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At the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show

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Located on 5th Street in downtown Austin, the Fair Market is a nondescript, 16,000 foot event center. But once a year, as it has for the last four years, the Fair Market is transformed into the home of the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show.

This magical metamorphosis turns a simple, industrial looking building into a playground for motorcyclists and motorcycles of all varieties.

Local builder, Revival Cycles, started the Handbuilt back in 2014. Alan Stulberg and Stefan Hertel are the co-founders of the show, and they have grown this event into one of the premier custom motorcycle shows in the United States.

Held during the same weekend as MotoGP, the Handbuilt takes advantage of the large crowd of motorcyclists that descend on Austin for the weekend of world-class racing.

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Bikes

Fuller Moto’s Custom Motus MSTR Streetfighter

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The Motus MSTR is a burly beast of a bike. The American-made sport-tourer comes with ergonomics designed to eat up miles of riding, and its 1,650cc V4 engine helps make passing those miles a quite the spirited event.

We have always wondered what the Motous MSTR would be like as a streefighter though – sans the production bike’s sweeping fairings, and with a bit more ‘Merica in its attitude. Now we have a glimpse of that, with Fuller Moto giving the Motus MSTR some customizing love.

If you are a fan of Fuller Moto, then you should find his design on the MSTR both visually appealing and strikingly familiar. The color accents (red, white, and blue…obviously) start with the MSTR’s stock red-painted heads, though don’t stop there.

Just in case there was any question about the Motus / Fuller Moto collaboration being all show and no go, the bike puts some impressive 155+ horsepower figures down to the dyno drum, in the attached video.

If you happen to be in Austin for the MotoGP round, you can catch this Motus down at the Handbuilt Motorcycle Show.

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Bikes

Yard Built Yamaha XSR700 “Double-Style” by Rough Crafts

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Yamaha is continuing with its “Yard Built” custom motorcycle efforts for 2017, and the first bike of the year is actually two machines in one, from Tawaineese custom house Rough Crafts – the same builder of the very tasty MV Agusta “Ballistic Trident”.

Shown above is the road going “Corsa Scorcher” model, which takes the XSR700 heritage street bike model from Yamaha and turns it into a café racer.

Winston Yeh of Rough Crafts also has a “Soil Scorpion” scrambler model based off the XSR700, which can be created from the cafe racer by transforming the bike with swappable parts, in about an hour’s worth of time.

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Bikes

CCM Teases 600cc Single-Cylinder “Spitfire”

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Clews Competition Machines is probably not one of the most well-known brands in the USA, though the British marque has a solid niche following around the world.

So, we should explain that CCM is best known for its single-cylinder four-stroke motorcycles, namely dirt bikes, though a number of interesting supermoto models wear the company’s monogram as well.

Right now, CCM is focused on selling its GP450 Adventure model, which takes a repurposed Husqvarna 449 engine, and wraps it in an aluminum chassis that’s built with long-distance ADV riding in mind.

CCM is looking to get back into road bikes though, and has begun teasing a new model. Named the Spitfire, this street bike has a 600cc thumper at its core and a chassis that is a lot more “roadster” than what we have previously seen from this rebellious band of Brits.

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Bikes

Walt Siegl’s Dakar Inspired Ducati Hypermotard

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This Dakar Rally inspired Ducati Hypermotard is the latest creation from Walt Siegl Motorcycles, and it comes with some very appropriate timing.

Not only are we full-swing into the 2017 Dakar Rally, but this 1980s-styled Ducati comes during a week where we have been talking about my not-so-secret love affair with the Ducati Hypermotard.

Again, we see the air-cooled version of this street-going supermoto being used as a platform for a unique work, though this time Walt Siegl has been commissioned to make a bike that rolled right off the sand dunes of Africa.

The exercise centers around mostly the restyling of the bodywork, to give us a little nostalgia for when the Dakar Rally was actually held in its namesake in Northern Africa.

More importantly though, we can see the continuation of the trend, where designers draw upon the awkward time period that is the 1980s. The mash-up of modern machine with a style from 30+ years ago is certainly captivating. We think you will enjoy it. 

