“After getting into vintage pedal start mopeds a short two years ago, I set out to build a one-off, café inspired moped that challenged me, and my abilities as a welder, fabricator and painter. My goal was to do as much of the build independently as I could, with the limited tools available. “The Baby Maker” project is the result of that push to build the best bike that I could, prior to our wonderful twins being born. I started with a 1978 J.C. Penny Pinto moped that I traded a buddy for. After a complete tear down of the bike and motor, I sand blasted everything at a coworker’s countryside shop. Almost all the welding and fabrication was completed at another coworker’s home garage.
Ideally, I wanted to start the build with a rigid model, but none were available at the time so I made my own. I used a wider swing arm from a Freespirit/Magnum model, welded it onto the frame, then bent and welded in my own rigid struts. With the rear suspension made, I bolted on some chrome aftermarket EBR forks, and proceeded to fabricate the backbone cross bar. After locating an old Benelli/Montgomery Wards gas tank, I got underway mounting it and fabricating the one-off aluminum café seat. For many years, I’ve wanted to build my own seat or tank and this project was perfect for that. The top of the seat is formed out of 5 separate pieces all rolled on my scratch build English wheel.”
“With the seat and tank mounted, the bike got tore back down and prepped for bodywork and paint, which I completed in my garage. I was pleased with how the paint turned out, considering the black was Rustoleum spray paint covered with a nice smooth layer of urethane clear coat. However, the spray bomb would not be used the next time I do a project of this magnitude.
For the front rotor, I wanted to build my own perimeter rotor like you see on Cook Customs, Buells or other custom bikes. No one, that I had seen, has ever done a moped with a perimeter rotor. After designing it in Illustrator, I was able to get it converted to a DXF file and laser cut at work. A $15 dollar go-cart caliper was sourced from eBay and mounted to the front forks. ”
“While the paint was drying, the motor rebuild started in my basement. With a clean set of cases, I bored them out and case matched them to fit the 74 cc Gilardoni cylinder kit, high temp paint was applied and cured using my charcoal grill. Being a one speed, low cc motor, I wanted to get as much power out of it as I could. I took the main gear and drilled and countersunk over a hundred holes in order to reduce the rotational mass. I paired my lightened gear with a lightened clutch basket and three-shoe clutch. This combination allows the engine to get into the power band of the handmade stainless pipe built by Motion Left Mopeds. A new crank fitted with fresh bearings and seals was set into the cases and everything was sealed and bolted back together. A Mikuni TM24 was bolted to a custom made intake. For spark, I used a points set up with internal coil and 12v lighting. After sanding, shaving and polishing the clutch cover, I also gave the flywheel cover the drilled out treatment. A small blue stripe was painted on the blacked out flywheel, so as the motor turns, you can see the stripe rotate through the holes in the cover. A nice little touch you don’t see everyday.
With everything painted, polished, and cleaned up, it was time for assembly to take place in my basement. All cables were custom made; all wiring simplified and run through the frame. LED lighting was used at the rear of the bike on my custom-made license plate bracket. For the headlight, I picked up an aluminum Electro line headlight from the ‘30/40’s, beat the dents out of it and did a semi resto/Polish on it.”
“It came away with a trophy
for the “Cool as F*ck” award”
“The final touches included the controls, Trailtech digital speedo, and of course the custom number 2 race numbers arranged in an asymmetric manner on the tank and seat. The inspiration for the numbers was influenced by my wife’s pregnancy, with twins, shortly after starting this build.
With the build finished, it was debuted at the Rocker Box 2011 motorcycle show and block party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It came away with a made on site trophy for the “Cool as F*ck” award for basically being the best bike. It was definitley an honor to hand build a bike by myself. I couldn’t have done it without parts from 1977 Mopeds and Treatland.tv, help from my buddies R.P. and Kevin and for the use of their shops, Drew for the bike trade, Salty for his many years of expertise building race quality mopeds, Josh “Ruckus” Arndt, and finally my wife Tina, and of course little Collin and Abigail, for putting up with the build for 9 months.”
The irony is, this sweet little moped named ‘the baby maker’ actually took Nicholas nine months to build. You know what else takes nine months to come to life? Yep, we couldn’t have written a better ending to the story -unless of course the twins grow up to be ‘Shinya Kimura’ style bike builders and dedicate their careers to Pipeburn. We’ll keep you posted.
And here is a video showing a 1978 Jc Penney Pinto II Moped
Now I’m not saying that some customs can be easy to build, but very few get into the level of engineering that Chris Barber from Crossbreed Cycles often goes, in this case by deciding to mate two Ducati 900ss Cylinder heads to a Harley big twin bottom end, and mounting it all in a hard tail chassis. Quite what possessed him to do this is a mystery, but it’s a work of insanity and/or genius.
What’s even more impressive is that Chris does everything himself, from drawuing up CAD images of what he wants to build, to engineering it all himself, while licking all his own stamps and making his own brew and sarnies – but the outcome looks more like the work of a huge team of Americans in a hangar-sized chop-shop in Cali. Bloody impressive stuff.
