When Walt Siegl builds a motorcycle, motorcyclists, industrial designers and mechanical engineers sit up and take notice.
This new bike, the Riviera Ducati SS, is a phenomenal example of Walt’s work. Every element of the bike is unique, from the hand-fabricated chromoly steel frame to the custom moulded carbon/kevlar fuel tank to the one-off hand-made stainless steel exhaust system.
We’ve been chatting with Walt and he agreed to give us an exclusive look inside his workshop, so we can all see the process of taking a Ducati 900SS and turning into the finished motorcycle you see above and below.
Scroll down and click any image to see the larger version, there are brief descriptions under each image. For more from Walt Siegl visit his website here.
This is the bike’s lightweight, hand-fabricated chromoly steel frame before paint.
Finishing up the exhaust.
Fitting the subtle rear indicators.
Fitting the frame to the engine block.
Slowly assembling the hand built elements of the bike.
Creating the mould for the carbon/kevlar fuel tank.
The final mould ready for carbon fibre and the oven.
Checking the moulds against the frame.
The foam mould for the battery covers.
Apparently there’s a motorcycle frame somewhere in this picture.
Fitting the finished (unpainted) fuel tank. That exposed carbon is beautiful.
Checking the fit of the different elements of the bike.
One of the best looking fuel tanks I’ve seen since the Norton Manx.
Selecting paint colours for the tank.
Walt hard at work on the bench.
Walt fitting the Triumph forks to the front of the Riviera.
Finalising the tank.
Mechanical art.
Final fitting and assembly.
The bike’s final colour scheme comes together.
The finished motorcycle.
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
