forest trail.
The Coventry-Eagle Flying-8 was a high-performance motorcycle designed to compete directly with the offerings from Brough-Superior – a company that was building the fastest and most expensive production motorcycles in the world at the time. The similarity in looks between the Coventry-Eagle Flying-8 and the Brough-Superior SS80 and SS100 was no mistake, George Brough and…
James Parker and RADD Inc. Suspension The Yamaha GTS 1000 was released in 1993 with unusual forkless front suspension designed by James Parker, a Stanford University trained Industrial Designer with an innate engineering ability – which he used to develop oftentimes unusual motorcycles. In 1971 when he ran a Hodaka dealership Parker created a 120…
Editor’s Note: This article was written by Davey Whitcraft of Whitcraft Services. When possible we like to give custom builders the chance to tell the story of their work in their own words – cutting out the middle man and offering a unique insight into their thought process and methodology. Whitcraft Services 001 The modern…
The Janus Full Body Kit is designed to bolt directly to either the Yamaha MT-25 or Yamaha MT-03 with no welding, gluing, or hammering – you’ll just need an Allen key and a socket wrench. Body kits for cars are commonplace, but the concept is more rare with motorcycles which seems strange given that the…
The Indian Four is considered by many to be one of the most handsome American motorcycles of the 20th century, if not all time. Its sweeping fenders, glistening chrome, longitudinally-mounted 4-cylinder engine, and tan leather saddle helped to define the ideal American motorcycle for decades – and the modern Indian Chief shares more than a passing…
This documentary covers the complete 1970 motocross season, it was created for Suzuki to celebrate their dominance of the 250cc World Championship, with an outright win in the constructor’s championship, and both 1st and 2nd place in the rider’s championship. The 1970 season of the 250cc championship was fought largely between Suzuki and Husqvarna, with…
The Matchless G50 is a competition motorcycle first introduced in 1958, to compete with the Norton Manx and the other top notch racing single-cylinder motorcycles of the day. The Matchless G50 Matchless, then owned by Associated Motorcycles (AMC), developed the G50 from the AJS 7R – a 350cc single-cylinder racing motorcycle commonly referred to as…
The Honda VFR750R Type RC30 was a homologation special developed for the then-new World Superbike Championship by the Honda Racing Corporation. By late-1980s standards the RC30 was staggeringly advanced, the engineers at Honda had thrown everything they had at their new superbike in order to win the World Superbike Championship and establish dominance over their…
I have little doubt that OK-Supreme is one of the greatest motorcycle marque names in history, if not the best outright. The brand started out as many early motorcycle companies did – by designing and building bicycles in the late 1800s before beginning to experiment with installing engines into their frames to create “moto cycles”….
