You’re more likely to spot an exotic sports car in Dubai than a classic
custom motorcycle. Still, the bustling desert oasis hosts an eclectic
blend of people—and a blossoming custom scene.
It’s also the home of möto Dubai: a relatively young outfit that
recently took top honours in the recent Bikers Cafe build-off, with this
unconventional Royal Enfield.
möto came together when South African Antonie Robertson and German Marco
Möller connected over a Honda CB350, that the former had been working
on in his apartment.
“I remember Antonie showing up at my house early one day with the
frame,” says Marco, “and we set about cutting off the tabs and cleaning
the welds up in my front yard. I think it was a week day, and I ended up
being late for work. It was total fun.”
When Bikers Cafe Dubai
and Royal Enfield UAE donated three Royal Enfield Bullet 500s for a
build-off, the guys were invited to compete. At the same time, Marco and
fellow German Frank Ortmann were in the process of setting up ‘möto
space’ (a workshop and general moto-enthusiast hub), but it was far from
ready.
So, for three months, möto worked their day jobs and spent nights in a
dusty, half-finished workshop. “It was a tough stretch,” says Marco.
“Work the day job, wrench till late, sleep a couple of hours, rinse,
repeat!”
möto achieved a lot in those three months, reworking every aspect of the
Bullet from the ground up. The bike was stripped down and the frame
detabbed and redesigned. The backbone was extended, and an exquisite
subframe built that now houses a recessed tail light, number plate light
and turn signals.
The frame was also tweaked to take the new fuel tank—a “new old
stock” 70s Honda unit, sourced from the US. A panel was fabricated on
top of it to house a Motogadget Motoscope Mini speedo, along with the
“idiot lights.”
The guys also ditched the Enfield’s EFI system and installed a
Hitchcocks Motorcycles Amal carb conversion kit—allowing them to tidy up
the wiring significantly. The new TCI was tucked into a custom-made
housing between the swingarm and engine, and the battery moved to a new
hand-made battery box. The stock, bulky ignition switch was retained
though—just to keep the original Enfield-branded key in use.
The engine’s exterior received a significant refresh too, with the
fins being hand filed to a perfect edge, painted and polished again. The
unsightly starter motor was hidden behind a hand-shaped cover, before
Marco spent the better part of sixty hours engraving various bits. A
stunning, stainless-steel exhaust was welded up to top it off.
A Royal Enfield Electra front-end was fitted to give the bike a more
scrambler feel, while keeping things brand-focussed. It’s matched to a
set of new rear shocks from Dime City Cycles.
The wheels are new too: they’re a pair of 18” Excel rims, laced up with
stainless spokes by Buchanan’s in California and wrapped in Shinko
rubber. möto polished up the hubs before sending them over, then
polished the rims afterwards for a mixed, gloss-and-matte finish.
Up front, the original, boxy rear license plate mount was re-purposed
to house the headlight and front turn signals. The cockpit’s finished
off with refurbished Honda CB350 controls, internal wiring, Biltwell
grips and a Nissin master cylinder with a Goodridge braided brake line.
When it came to the last few parts, Marco and Antonie’s attention to
detail began bordering on obsessive. The rear wheel hugger is a
completely custom affair, the foot controls consist of off-road parts
welded to the stock mounts, and there’s even a hand-made bash guard,
mounted on extended engine mount brackets.
And if you look really closely, you’ll notice various bolts, caps and
bushes—each machined from either aluminum or stainless steel, and each
serving a specific purpose. The final piece of the puzzle is the one-off
seat—upholstered in locally-sourced camel leather.
It’s no surprise that möto took first place in the build-off, but
Antonie and Marco’s pride in their project runs deeper than just a
trophy. On the left hand side of the engine, the Royal Enfield now
carries the initials “NSK”—a tribute to Nelson Suresh Kumar.