The Desmo Hog
The Desmo Hog
The engine uses Carillo Rods, with stock stroke crankshaft and flat top Keith Black pistons, providing 10:1 compression ratio. Axtell cylinders are made to Chris’ own design from ductile cast iron.
The Desmo Hog From the drawing board… to the workshop
The Desmo Hog Two rear 900ss heads are used because the front has vertical fins, the front mounted head is turned through 180 degrees and runs a cam from the front cylinder of a 900ss. Lubrication is via a high volume pump running high ratio gears for more scavenging.
The Desmo Hog Ducati cams run off the reduntant Harley cam via a series of gears and toothed belts,the train of gears of various tooth numbers, allows for fine adjustment of valve timing… Apparently it’s also a bit confusing to time!
Chris is clearly driven by a passion for machines, and the beauty in his engineering is a match for the beauty of his bikes as a whole.
The French MotoGP rider Randy de Puniet has been spending a fair bit of time in Australia lately. So when he needed a bike to get around Sydney, he gave Deus a call. “Randy’s design brief was for a middleweight, 2-up twin,” says Deus creative director Carby Tuckwell. “Easy enough to kick around the city, and with enough legs for out of town.” Deus’ head wrench Jeremy Tagand is also French, so this custom Kawasaki W650 has been dubbed The French Connection. It’s been lowered at both ends, and the rims and hubs have been given a film of black satin paint to accentuate the big-tired look. The tank is from an SR500, with a simple Daytona speedometer tucked into the front cut-out; a vintage-style headlight supports the tachometer.
Kawasaki W650 by Deus
With the air box gone, this W650 breathes in through K&N filters, and out via a custom 2-into-2 exhaust system. To add to the old school look, the fork legs were swapped over and the Tokico caliper positioned on the lefthand side. The forks themselves have been upgraded with higher-performance internals, and Ikon shocks keep the back end planted. The front and rear fenders are custom, and the whole shebang is finished off in a hard-hitting orange, black and white paintjob. It certainly looks the business—and with de Puniet on board, should be a match for much bigger machines around the city streets.
The Sportsman Flyer is a modern take on the classic boardtracker-style of motorcycle, they’re built by Pat Dolan in Gilroy, California and rather surprisingly, they’re available to buy without breaking the bank.
Offered as both kits and turn-key bikes The Sportsman Flyer comes in a few model variations, the standard engine configuration is a 66cc 2-stroke producing 9.5hp and good for significantly more than the legally mandated top speed of 30mph. Pedal power is also an option with all bikes being offered with a fully functioning pedal-crank-chain set up, just like the original boardtrackers that were produced at the turn of the previous century.
Kit prices start at $1,250 for this model, that includes the frame, tank and springer forks. The engine prices vary but a decent new motor can be had for approximately $600, all the other bits and pieces needed to finish the bike are available from the online store.
If you’ve been looking around for a winter project, give these The Sportsman Flyer bikes a look, they may just be the very contraptions you’ve been searching for.
Raven MotoCycles – Hand Built Specials with Moto Guzzi Power.
Raven MotoCycles – hand built customs with a Moto Guzzi engine
Raven MotoCycles
Here’s another custom build that has been flying under the radar, Raven MotoCycles and yes, this one is on eBay, or rather, the opportunity to own the first production model from the company. The specific bike you see here is the very first prototype of a brand new special, powered, in this case, by a Moto Guzzi 750cc engine from a 1971 Ambassador. The wheels, swingarm, brakes, forks and steering stem are from a ’68 Honda 350. The transmission is a Norton 4 speed. The frame, tank and exhaust are hand built.
Raven MotoCycles – hand built customs with a Moto Guzzi engine
Jeff Gundlach is the man behind Raven MotoCycles and his intention is to hand build each unit on demand with an option of 3 engine sizes, 750, 850 or 1000cc, breathing through either Delorto or new Mikuni carbs.
Raven MotoCycles – hand built customs with a Moto Guzzi engine
The price is $25,000 for a brand new custom motorcycle with very vintage looks. Along with the Honda components, the owner should not have any trouble coming up with whatever parts he might need in the future.
I think it’s a pretty neat application for an older Moto Guzzi engine and it carries off the vintage look very well. Nice job, Jeff!
Raven MotoCycles
Raven MotoCycles – hand built customs with a Moto Guzzi engineShare|
Handbuilt Raven Motorcycle from Asheville, NC. 2011 Raven 750 -1971 Moto Guzzi engine, Norton trans and primary, Honda 350 fork, swingarm and wheels. Frame and cycle design by Jeff Gundlach in Asheville, North Carolina. This bike was designed to build in numbers and sell. There is also a single cylinder in the process of construction along the same basic designs as the twin. Interested parties may contact Jeff. Email is: jeff.gundlach@att.net
1978 J.C. Penny Pinto The Baby Maker
