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CCE Bagger Thunderbolt Is a Whole Lot of Name for a Custom Harley Street Glide

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The Harley-Davidson Street Glide is one of those bikes you should not mess with. Described by its maker as a stripped down version of a hot-rod bagger, the no-nonsense bike has been made with long trips in mind. But baggers have also been favorites of the custom industry. Either reshaped from stock motorcycles or made from scratch on a custom frame, custom baggers are a common sight on American roads. We’re not sure how many of them are in Europe, but you can count at least one, this one here. The work of a German shop that goes by the name Thunderbike, it takes a stock Harley Street Glide to whole new levels of cool. The build is based on 2017 Street Glide Special, still packing the original Milwaukee-Eight engine. But other than that everything about it is enhanced, including the name. Using custom parts made all over the world, Thunderbike kept the overall appearance of the motorcycle, but increased the size and reach of most of the hardware on the bike, from the front fender to the saddlebags at the rear. The fairing at the front, the fuel tank behind it, and the wheels – including the barely visible one at the rear – are of course custom, and contribute to giving the bike a retro-style look. Thunderbike, who has been in the business of engineering motorcycles for the past 25 years, is usually very good at naming its creations too. And even if the name of this one might seem a bit pompous, there’s a reason for that. The CCE in the name stands for Custom Chrome Europe, a parts wholesale company founded in 1986, while Thunderbolt is the creative side of the project. So, no matter how you call it – Thunderbike […]

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BMW Motorrad celebrates 40 years of BMW GS models

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from https://chennaivision.com A concept that changed the motorcycle world. A motorcycle concept that is as legendary as it is sophisticated will celebrate its anniversary in 2020: The BMW GS models are turning 40. In autumn 1980 BMW Motorrad presented the R 80 G/S, a motorcycle which combined two very special areas of riding for the first time: Off-road and on-road. Thanks to its unique combination of road, touring and off-road capability – without compromising on everyday use – the R 80 G/S became the conceptual forerunner of the new motorcycle category of touring enduros created by BMW Motorrad. And what is more: The BMW GS models became the perfect synonym for the perfect partner on two wheels to explore even the most remote corners of our planet. To date, BMW Motorrad has been able to hand over more than 1.2 million BMW GS models to customers. Legendary BMW GS talents: Riding dynamics, off-road mastery, comfort and robustness. But it wasn’t just motorcycle adventures that were ideally suited for the BMW GS right from the outset; the R 80 G/S and its descendants also quickly proved their qualities in racing. In 1981 Hubert Auriol rode to victory in the equally prestigious and challenging Paris – Dakar Rally. This is just one of the many motorsport successes that BMW Motorrad was able to celebrate with a GS. The outstanding talents of the boxer GS models – riding dynamics, off-road mastery, comfort and robustness – have been continuously maintained and developed by BMW Motorrad over the past 40 years and successfully transferred to other BMW Motorrad model series. In 1993, the F 650 “Funduro” was the first single-cylinder BMW enduro to come onto the market. While this bike drew its riding dynamics from its low weight and the thrust of the 47 hp

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Harley-Davidson Breakout CVO Gets an Extra Touch of German Custom

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com In the world of Harley-Davidson, CVO stands for Custom Vehicle Operations. Going further, that means motorcycles specifically created by the American bike builder with the custom industry in mind, for garages all across the world to tweak even further. The program was born at Harley in 1999 and each year a small batch of bikes was chosen and gifted with limited edition runs that were all about customization: bigger engines, crazy paints, and a wealth of accessories one usually didn’t get with the road-going versions. Among the motorcycles chosen by Harley to go down the CVO path in 2014 was the Breakout (it was offered alongside the Ultra Limited Electra Glide, Softail Deluxe, and Road King). And since this model is a favorite of a German custom shop that goes by the name Thunderbike, it of course didn’t escape some further upgrades. Thunderbike’s interpretation of the CVO Breakout comes with a more radical look, achieved especially because of the deployment of bigger wheels, a new exhaust system, and a polished paint over the bike’s main parts. The motorcycle rides on Harley Turbine wheels (sized 21 and 18 inches), but with the rear one wrapped in a Metzeler tire that is 20 mm wider than what came standard. Additionally, a pulley brake kit was deployed on the rear wheel to allow a clear view from one side at the design. The engine, which was lest pretty much stock, breathes through an electronically adjustable exhaust system from Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde. A wealth of other parts, smaller in size and impact, are also custom: the rocker boxes, oil tank, turn signals, mirrors, and even the license plate bracket and frame. We are not being told how much it cost the Germans to put the entire build

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Anthracite Grey Harley-Davidson TB-2 Is the Unlikely Low Rider S Superbike