“Nelson was the Godfather of the UAE Royal Enfield scene,” explains
Antonie, “and sadly passed away unexpectedly two years ago. He was a
close friend to the growing alternative motorcycling scene in Dubai, and
is widely missed by all who knew him.”
möto’s ‘NSK’ is fitting homage, and a worthy winner. Pat yourselves on the back, gentlemen.
Antonie and Marco would like to extend their thanks to the Dubai
community who supported them, particularly Djalal from Gecko Motorcycles
and Frank Ortman.
Follow möto Dubai on Facebook | Instagram | Photos by Antonie Robertson
First published on
bikeexif.com
As of late, Royal Enfield has been in the news for all the good
reasons. The Indian owned British-marque is grabbing the limelight and
chewing into newsprint for their massive expansion plans, and of course,
for their exciting launches up ahead. However, now we have got a hold
of a piece of news that speaks of an all-original 1A Interceptor bike
from the 1960’s.
To the uninitiated, the Interceptor was made by Royal Enfield from
1960 to 1970 and during that period they even tinkered with the
powerplant—kicking it up to a 750cc unit. The 1A Interceptor was
launched back in 1967 and is still a rare piece of classic bike
machinery to obtain. Those who succeed in finding one will always be
inclined to restore it to its previous glory.
READ MORE: Royal Enfield Now Sells More Bikes Than H-D | RideApart
So when Charlie Giordano, who owns Tailgunner Exhausts, found one
such 1A Interceptor in desperate need of some tender love and care,
everyone hoped to see the bike getting a thorough restoration job.
Well…it did get a new lease of life, but it wasn’t what everyone
expected to see. The result was mind-blowing.
Giordano chose to get a fresh sheet of paper and start from scratch
in terms of the styling. It did have to feature one of the finest of his
Gatling Gun-inspired rotating exhaust systems, which we think is the
one of the most ridiculously awesome things that can be retrofitted on
to a motorbike. It’s more like Pacific Rim – dumb, but rad!
READ MORE: 8 Signs You're a Biker N00B | RideApart
But the sheer lunacy of this 1A Interceptor doesn’t end with its
tailpipe that will surely make the cars behind you swerve off the lane.
Giordano has borrowed cues from England during that era where this bike
belonged once. Sample this: It has a wax-sealed “Boston” liniment bottle
attached to the fork leg—filled to the brim with “a sailor’s daily
ration of rum” per old Royal Navy Tradition.
The battery box is made from wood cigar boxes and embellished with
hand-hammered copper strips. It also has a pedestrian slicer on the
front number plate. This bike has café racer genes written all over
it—from the fender devoid wheels to the Manx-style fuel tank. And that
gorgeous tail section! All of it was crafted using old techniques with
the help of hand tools.
When asked about choosing to go all-out mental with this build
instead of doing a more composed restoration, Giordano said, “I felt
like a politician: No matter which way I vote, I’m going to displease
about half the constituency.”
We are the half that is very pleased.
Royal Enfield Bullet 500cc -Scrambler Rat-
To this we call ... The Tractor is a Royal Enfield 500 efi , this engine
has a feeling ... a tractor! low rpm torque ... feels awesome can tow a
house! therefore needed better wheels, aluminum wheels , a front
suspension WP inverted a KTM 450, Progressive rear suspension , exhaust
tailored departing Royal star , aluminum tank XT 500, and of course,
relocating the pump gasoline into a secondary tank .. new front fender
subframe ... handmade gingerbread ... all to keep a look Scrambler / MX /
Rat ... so there is a Rat fink hand illustrated on one side of the
tank! and ... well ... another endless details that complement this
construction.
For most pro builders, personal projects usually draw the short
straw—relegated to the back of the shop by a steady stream of client
work. Just like the “rusted out junk pile” that Californian Chris
Chappell picked up a few years ago.
