Motorcycle Modification

Wrenchmonkees I’ve always liked the Yamaha XJR1300. It’s an uncomplicated bruiser of a bike, an unassuming retro-style naked powered by a air-cooled motor with a lineage over a quarter of a century long. Yamaha knows that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it. But the XJR1300 is also ripe for a makeover, so the Japanese factory called in the Wrenchmonkees. The result is MonkeeFist, the first in a series of “Yard Built Specials” commissioned by Yamaha from leading custom builders. A year ago, the Wrenchmonkees watched Yamaha’s “Hyper Modified” custom VMAX project with interest. “Generally we work on older bikes and have modified Yamaha SR500s and XS650s,” says Per Nielsen. “Working on a new bike raises its own unique set of challenges: The number of sensors, wires and emission controlling devices makes customizing very tricky. And when you take off a panel you need to relocate things such as cables and electrical items—it is very complicated.” With the XJR1300,...

Clean Café Racer and Street Tracker Richard Pollock knows a thing or two about street trackers. Doing business as Mule Motorcycles out of a converted two-car garage in suburban San Diego, he’s built about 100 trackers to date, and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, now that his full-time job as an aerospace fabricator has morphed into part-time consultancy, he has more time than ever to devote to two-wheelers, including doing R&D and prototyping for Streetmaster, a small Southern California speed house for new Triumph Bonnevilles. Pollock’s bread and butter, though, are specials based on two powerplants: Harley-Davidson’s Evo Sportster V-twin and Yamaha’s venerable XS650, the so-called “Japanese Bonneville” and about as good an air-cooled parallel-twin as anybody has ever made. Mule’s latest build is an XS650 with a difference. Strictly speaking it’s not a street-tracker; there are touches of café-racer mixed in. Let’s call it, then, a “café-tracker.” ...

This is one of those motorcycles that’s going to make it onto websites that don’t normally feature motorcycles. It’s exotic and terrifyingly quick, and it’ll cost as much as the GDP of a small African nation. It’s called the ‘Millona 16’ and it’s the latest road missile from NCR the wraps came off just a few hours ago at the Misano racetrack, at the World Ducati Week event.    Ducati NCR M16  NCR takes a $72,500 Desmosedici D16RR straight off the factory floor, transports it round the corner to its neighboring Bologna factory, and makes it lighter and more powerful and a lot faster.     It’s easy to see where the money goes: carbon fiber is everywhere on the M16, and that includes load-bearing parts such as the frame, swingarm and wheels. The fuel tank, fairing, tail and fenders are carbon too. Mechanical parts are either titanium, right down to the bolts, or ‘avionic grade’ aluminum.  A stock 989cc V-f...

Custom The Yamaha XJ600 flies under the radar in the motorcycling world. Released in 1984, it’s often dismissed as yet another Universal Japanese Motorcycle. But this machine was the first 600cc inline four—making it the granddaddy of today’s 600 super-sports. And it had mono shock rear suspension, which was advanced technology 28 years ago. Today, you don’t see many custom XJ600s. Probably because most of them have rusted away. But the small custom workshop Pimmel & Messer, from Schœneck in north-eastern France, has revealed how good the XJ600 can look with a few well-chosen mods. “When we found it, it’d been in a garage for about six years,” says P&M’s Nick Suhr. “The last owner wasn’t interested in it, and the bike was covered with dirt. So we decided to save it.” Pimmel & Messer tore the bike down for a complete rebuild, with every worn or broken part replaced. They swapped the stock tank for a 1978 Suzuki GS400 item, and the he...