Thunderbike

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 Earl Grey Is Cross Bones as Diluted as Milk Tea

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Harley-Davidson’s Softail frame has become over the years the backbone of a great number of motorcycles. The Milwaukee-based bike builder currently has 12 bike models using it, ranging from the Standard to the Heritage Classic. Down the ages – the first time the frame was used as a registered trademark was way back in 1984 – other names were stealing the headlines. There were names like the Night Train, Cross Bones, and of course the Springer. As do the Softails of today, older ones are favorites of the custom industry, even if perhaps not as much as say the more recent Breakout. And one fine example of custom work on an older Softail is the one we have in the gallery above. Wearing the name Earl Grey, the build is based on a 2010 Cross Bones and is an older project of German custom shop Thunderbike. Like most of their other builds, old or new, this one too is a mammoth display of custom parts – some 20 of them were used all around the two-wheeler. The exhaust, handlebar, footpegs and fuel tank are aftermarket parts, as are the tailights and headlamps. The front end sits on a Springer fork, shortened to meet the purpose of the build, while the power of the Screamin’ Eagle 113ci fitted with a race kit is sent to the ground by means of disc wheels. It is these wheels that are the standout element on this build. Painted all white, they fit the matte paint used elsewhere on the body just right to give you the impression the Earl Grey name is the perfect description for the machine: it looks just as diluted as a cup of milk tea, pale when compared to the other colorful builds out there.

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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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Harley-Davidson Seventy Looks Smooth as Silk

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Generally, custom bike builds are meant to convey a message of hardcore two-wheeled motoring. To get that message through, custom builders usually have to create monsters that stand out through sharpness, coldness, or perhaps meanness. The bike in the gallery above has none of those attributes. If anything, it looks soft to the touch, possibly smooth as silk, but somehow manages to retain an air of coolness specific to custom Harleys. What you see in front of your eyes was once a 2017 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy. It lost most of its industrial look at the hands of a German custom garage by the name of Thunderbike, and was gifted with a more eye-soothing appearance. There are, of course, a lot of custom parts that have made it onto this build – over 30, in fact – but it’s not them that make the biggest difference. It’s the paint job that does. Partially the work of Thunderbike’s favorite partner in this area, Ingo Kruse, it blends matte black with gold on the wheel rims, fenders and fuel tank to create an almost tactile visual experience. Related in the garage’s books with the Night Train we talked about over the weekend, the Seventy – that’s the name chosen for the motorcycle post-build – comes with new fenders and fuel tank, custom wheels (sized 21 and 23 inches), new toppers and grips. The mechanical improvements include the addition of a swingarm kit, a hydraulic clutch cylinder, and a modified air suspension – you can find the entire list of modifications made by accessing this link. As pretty much all Thunderbike builds, this one too is not for sale. It has been built to order, but it also acts as a sort of mobile billboard for all the special

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Harley-Davidson Mugello Was Not Bred for Racing, Would Look Great on the Track

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com/ Being the point of origin for some of the most impressive cars and motorcycles in the world, Italy has its share of famous race tracks. The Mugello Circuit (officially called Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello) is one of them. It is there where races from the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) were once held, and it is there where each year the greats in motorbike racing gather for the usual MotoGP leg. Owned by Ferrari, the circuit is also the main testing facility for the Scuderia’s Formula 1 cars. As far as we know, what the Mugello circuit has not seen is a Harley-Davidson motorcycle doing a run there. And it probably never will, even if builds such as the one in the gallery above would look great under the clear skies of Tuscany. We opened with a bit of info about the Mugello track because this is the name German custom shop Thunderbike bestowed one of their Harley-Davidson Breakout creations. Named so in honor of the Italian circuit, it is part of a larger collection of bikes that also includes the Laguna Seca and Silverstone. Just like the other two, it was of course not bred for racing, but as some type of two-wheeled billboard meant to advertise the custom parts Thunderbike usually has in its inventory for Harley owners. And just like the other two, there’s plenty of parts going into this bike as well. From the derby cover to the exhaust system and large wheels (21 and 23 inches), a total of 25 custom parts were fitted on it, and all wrapped in a special paint scheme wearing the signature of Ingo Kruse, Thunderbike’s favorite partner in this field. The bike is not for sale, and it will probably never be raced on a

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Harley-Davidson Night Train Turns into Black and Red Fun Ride 58

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Over the course of its history, Harley-Davidson had a bunch of noteworthy motorcycle families rolling out the assembly lines in Milwaukee. The Softail bunch is one of them, and it presently comprises about a dozen models. But the Night Train is no longer one of them. Also known as the FXSTB, the Softail with this name first saw daylight in 1998, and was officially considered to be one of the finest examples of Harley’s low and raked machines. Customers didn’t love it so much though, and the model was discontinued about a decade later, in 2009. Despite having all it takes to be a good candidate, this particular Softail model doesn’t appear to be a favorite of the custom industry either, so we don’t have too many examples of it in tuned form. But as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage, we managed to dig up this here Night Train. We found it in Germany, because this is where its maker, a custom shop by the name Thunderbike, resides. And by all intents and purposes, despite the rather not so extensive changes, it looks completely different that a stock Night Train. Thunderbike is in the market of customizing more recent Harleys now, but they have been at it for the past 20 years, so seeing an older model in their lineup is not a surprise. Featuring several custom parts, like the massive rear fender and new fuel tank, the bike has been renamed Fun Ride 58, and is all about color play: two of them, black and red (and minor touches of white here and there), have been carefully mixed to create one of the cleanest and appealing looks of any motorcycle in the Thunderbike arsenal. The wheels, which are generally much more complex when