It’s a Royal Enfield Bullet 350, and it did a stint in Chappell Customs‘
front lobby before Chris finally tore into it. But when he did, it was a
project free of deadlines, briefs or budgets. “The original plan was to
build a radical bobber,” he says. “But with the little 350cc engine, it
made more sense to keep it as an upright, fun-to-ride city bike.”
The actual model year of this Enfield is a mystery: the original number
plate indicated 1955, but no paperwork was filed prior to 1973. “The VIN
numbers on old Enfields really don’t mean much, and there are no good
records we can find to verify the year,” says Chris. So, to get the bike
on the road, he went with 1973.
Given its age and the state it was in, the Enfield 350 needed a full,
bare-bones strip down. Which started with a total rebuild of the engine
using all-new, original Royal Enfield parts. A completely new top-end
sorted out poor compression—”A combo of a bad cylinder and even worse
valves,” Chris reports.
Every nut and bolt on the Enfield was replaced, along with a host of
other parts—except for the fuel tank, fenders and toolboxes, which Chris
opted to keep. He blasted off the old paint and powder coated them in a
creamy Oyster white, along with the frame. (“I left a few small dings
here and there.”) Once the powder coating was done, green accents were
added and the parts clear coated.
The bike is now roughly five or six inches longer than a stock Bullet
350. “We relocated the rear swingarm, from its original position to what
used to be the passenger footpeg area. Our friends at Works Performance
made us a custom stainless swingarm bolt with tapered aluminum spacers,
to fit the funky taper of the rear foot peg holes.”
Works also supplied a set of longer, dual-rate aluminum shocks to
help the Enfield negotiate urban potholes. The rear fender struts were
lengthened to fit the new geometry of the rear end.
With the major work out of the way, Chris started poring over the
smaller details: a handmade seat, grips and saddle bags in a rich
leather with a cream stitch. “Seemed only fitting for a classy look to
accent the cream and green color scheme,” he says. “I made the saddle
bags myself … that was a first!”
The seat mount is a hand-made part too; Chris CNC-routed a Royal
Enfield logo into the aluminum, before mounting the seat on 3” springs.
The CNC router was also put to work on the bespoke front number plate
and fork badge. All the aluminum bits were then meticulously polished,
“to bring back the original luster that was buried under years of
oxidization and corrosion.”
The Enfield was then re-wired with updated components—including a
smaller regulator and rectifier unit, and a new coil. Chris installed
new gauges, lights and a set of “M” bars—with adjustable steering stops
to prevent them from connecting with the tank.
Despite the extensive mods, the little 350 is still not quite
the perfect ride. “The drum brakes are poor, the right-side shift is
odd, and you feel like you’re wide open on the throttle most of the
time.”
“But regardless of its lack of power, you somehow feel like you’ve
gone back in time. And it’s just fun as hell to ride around. The long,
baffled muffler and the sound of the single cylinder thumping along
always makes you smile!”
Chappell Customs website | Facebook
The post Royal Enfield 350: the bike that time forgot appeared first on Bike EXIF.
Written by Ian Lee.
Royal Enfield motorcycles make a great platform for building custom
bikes. Old school Brit styling, reliable single cylinder engines and
factory spoke wheels. This is exactly what New Delhi based Bull City
have done with their latest build, putting their skills to work on a
Royal Enfield AVL 350cc, and producing something far removed from
your everyday Enfield. With a build brief calling for an “old school
thumper”, the Bull City workshop decided the idea has been done alot,
and needs some special touches in order to stand out. That is why there
is a rhino-skin inspired paintjob on the tank for instance – which I’m
pretty sure is a first for Pipeburn.
Stripping the mid sized thumper back to basics, the clunky factory
fenders were replaced with shorter ones, and the frame shaved of all
superfluous bracketry. The toolbox is gone, replaced with a leather
carrier bag mounted above the shorty pipewrapped exhaust. New framework
has been mounted on the bike, and the battery box is sheet metal unit
fabricated up by Bull City themselves.
At the front end sits a set of custom built T riser bars, adorned
with a unique headlight surround enveloping the Yamaha RX100 headlight.