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com As part of autoevolution’s Custom Builds Month, we talked aplenty about a number of customized Harley-Davidson motorcycles handled all the way in Germany. The country is home to a very active shop called Thunderbike, who over the past 25 years has made a name for itself in the industry with literally hundreds of projects. On Monday, July 13, we talked about the TB-1 Superbike, a conversion of a Low Rider S the likes of which we don’t get to see that often. As it usually happens with Thunderbike ideas, the TB-1 has a sequel of sorts. It is called TB-2, naturally, and is, at least as far as the paint goes, a more conservative approach than it’s older sibling. Most of the changes designed for the TB-1 have been kept on this one. The bike’s stock wheels (19-inch front and 17-inch rear) have been replaced with bigger hardware, namely 21-inch front and 18-inch rear, to give the machine a “slimmer” look. Turning the Low Rider into a racer-style bike was achieved through the fitting of a lowering kit for the telescopic fork, Hyperpro shock absorbers with height adjustment, and of course a custom new front fairing. The listed of custom parts fitted on the motorcycle comprises around 20 elements, and even if we are not told how much the conversion cost, simple math (that is adding the prices of each of those parts) points to it being worth a little over 5,000 euros (roughly $5,600). That does not including the bike itself, the man hours spent on assembling it, and of course the base Low Rider. The thing that sets TB-2 apart the most from its earlier incarnation is of course the paint job. Whereas on the first iteration the shop went for a dark

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Harley-Davidson GP-Style Is the Radical Way to Make a Breakout

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com “Probably the most radical Softail who saw the light of day” – this is how the Germans from Thunderbike describe one of their builds from two years ago. And just by looking at the two-wheeler, you can tell they’re not far from it. Thunderbike has been in the business of customizing Harleys for more than two decades now. The shop seems to be determined to break some record or something, as they now have in their portfolio several hundred bikes customized in one way or another. For its work, Thunderbike uses both stock Harleys, which it modifies, or custom frames built in-house, which they generally gift with Harley hardware. The one in the gallery above is called GP-Style, and it is somehow related to the Grand Prix we talked about earlier this week – that bike, in turn, is an evolution of another build by Thunderbike, the Outerlimit. The GP-Style was completed back in 2018, and believed it or not, it used to be a stock Harley-Davidson Breakout from that year. According to the shop, “except for the last screw, the Breakout was disassembled; frames and attachments scanned and were taken as a base for our new parts.” And that shows, as this is nothing like what the American bike maker lets loose in Milwaukee. The motorcycle comes with more custom parts that we can count. The wheels – both sized 21-inches – are from the Digger series and come with many spokes – that allowed for the installation of a “huge” perimeter brake from Brembo. The engine is a Milwaukee Eight 114 from the Breakout series, sitting inside a custom frame drawing its fuel from a Thunderbike tank. The entire frame, so different from what Softails are over at Harley, rides on an air

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Racing Red Harley-Davidson Grand Prix Pushes the Outerlimit to the Extreme

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Over the past few months, as part of our various special coverages, we’ve talked at length about certain custom motorcycles coming from Germany. As you can see, we’re not quite done yet, because the number of extreme builds a certain shop there is responsible for is huge. The shop is called Thunderbike, and this weekend we’re showing you a machine it unveiled at the 2016 Custombike show in Bad Salzuflen, Germany. It’s called Grand Prix, and it’s an even more radical interpretation of another build that goes by the name Outerlimit. The Outerlimit was made for one of the shop’s customers specifically to mirror the design and colors of a Lamborghini Aventador. Built on a custom frame, it sports a Harley-Davidson twin cam 120R engine linked to a 6-speed manual transmission, which gives the bike a power output of 140 ps and 190 Nm of torque. Likewise, the Grand Prix too uses the same Screamin’ Eagle, packed in a frame that offers a 1,780 mm (70 inches) wheelbase, 132 mm (5 inches) caster, a steering head angle of 36 degrees. That makes the overall design of the bike pretty similar to the Outerlimit, only there are exceptions, too. The most visible one is the color. Instead of the white used on the Lambo-mimicking bike, this one comes in racing red, hence the name Grand Prix. The wheels on the build are a tad different, too. The custom shop went for a new design, more aggressive, for the rims (they are sized 23 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear) to give the motorcycle a more racing-like look. We are not being told how much the Grand Prix cost to put together, but we do know that a lot of CNC-machining, CAD design

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BMW to Add New Cruise Control System to Motorcycles

