Many feel that BMW boxer customization has become a tedious paint-by-numbers affair. It’s a fair argument—after all, most BMW R-series customs follow the same formula so closely, that you’re probably already picturing them in your head.
This thought weighed heavily on Takashi Nihira when a customer specifically requested a BMW R-series build, but also stipulated that it should be interesting enough to command attention at the prestigious Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show. Working with a 1990 BMW R100RS, the man behind Tokyo’s Wedge Motorcycle resolved to create a machine that would rise above the current trends. And without any further requests from his client, he was free to execute his vision however he saw fit.
Nihira-san’s plan was to build a svelte café racer with custom bodywork that would flow cohesively from front to back. But rather than create a traditional fly-line along the bottom of the tank and tail, he aimed to connect the front to the back by way of a tapered ridge running along the side of each part. Or, as he calls it, a “character line.”
“When I beat out steel and aluminum sheet metal to build fuel tanks and bodywork, I tend to use rounded shapes, because they’re easy to build,” he explains. “It’s very difficult to create an edgy character line on parts made from beaten steel. But this time, I wanted to take on that challenge.”
Hearing Takashi’s words and examining his work, it’s easy to connect the dots. The handmade fuel tank and tail section are not only impossibly slim, but their shapes and myriad edges echo each other beautifully. The aforementioned ridge line ties the whole thing together, accentuated by a tasteful silver stripe.
Takashi has drawn another parallel line lower down, by fabricating a new aluminum cover for the top of the engine. “The only engine that can be utilized as part of the design is the air-cooled BMW flat twin engine, where the upper engine cover can be modified,” he explains. “By adding this design element to the motor, I was able to give it a near-future power source feel—like an electric motor.”
The overall design of the new bodywork and engine cover also led Takashi down an unexpected path. His normal process is to sketch a rough draft of the bike he’s building, and then to test his concept by shaping the proposed design out of styrofoam blocks that are placed onto the bike’s naked frame. Those styrofoam sculptures don’t act as molds though—they’re just used to prototype whatever ideas Takashi has brewing.
Once he starts shaping the final pieces out of metal though, the proportions inevitably change as the design morphs into a real motorcycle. As that happened on this build, Takashi soon realized that the BMW R100’s offset mono-shock rear suspension was going to clash with his clean design.
“Considering this bike from a design perspective alone,” he adds, “I would have preferred it without rear suspension, but that wasn’t an option. So I was very worried about where to transplant the rear shock. As I thought about it more and more, I decided that I wanted to hide it—and then I thought, why not put it in or under the fuel tank?”
After considering (and eliminating) several options, Takashi settled on mounting the shock ‘inside’ the fuel tank, just to the right of the frame’s main backbone. A cutout on the side of the tank shows off the Öhlins shock—but what it doesn’t show, is the linkage mechanism that makes it all work.
To complicate matters further, Takashi redesigned the BMW R100’s subframe and swingarm so that the shock pivot now sits on the left of the bike. Forces are transferred through a vertical strut, across a horizontal linkage to the opposite side of the bike, and then to the final linkage and shock that sits up front.
It’s a complex solution to a problem that many would consider nonexistent—but the result is a bike that appears rigid from one side, only revealing its suspension when you examine it from all angles. And it looks damn cool, too.
This sort of mechanical elegance is scattered all over this build. The subframe support is a single tube setup, with an LED taillight mounted just below the tail cowl. Takashi has also liberated the chassis of its passenger peg mounts, along with any superfluous tabs.
There’s a similar vibe up front, where a custom-made cross member, mounted between the yokes, plays host to an LED headlight and a set of bespoke handlebars. Vintage bicycles provided loose inspiration from the bars, which are intentionally low-slung so as not to mess with the bike’s profile too much. The front forks are stock, but they’ve been lowered a touch, and the only piece of visible tech in the cockpit is a small Motogadget speedo.
The bike rolls on 18” cross-spoke tubeless BMW wheels, transplanted from a BMW R100R. Mounting the R rear wheel to the RS swingarm resulted in an offset that Takashi couldn’t abide, so he narrowed the hub and modified the spokes to get it perfect. The front brake was upgraded with a Beringer caliper and a Kustom Tech master cylinder.
Maximum simplicity was always the goal of this project—and Takashi went to great lengths to achieve it. The fuel lines and the few wires that there are all run through the engine casing to their final destinations, and the front brake master cylinder is hidden underneath the fuel tank. He even went so far as to modify the BMW’s oil pan, so that its bottom edge would run parallel to the fuel tank.
The engine now sports a pair of Keihin FCR carbs with velocity stacks, wrinkle black paint on the cylinder head covers, and a custom-made stainless steel exhaust system that sashays its way into a luscious pair of reverse cone mufflers.
The paint job is worthy of attention too—especially since Takashi does all his own painting. It appears to be a simple metallic blue in these photos, but he tells us that the effect only truly comes to life when seen with the naked eye. “I mixed light blue with gold pearl,” he explains, “so that, depending on the angle of view and the intensity of the light, it looks either greenish or golden.”
“When considering a new design, there is a process of adding new details. It’s very easy—all you have to do is fill it with new things. But then it’s difficult to create a sense of unity in the design.”
“On the other hand, it’s very difficult to create a simple, yet new, design. Simple design means that, at first glance, there isn’t much information to take in. And the newness you experience creates a sort of discomfort, I guess. Things we’ve never seen before feel strange, because we’re unfamiliar with them.”
“I believe that this discomfort and newness must exist within natural lines and shapes. That’s why the surfaces that make up a bike’s exterior are very important. And that’s why I used a different method to create the character lines of this bike and then structured the other details around them.”
“A different approach equals a sense of discomfort—and challenging this was the theme of this project.”
Wedge Motorcycle | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Hiromitsu Yasui