The handlebars are Proracer items, mounted up with aluminised grips.
Rolling stock is made up of 18 inch rims, with 120 profile at the front
and 130 profile at the rear.
An impressive aspect of the build is the metal work carried out. The
22 litre fuel tank is a one off special, along with the ‘lightweight’
side plates. The foot pegs have been made from Royal Enfield engine
internals, adding to the overall metallic touch to the build. This is
matched with the fuel tank cap fashioned from a main shaft sprocket.
From the front to the back, there is little that hasn’t been
aesthetically touched up over the course of the build. With much of the
metal work coming from Bull city’s own workshop, this Royal Enfield is
definitely a fun looking ride. We’ll leave the last word to Bull city: ”
We wanted to build something you’d imagine riding across the Himalayan
foot hills and also something you could take out for a beer without a
second thought.” We’ll drink to that.
First appeared in http://www.pipeburn.com
Custom Royal Enfield Bullet | Sideburn
Based on a 2009 Royal Enfield Classic, only the frame and engine was
used custom made fuel tank, Paoli front fork, 19-inch wheels, Tractor
headlamp, Rear wing Indian Sport Scout, Rear 4-piston caliper
Performance Brake, Rigid Chassis by Lowbrow Customs, Custom Stainless steel Muffler, New battery
Bobbed Indian Sport Scout Leather saddle, replaced fuel injector with mikuni Carburetor. Custom Paint job.
Royal Enfield Performance Muffler.
First read on www.way2speed.com
Sideburnmag
After 50 years of production in India, Royal Enfield had worked hard to
update their range, first with a unit construction engine, then fuel
injection and after all that the only thing on Sideburn magazine’s mind
was making the 2009 Bullet Classic look like a mid-‘60s flat track
racer.
Only half the frame and the engine remains from the original bike
that was supplied to Sideburn by UK Royal Enfield specialists, Watsonian-Squire.
Lots of parts came from friends or we already had and were waiting for
the right bike to come along. The alloy tank was custom-made for a
friend’s dirt track race bike, but he was never happy with it, so we
bought it for a fraction of having one made. The Bimota YB9 triple
clamps and Paoli forks were £120 off eBay.
The wheels, Excel 19-inch rims with Honda CRF450 hubs and Maxxis
tires, were bought from a friend who was selling his dirt tracker. The
tractor headlight was a gift; so was the bobbed Indian Sport Scout rear
mudguard and the rear four-piston Performance Machine caliper.
The hardtail loop is by David Bird from Lowbrow Customs, but we had
Co-Built shorten the bottom rail to retain the stock wheelbase. Co-Built
also made the stainless exhaust.
CFM
of Lincolnshire, UK, did a great job of making all the very disparate
parts fit together, fabricating brackets, footrest hangers; finding used
Japanese master cylinders, switchgear and footpegs on the cheap;
repositioning the battery; making the rear fender struts; cutting down
the original twin seat and converting it to act as a sprung saddle.
Steve Adams then covered it with a panel of real stingray skin.
The biggest challenge was converting the ignition to work with the
Mikuni carb, rather than fuel injection. EFI is good, but we really
wanted a simple loom and no fuel pump for this bike. Rupe’s Rewires made
the loom.
When this bike was built there was no off-the-shelf kit to convert
the ignition from EFI, like there is now, but CFM worked it out. The
brake discs were special orders from Discacciati in Italy.
The final touch was the Ornamental Conifer paintwork on the blue base, one of the first customer bikes he painted.
The bike has competed in Sideburn’s Dirt Quake event twice, finishing on the podium in the Street Tracker class both times.
Photos by Paul Bryant Photography. The highly recommended Sideburn magazine lives online here.
The post Sideburn Royal Enfield Bullet appeared first on Bike EXIF.
möto came together when South African Antonie Robertson and German Marco
Möller connected over a Honda CB350, that the former had been working
on in his apartment.
