A classic Triumph flat tracker from the race director of the Wheels & Waves festival, a Virago influenced by 90s Japanese import culture, and the latest oddity from Lazareth.
Ducati Monster S4 by Barn Built Bikes Whether you leave them stock, sprinkle them with aftermarket parts or really got to town on them, old Ducati Monsters are cool. This 2002 Monster S4 used to fall into the second category; loaded up with bolt-ons, but without any serious fabrication work done. So the crew at Barn Built Bikes in Belgium decided to take it up a level.
Most of the parts that the previous owner had added on came off again, and got sold to fund the rest of the build. The first major undertaking was reworking the fuel tank. Shop boss, Sven, didn’t like the way the OEM unit dipped low at the back—so he cut away the bits he didn’t like, then welded it shut again.
The tank now cuts a cleaner line into the custom-made saddle, and also exposes more of the Ducati’s L-twin motor. The seat sits on a hand-made subframe, that was deliberately designed with sharp angles, to mimic the Monster’s trellis front frame. There’s a new electronics tray under the seat too, packed with a Motogadget m.unit controller.
Up in the cockpit, Barn Built swapped the bars for a set of Gilles Tooling clip-ons, with Magura controls and Motogadget switches, bar-end turn signals and mirrors. The speedo’s a Motogadget part too, and the headlight’s a LED unit.
Finishing this Monster off are a set of Alpina spoked wheels, Rizoma belt covers and a ‘rich java’ brown hue borrowed from Volvo’s swatch book. [More]
Triumph TR6 by Christophe Canitrot M. Canitrot really has a thing for racing old bikes—so much so, that he’s the race director for the popular Wheels & Waves festival, held in Biarritz each year. After two years of racing his first flat track build, a Triumph 500 Daytona with a stock frame, he decided it was time for an upgrade. This Staracer-framed TR6 is the result.
But this project was a struggle from the get-go. Christophe had managed to find a Staracer frame in France, but it took almost two years of negotiating to wrangle it from its owner. Then he had to find a new motor, since the frame was designed for a 650, and not the 500 in his Daytona. Luckily, he found a 1967 TR6R in the US.
A set of Ceriani GP 38 reproduction forks formed the next piece of the puzzle, but they ended up sitting in Christophe’s living room for a year, while he sourced the rest of the parts he needed. Meanwhile, the motor went off to Philippe Fabre (a mechanic Christophe trusts), who returned it with an extra 100 cc and a bunch of race-spec internals.
It runs with a set of Mikuni carbs and K&N filters, and a custom exhaust.
Eventually everything started coming together, and spectacularly so. New rims, a perfectly-tuned cockpit and a classic seat and rear fender setup, and Christophe’s TR6 was starting to look like a pukka vintage racer. As for that stylish yellow paint job, that’s a nod to the BSA B50 MX that he sold a year earlier, and still misses. [More]
Yamaha Virago 750 by WKND Digital x de stijl moto We took a very brief glance at this fresh Virago custom in our One Moto Show report last week. But now more details of the build have surfaced, and we couldn’t resist taking a more comprehensive look at it.
The bike was built by Sean Hogan at Portland’s de stijl moto, for his long time friend Tommy Patterson at WKND Digital. The two grew up skateboarding in California together, and later street racing home-built Honda (cars). So the build drew heavy inspiration from 90s Japanese import culture—hence the Toyo logos on the tires, and the Recaro logo on the seat.
There’s a ton of handcrafted goodness tying the Virago together. The trellis swing arm is custom, designed to accommodate the wider rear wheel from the second-gen Virago. It’s hooked up to a Yamaha R6 shock, and there’s a set of R1 forks up front, with a Cognito Moto top yoke.
The rear subframe is naturally custom too, as are the rear-set mounts and battery box. The bike was rewired around a Motogadget controller, with a Lithium-ion battery, and a couple of components from Revival Cycles. Most of the wiring runs through the actual frame.
Sean also rebuilt the motor, and hooked up a single carb intake manifold from Virago Performance, with a Mikuni TM40 carb. The exhaust system consists of pie-cut headers, that exit via two under-seat carbon fiber mufflers. It’s undeniably one of the sharpest Virago customs out, and a reminder that there’s still life left in Yamaha’s venerable V-twin. [More]
The Lazareth LM 410 Leaning Quad We’ve come to expect borderline ridiculous designs from Ludovic Lazareth, and his new LM 410 doesn’t disappoint. Lazareth hasn’t released full technical details of this other-worldly machine yet, but here’s what we know so far…
The LM 410 has four wheels, it’s powered by a 998 cc Yamaha R1 motor, and it looks absolutely bonkers. It’s also going to be produced in very limited numbers (only ten), and will set you back €100,000 (that’s around $108,470).
The design is pretty close to a previous concept from Lazareth—the Maserati V8-powered LM 847, which debuted at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show. But that version proved to hard to make properly road legal, so Lazareth’s toned it down to build the LM 410. He says the new version is now lighter and more manageable, but it still looks like a handful to us.
Like the 847, the 410 uses a tilting mechanism that allows the wheels to maintain full contact with the road, even on an incline. It’s over-the-top for sure, but it’s also really fascinating, and something we’d love to experience at least once. [More]
