The Yamaha RD 400 is a noisy, polluting, unreliable motorcycle. It’s also wonderful. I know that 2-strokes are frowned upon in the modern age of melting ice caps, vanishing glaciers, super-sized hurricanes and acid rain but if we put all of that aside for a moment, we all know that 2-strokes represent a high water mark on the amount of fun it’s possible to have on two wheels.
This RD 400 is a custom by the talented Danes at Wrenchmonkees, they have a knack for turning out urban-cafe-street-figher creations that look as though they should be used in a post-apocalypic Tarantino film. This bike is no different, they rebuilt the engine but kept the standard frame and stock swingarm, they lowered the stock front fork by 2 inches and added black fork-gaiters.
Performance oriented Bitubo rear springs were added, as was a DG exhaust system, they added steel braided brake hoses and a Brembo rear brake-master. That seat and rear cowling is all custom made and the head light is a Wrenchmonkees special.
The completed bike has the look of a small displacement bike that could very well embarrass some much larger, much more modern sport bikes. And we like it.
Click to visit The Wrenchmonkees.
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.