“I remember Antonie showing up at my house early one day with the
frame,” says Marco, “and we set about cutting off the tabs and cleaning
the welds up in my front yard. I think it was a week day, and I ended up
being late for work. It was total fun.”
When Bikers Cafe Dubai
and Royal Enfield UAE donated three Royal Enfield Bullet 500s for a
build-off, the guys were invited to compete. At the same time, Marco and
fellow German Frank Ortmann were in the process of setting up ‘möto
space’ (a workshop and general moto-enthusiast hub), but it was far from
ready.
So, for three months, möto worked their day jobs and spent nights in a
dusty, half-finished workshop. “It was a tough stretch,” says Marco.
“Work the day job, wrench till late, sleep a couple of hours, rinse,
repeat!”
möto achieved a lot in those three months, reworking every aspect of the
Bullet from the ground up. The bike was stripped down and the frame
detabbed and redesigned. The backbone was extended, and an exquisite
subframe built that now houses a recessed tail light, number plate light
and turn signals.
The frame was also tweaked to take the new fuel tank—a “new old
stock” 70s Honda unit, sourced from the US. A panel was fabricated on
top of it to house a Motogadget Motoscope Mini speedo, along with the
“idiot lights.”
The guys also ditched the Enfield’s EFI system and installed a
Hitchcocks Motorcycles Amal carb conversion kit—allowing them to tidy up
the wiring significantly. The new TCI was tucked into a custom-made
housing between the swingarm and engine, and the battery moved to a new
hand-made battery box. The stock, bulky ignition switch was retained
though—just to keep the original Enfield-branded key in use.
The engine’s exterior received a significant refresh too, with the
fins being hand filed to a perfect edge, painted and polished again. The
unsightly starter motor was hidden behind a hand-shaped cover, before
Marco spent the better part of sixty hours engraving various bits. A
stunning, stainless-steel exhaust was welded up to top it off.
A Royal Enfield Electra front-end was fitted to give the bike a more
scrambler feel, while keeping things brand-focussed. It’s matched to a
set of new rear shocks from Dime City Cycles.
The wheels are new too: they’re a pair of 18” Excel rims, laced up with
stainless spokes by Buchanan’s in California and wrapped in Shinko
rubber. möto polished up the hubs before sending them over, then
polished the rims afterwards for a mixed, gloss-and-matte finish.
Up front, the original, boxy rear license plate mount was re-purposed
to house the headlight and front turn signals. The cockpit’s finished
off with refurbished Honda CB350 controls, internal wiring, Biltwell
grips and a Nissin master cylinder with a Goodridge braided brake line.
When it came to the last few parts, Marco and Antonie’s attention to
detail began bordering on obsessive. The rear wheel hugger is a
completely custom affair, the foot controls consist of off-road parts
welded to the stock mounts, and there’s even a hand-made bash guard,
mounted on extended engine mount brackets.
And if you look really closely, you’ll notice various bolts, caps and
bushes—each machined from either aluminum or stainless steel, and each
serving a specific purpose. The final piece of the puzzle is the one-off
seat—upholstered in locally-sourced camel leather.
It’s no surprise that möto took first place in the build-off, but
Antonie and Marco’s pride in their project runs deeper than just a
trophy. On the left hand side of the engine, the Royal Enfield now
carries the initials “NSK”—a tribute to Nelson Suresh Kumar.
“Nelson was the Godfather of the UAE Royal Enfield scene,” explains
Antonie, “and sadly passed away unexpectedly two years ago. He was a
close friend to the growing alternative motorcycling scene in Dubai, and
is widely missed by all who knew him.”
möto’s ‘NSK’ is fitting homage, and a worthy winner. Pat yourselves on the back, gentlemen.
Antonie and Marco would like to extend their thanks to the Dubai
community who supported them, particularly Djalal from Gecko Motorcycles
and Frank Ortman.
