by Sue Callaway from https://www.latimes.com It’s easy to see that the new KRGT-1 from Arch Motorcycle is a special machine. Each seat is custom-fit to the buyer. Each key, machined out of billet aluminum, comes in a dramatic case, along with a book chronicling the bike’s build story. The fuel tank, split in half to house Arch’s proprietary downdraft system, is also carved from billet. Fenders are state-of-the-art carbon fiber. As co-founder Keanu Reeves says, every Arch is a showcase of “all the classical moments you look for in a bike.” Much of it is made in-house. Reeves, his co-founder, Gard Hollinger — a longtime custom bike builder — and their team design and fabricate more than 200 components for each bike in Arch’s Hawthorne facility. But there’s also some nifty out-of-house engineering on the KRGT-1 — including one component that could prove vital not just to Arch’s business but for manufacturers of internal-combustion-powered products of all sorts, from lawnmowers and automobiles to barges, trucks and power plants. Acat Global, a Michigan-based company, is the supplier of Arch’s catalytic converters, or “cats,” as they’re called. A two-year collaboration between Arch and Acat resulted in cats that are custom-designed to fit into the KRGT-1’s unique architecture while reducing the amount of noxious exhaust gases emitted from conventional cat designs. They have helped Arch meet not only California Air Resources Board and Environmental Protection Agency standards but also stringent Euro 4 emissions requirements. “When we began the Euro 4 process in early 2017, we put together a binder of all the regulatory stuff, and it was 4 inches thick,” Hollinger said. With Euro 4 approval, Arch can now go global. The story of these two companies shows that the path some innovative products take to get to market — motorcycles and components
