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Aprilia SVX by Simone Conti Motorcycles

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In our mind, the Aprilia SXV 550 (and its smaller sibling, the Aprilia SXV 450) is one of the most impressive motorcycles made in modern time…with one caveat.

The 77° v-twin SXV made headlines with its impressive power figures (70hp for the 550cc version), as well as its tendency to blow itself apart.

A true race bike with lights, the SXV line was a bit of a disaster for Aprilia, in terms of customer reliability, and unfortunately that made the limited number of supermoto and dirt bikes produced by Noale very short-lived with their owners.

So, it warms our heart whenever we see the SXV engine used for other projects, if for no other reason than it makes us wonder what could have been.

Take for example this sport bike custom from Simone Conti Motorcycles, which turns the SXV into something that is quite far from the original design intent.

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Bikes

Check Out This Ducati Panigale V4 Tribute Bike for Nicky Hayden

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The retirement of Nicky Hayden’s racing number at the Grand Prix of the Americas wasn’t the only tribute being done for America’s beloved motorcycle racer. This is because on stage at Ducati Island, a special tribute bike was unveiled  that remembers the Italian brand’s history with the Kentucky Kid,

The special Ducati Panigale V4 is the work of the folks at MotoCorsa, and it imagines what Nicky’s Ducati MotoGP race bike would look like in street bike form.

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News

1,800cc BMW Cruiser Confirmed for 2020 Model Year

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One of the highlights at the Handbuilt Show in Austin, Texas was the a custom bike built by hosts Revival Cycles, which is called the Birdcage. You may have seen the Revival Birdcage making the rounds on custom sites. It is quite striking.

The bike features a large air-cooled boxer-twin engine (more on that in minute), with a web of titanium rods welded together to make the frame and basic body outline. It is a very minimalist approach, and it is designed to showcase the giant 1,800cc engine that is at the bike’s core. There is a good reason for that too.

The purpose of the Revival Birdcage is to help tease a new motorcycle model from BMW Motorrad, which will use this giant push-rod powered lump as the basis for a proper cruiser motorcycle, which will debut in 2020.

This little tidbit at the end has seemingly been missed by many, but it is a big, big deal – both literally and figuratively.

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Bikes

This Zero FX Custom Supermoto by Huge Design Is Damn Tasty

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When it comes to attractive motorbikes, we have devoted some critical pixels towards the folks at Zero Motorcycles. Let’s be frank, the design side of the equation hasn’t historically been the brand’s strong suit. The company is making progress, however.

Now, when it comes to custom motorcycles, there has been a quiet resistance to using electric models as starting points for creation, though occasionally we see an electron-powered machine at a bike show that captures our attention.

Today though, we see the happy merger of those two thoughts, with this Zero FX custom supermoto by Huge Design, which debuted this weekend at the The One Motorcycle Show in Portland, Oregon, and was easily our favorite bike at the show. 

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Bikes

Come Drool Over the PANTAH by XTR Pepo

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I don’t rate the Ducati Monster 821 as a particularly strong motorcycle for the track, but after seeing the latest creation from XTR Pepo, I might rethink that opinion.

The Spanish builder calls this creation “PANTAH” which is an homage to the Ducati Pantah whose form it attempts to replicate.
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Of course though, the styling has that obvious look that Pepo has honed over the years, especially with his Ducati builds, and the effect looks like something that would be perfectly comfortable at a weekday bike night, as it would a weekend track day.

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Bikes

V4 Penta by Officine GP Design

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We have got Ducati streetfighters on the brain, ever since we saw the entry list for the 2019 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which has record-setter Carlin Dunne entered mysteriously into the exhibition class with an unnamed Ducati motorcycle.

We are speculating that such a machine will be a stripped down Ducati Panigale V4 R, or an early Ducati Streetfigther V4 prototype, which should make for an exciting debut at the “Race to the Clouds” event.

While we expect the Streetfighter V4 to debut later this year, likely at the EICMA show in November, we do have an example of such a machine to drool over, thanks to the folks at Officine GP Design.

Building their “V4 Penta” motorcycle, the Italian outfit has created what many have been waiting for: a stripped down version of the Ducati Panigale V4 superbike.

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Bikes

BMW Teases an 1,800cc Air-Cooled Boxer Engine Design

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BMW Motorrad is very quietly teasing a new motorcycle platform, one that is centered around an 1,800cc boxer design.

BMW teased this new engine in a unique way, having Yuichi Yoshizawa and Yoshikazu Ueda of Custom Works Zon build a show bike around the boxer-twin, which we are showing here in the story.

With its vintage style, it is easy to disregard the prototype engine from BMW as being something from the German company’s past, and perhaps that is the point. The engine uses a push-rod design, and its cooling fins tip-off its air/oil-cooling mechanism.

Specifics  beyond this are non-existent, however, with BMW Motorrad simply saying that “further details about the engine and its possible future use will be communicated at a later point in time.”

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Bikes

The Harley-Davidson “Custom” Is the First Cruiser We Like

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In case you missed the new, Harley-Davidson dropped a number of new model concepts on us today, all which are to go into production by the 2022 model year. We have already shown you the ADV concept, as well as the Streetfighter concept.

There are a bevy of electric bikes to see as well, along with an e-bike program, but right now we want to focus your attention on the Harley-Davidson Custom, a modern take on the Sportster platform. It might be the first cruiser that we have actually lusted over.

For the loyal Asphalt & Rubber readers on this page, that statement should certainly say something about how much we are digging this potent v-twin concept.

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Event

At the 10th Annual Quail Motorcycle Gathering

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Ten years of doing anything is typically a reason to celebrate. Whether it’s ten years of marriage, a birthday, or the tenth year of a company being in business, ten years is a seminal anniversary.

Recently, the Quail Motorcycle Gathering celebrated its 10th anniversary in Carmel, California. Over 3,000 attendees had the opportunity to ogle over 350 amazing motorcycles from many different genres.

Unlike last year, there was no need for beanies or puffy jackets, as the weather was significantly warmer and the crowd was a lot more comfortable.

And though this was the 10th anniversary of the event, there wasn’t a lot of fanfare around the milestone. But maybe that’s what makes the Quail special. Amazing, while remaining low-keyed. Dazzling, without making a spectacle of itself. In a word, elegant.

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Event

At the 5th Annual Handbuilt Motorcycle Show

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What do you do to celebrate five years of one of the most successful custom motorcycle shows in the country? Well, you move into a new, bigger venue with about 4 weeks’ notice. At least that’s what you do if you’re the leaders of the Handbuilt Show in Austin, Texas.

This year’s show was held in the Austin American-Statesman building, and offered a significantly larger venue than the previous location in the Austin Fair Market.

Stefan Hertel, one of the co-founders of Revival Cycles, who put on the Handbuilt, graciously took a moment out of his day to discuss the new venue.

When I spoke with Stefan at last year’s show, I asked if he had ever considered a bigger venue, and he mentioned that they were looking at larger alternatives.

As it turns out, up until about a month before this year’s show, the team at Revival was planning on being at the Fair Market again, but in one of those serendipitous moments, the Handbuilt Team found the Austin American-Statesman building.

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