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Bikes

Vtopia Hypermotard by Vtopia Design

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What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good Hypermotard. So, when I saw this inaugural work from Vtopia Design, I was hooked.

Vtopia Design is the business name for Giorgio Cerrato, a 26-year-old designer from Italy. Vtopia has built his creation off the air-cooled generation of the street-going supermoto, creating something that brings the design more into a modern street-tracker aesthetic.

The Vtopia Hypermotard get this from the angular bodywork, which has an interesting geometric quality to it; along with the modified subframe, which cleans up the tail for the machine (for a lack of an undertail exhaust) and helps make for a flatter seat, like you would see on a proper tracker.

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Bikes

Get Ready for the Return of the 1980s to Motorcycles

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Mark my words, the next big trend in the custom motorcycle scene is going to be a revival of the 1980s. I am not sure why anyone would want to remember this awkward time in our species’ history, but when it comes to motorcycles, there is quaint intersection of modern and retro that resides in this forgotten decade.

We have already seen a prelude to this from a number of custom builds, bikes like Walt Siegl’s Bol d’Or line or Praëm BMW S1000RR showing us the happy marriage of a modern sport bike platform wrapped up in the 1970s. Here, we see the thought taken to its next logical progression.

If I am being real honest, there is just something pleasing about the 1980s aesthetic, especially when its mashed together with modern chassis and engine design. Don’t take my word for it though, dust off your Air Force 1’s and check out these renders from the folks over at Speedjunkies.

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Bikes

MV Agusta “Ballistic Trident” by Rough Crafts

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Recently, we have seen some really interesting motorcycles come out from the custom sport bike scene that surprisingly use MV Agusta’s three-cylinder platform.

Catching our fancy have been bikes like Walt Siegl’s “Bol D’Or” line, which blends old and new together masterfully; or bikes like Deus Ex Machina’s “AgoTT”, which takes on a completely different form of mixing retro and modern.

Today, we add another name to the list, as we bring you Rough Crafts’ “Ballistic Trident”, which is based off the MV Agusta Brutale 800 RR, and gives a nod to the race bike of yore that wore the Varese brand’s logo.

Working out of Taiwan, Rough Crafts plays to our weakness for dustbin fairings, giving a sort of half-shell dustbin fairing to the Ballistic Trident. We’re smitten.

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Vanguard Roadster Set to Debut IMS New York

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Say “hello” to the very attractive Vanguard Roadster, which is hitting the interwebs ahead of its official debut at the IMS New York show. Based out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City, Vanguard Motorcycles was founded by Edward Jacobs and Francois-Xavier Terny.

If the Vanguard Roadster design reminds you of something from Confederate Motorcycles, that’s no accident. The two machines share the S&S X-Wedge v-twin engine platform, but more importantly Jacobs was a former designer for Confederate, while Terny brings his business acumen to the startup.

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BMW G310R Street Tracker by Wedge Motorcycles

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A few months ago, this pocket-sized street tracker caught my attention on Facebook. It was based off the BMW G310R street bike platform, that much I could tell, but I couldn’t find anymore information on the machine.

A few more weeks of this lonesome photo sitting in my ‘to do” box, and it finally moved on to the place where all good stories go to die.

So, imagine my surprise when our friends at BMW Motorrad Japan sent me the following photos, which depict a new custom bike they commissioned from Takashi Nihira, at Tokyo’s Wedge Motorcycles.

It is the same bike I saw months earlier, but now we know who to thank for its creation, as well as a little bit more about its build. Its is quite impressive, for an unassuming “little” street tracker, don’t you think?

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Ariel Ace R Set to Debut, Only 10 Will Be Made

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Remember the Ariel Ace? The VFR1200F-powered street bike from the revived British brand? The attractive street bike is about to get an even sportier sibling (sketched above), as the Ariel Ace R is set to debut at the NEC Motorcycle Live show, this November.

Unless you are well-coined, the NEC show might be your only chance to see an Ariel Ace R in the flesh, as the Brits plan on making only 10 examples of this R-spec machine.

Details are light at the moment, but Ariel does day that the Ace R will have a unique color scheme, and of course there will be better performance pieces and more power from the limited edition motorcycle.

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