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com For reasons that have to do with the way they are built and used, motorcycles do not benefit from the same wide array of comfort or safety systems developed for cars. Strides are being made though to have some of these technologies migrate to motorcycles as well. As far as cars are concerned, cruise control has been around in some form or another from about the time they were invented, but for motorcycles adapting the tech proved a bit more complicated. There are a few bikes out there with cruise control, such as the BMW S1000RR, or the Yamaha FJR-1300, but the tech is not widely available, and of course not as standard. BMW Motorrad plans to change that, and announced that it would “soon offer this type of rider assistance system.” Called in BMW speak Active Cruise Control (ACC), it is a brand new system that has been developed together with Bosch. It can automatically regulate the speed at which the bike is traveling based on the speed set by the rider and the distance to the vehicle driving in front. The system will try to maintain the distance from the vehicle in front as set by the rider, who can choose one of three settings. To calculate the distance, ACC uses a radar fitted at the front of the motorcycle, and it works together with some of the other systems on the two-wheeler, including the brakes and the ABS system. The system can detect only moving vehicles, and will not react to stopped cars or traffic lights, BMW warns. According to company, the new system is also able to automatically reduce speed during lean angle cornering, while at the same time trying to keep acceleration and deceleration within tolerable limits during an increased

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Harley-Davidson Top Chop Is a Panhead Ode to Copper, Brass and Nickel

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Nowhere in the transportation industry is metal held in such high regard as in motorcycle manufacturing. When it comes to cars we tend to cover metal in all kinds of colors and paints, as if to hide it, but motorcycles, at least from time to time, proudly display their metal parts with no shame. Sure, there are custom bikes that get painted extensively to cover most of their bodies, but the engine, for instance, almost always remains exposed in its metallic form. And their a sight to behold, because what are motorcycles if not an ode to carefully shaped metal? The build in the gallery above takes pride in the materials it is made from. Sure, paint was used on it, but we’re not talking about colors that remind us of trees or the clear blue sky, but ones that scream metal: copper, brass, nickel, and of course chrome here and there. Initially a 1957 Harley-Davidson EL, the bike was modified at the hands of German custom garage Thunderbike and turned into something they call Top Chop. The idea was to have a motorcycle tribute to the “glittering choppers of the 70s,” and for the most part the Germans succeeded. Just like when it comes to the rest of the shop’s builds, this motorcycle here is packed with custom made parts (that are also available for purchase), ranging from the handlebar to the fuel tank – it is the tank that gives the name of the motorcycle. At the core of the Top Chop’s frame sits a Panhead engine with Shovelhead looks, and gifted with a Magneto ignition and a Mikuni carburetor. We are not being told anything about the bike’s performances. The Top Chop is of course a one-off build (an older one made

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Harley-Davidson Ego Shooter Is Not Your Usual Rocker

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com For the past 20 years or so, the European custom motorcycle segment has been flooded with Harley-Davidson based or inspired builds coming from Germany. The group responsible for this onslaught is called Thunderbike and as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage in June we’ve talked about them at length over the past few weeks. Generally, we focused more on their most recent builds, but there are others, much older, that deserve their time under the spotlight. For the end of this week we chose a build the Germans call Ego Shooter. It was first presented in 2011, at a time when the shop was half the age it is today. Unfortunately, we have no info on what happened to it since, but records, including photographs and a bizarre YouTube video (attached below) are still here to tell the bike’s story. Built on a Softail Rocker base, the bike is described as “not exactly the first choice for custom friends.” The line was produced by the Milwaukee-based bike builder from 2008 to 2011, and it couldn’t have been more different than the variant portrayed in the gallery above. As usual with all the Thunderbike builds we’ve covered, this one too is a mobile display of German imagination when it comes to custom parts. From the rear end that can move up and down thanks to an air suspension to the small fender at the front, all speak volumes about what stock Harleys can become in the right hands. The exhaust system, air filter, pegs and handle fittings, fork, and the handlebar are just a few of the custom parts fitted on the motorcycle, all topped off by a custom paint job (containing more colors than we’re used to seeing when it comes to Thunderbike machines) that

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Harley-Davidson Solid Dude Is the Latest Thunderbike Stunt

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com For the past month or so, as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage, we talked at length about some of the craziest builds on two wheels out there. A good portion of our attention was focused on a German group called Thunderbike. In the business of customizing Harleys but also create their own frames for about 20 years, Thunderbike is one of the most active shops not only in Europe, but in the world. The number of bikes they modified over the years is simply huge, and there seems to be no stopping them. Their latest stunt is called Solid Dude, and is a Fat Boy turned into the “absolute power cruiser.” Previewed this week by Thunderbike, the motorcycle is the usual display of custom parts extravaganza. As they usually do when modifying existing motorcycles. Thunderbike seems to have spared no expense with this one either. Around 30 new parts have been made to work together and look like a solid piece of engineering on the body of the Fat Boy. A quick look at the modifications made shows that, aside for the engine itself, there was little that wasn’t touched by the Thunderbike magic. Larger elements like the front and rear fenders are custom, but so are smaller ones like the handlebar or the turn signals. A highlight of the build are of course the wheels. Sized equally in diameter at 21 inches, they’re of Thunderbike spoked design and painted in such a way as to match the bike’s apparent Nardo Grey paint wrapping. Complementing the whole thing are the pipes of the Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust system. We are not being told who commissioned the motorcycle and not even how much it cost to make, but if you have the time,

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