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Harley-Davidson Silverstone Is a Motorcycle Bumblebee

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com After talking for quite some time about the builds coming out a German shop by the name of Thunderbike, one can confidently say that once you’ve seen one their builds, you’ve seen them all. Based largely on the same Milwaukee machines, they are generally moving displays of German custom parts, a sort of two-wheeled billboard if you like. Yet these guys somehow manage to make each of these billboards look unique, and from time to time stunning. Like it’s the case with the heavily modified Breakout displayed here. The bike is called Silverstone, and is one in a longer series meant to celebrate various racetracks around the world. Thunderbike calls this series GP, and we’ve already talked about two other builds belonging to it, the Laguna Seca and Grand Prix 2. The series comprises both motorcycles based on custom Thunderbike frames, like the Grand Prix and Grand Prix 2, and ones based on Harley frames, like this here Silverstone. As said, this one is at its core a Breakout, one of the Germans’ favorite models. Designed largely like most of the bikes in its series, the Silverstone is a wealth of parts combined and make to work together. From small to big (read from license plate lighting to fuel tank), they all make the build look uniquely incredible. The perfectly matched parts are even more impressive thanks to the bright yellow color chosen for them, a color that fits it just as well as it fitted the Camaro-based Bumblebee from Transformers. In fact, with all the metal twisted together to form the bike, and the black and yellow sprayed all over, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to imagine this is how the Autobot might look like if it were a two-wheeler. As most other

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Harley-Davidson Prison Break Is a Fat Boy Let Loose

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The garage behind this Harley-Davidson Fat Boy conversion calls its creation “one of the elegant custom conversions.” They also call it Prison Break, despite it having nothing to do with the TV series, nor the actual act of breaking out of a prison. The custom motorcycle is German in conception, being the work of a shop called Thunderbike. On the market customizing Harleys for the past 20 years or so, Thunderbike is one of the most active such garages outside the United States, and one we’ve become quite accustomed to as part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage. Generally, the shop goes out of its way to create unique interpretations of Milwaukee-made machines as a means to advertise the long list of custom parts it makes. The Prison Break is an advertising tool as well, and it was gifted with the name just to attract attention. And it succeeded, bringing the build before our eyes in a “simple and elegant” form. Thunderbike based this build on the Fat Boy from 2018, making it a relatively recent creation. It sports the usual complement of custom parts that range from tiny elements like the license plate frame and turn signals to the more prominent wheels and the functional air ride suspension. The wheels, which have always been the highlight of Thunderbike builds, are in this case of equal size front and rear, at 21-inches each. They’re not the most spectacular we’ve seen, yet they do seem to get the job done on this particular Fat Boy. Mechanically, a Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust system, a pulley brake kit, and a fork lowering kit are all on deck to make the Prison Break look, feel and drive like an unchained Fat Boy, a tad different from what Harley

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Harley-Davidson TwentyOne Pirate Craves an Outlaw’s Life

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com “Treasures, women and fame: These are usually the intentions a pirate wants on land. Maybe this Fat Boy is not so far away from it…” This is how German custom motorcycle garage Thunderbike describes one of the most exciting addition to their garage, the TwentyOne Pirate. As that short description reveals, the base for this build is the Fat Boy, one of the families of HD bikes born closer to our time. Only in this configuration it appears to be much cleaner and simpler in design, and it shows a somewhat more elegant stance. The TwentyOne in the name is of course a reference to the bikes massive wheels. Not one, but two equally-sized 21-inch metal circles of Thunderbike make wrapped in rubber are the main connection between the motorcycle and the road. As from where Pirate comes from, that’s probably just marketing, and a rather good one at that, as we’ve previously seen on other Thunderbike machines. The bike is named so just for kicks, because it doesn’t lack a leg (or a wheel, for that matter) and it doesn’t come with an eye patch. It does come however with a long list of custom parts, over 40 of them in fact, some extreme and others less so. The handlebars, mirrors, turns signals, and pretty much every other small-sized hardware on the bike is new. And new or modified are some of the other, larger parts: fuel tank, fenders, swingarms, and so on (the full list of changes made can be found at this link). Like most other Thunderbike builds, this too is a one-off, a display of what is available for purchase from Germany as aftermarket parts for Harley owners. It looks good enough though for it to be featured into some motorcycle

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Harley-Davidson Torqpedo Is a Brutal Full Package Custom

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com There are few custom motorcycle garages out there that have created so many projects that they can split them into series. The Germans from Thunderbike are one of those garages, as we’ve kept telling you for the past month or so. With so many custom motorcycles in Thunderbike’s portfolio – all either Harley-based, or built on a custom frame but powered by a Harley engine – we’ll probably keep talking about them for the rest of June, which here at autoevolution is Two-Wheeler Month. For today we chose the Torqpedo, a Softail Breakout-based build that is part of the garage’s Racer Series, alongside the TB-R1, and it is described as being the receiver of the full package of custom parts available in Thunderbike’s portfolio. That means most of the elements on the Torqpedo, from the toppers to the suspension, are of custom design, and were made by either Thunderbike itself, or by third party partners like Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde in the case of the exhaust system, or Ingo Kruse when it comes to the paint. The entire construction of the bike’s body sets it miles apart from the original Breakout, but perhaps the biggest contribution to that distinct look are the huge wheels, with the front one from a collection called Vegas and sized at 23 inches. What’s more, a pulley brake system was fitted so that the view of the wheels is not obstructed by other elements. With the tank and the tail designed according to the garage to “form an unmistakable racer line,” the Torqpedo is an older project of the shop, but one that like most others shows how much potential Harley motorcycles have when it comes to customization options. You can see all the modifications made to it in

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