Protect you, your companion, and your bike on overnight adventures in the Nomad Motorcycle Tent ($400). Made from coated ripstop nylon with a polyester floor, the Nomad offers 30 square feet of interior room, weighs just 13 lbs. when packed, and requires only three poles for assembly. It sure beats sleeping on the ground with your head inside a helmet.
We’ve seen smart helmets, cheese helmets, and imitation skull helmets, but I can’t say we’ve ever seen a walnut helmet or butt helmet. Perhaps there wasn’t much demand for such things. Well, in this age of the long tail, someone is sure to buy a helmet that makes you look like a golf ball because… okay, I don’t have any reason to believe that, but somehow I know it’s true. I can feel it in my watermelon.
The world’s most expensive bikes have got another contender with Icon Sheene, the ultimate road bike by motorcycle designer and builder Andrew Morris. The bike was designed as a tribute to the legendary British motorcycle racer Barry Sheene, and is produced in a limited edition of just 52, one for each year of Barry’s life. The bike is totally handcrafted and it features a powerful 1.4-liter, turbocharged, inline 4-cylinder engine that gives a top speed of 200 mph.
With old-school looks and useful tech, the Ural Patrol T Motorcycle ($12,400) is just the thing for poor-weather riding. Most notable on the Patrol T is its sidecar, which gives the bike its World War II feel — think Indiana Jones vs. the Nazis — but it’s also the sidecar that gives it its stability in bad weather, thanks to the world’s only on-demand two-wheel-drive sidecar drive shaft. Other features include an OHV air-cooled 4 cycle opposed twin cylinder engine, Herzog gears, Brembo brakes, a true reverse gear, a large sidecar storage compartment, straightforward maintenance, and true Russian heritage.
Harleys are cool and all, but they can’t compare to the macho muscle of Deus Ex Machina Customs ($TBA). Based in an old factory building in Sydney, Australia, Deus celebrates classic custom motorcycle culture by cranking out their own unique takes on Kawasakis, Yamahas, Triumphs, and yes, even Harley Davidsons, giving each bike special treatment to take it from mass produced machine to one-of-a-kind mechanical art. If you’re based in the L.A. area, make a stop by the company’s Secret Service shop on Industrial St. in downtown and see for yourself.
Wealthy romantics rejoice: the Brough Superior is back. If that name doesn’t mean anything to you, how about this one: T. E. Lawrence, more exotically referred to as Lawrence of Arabia. The Brough Superior motorcycle, manufactured between 1919 and 1940, were so cherished by him that he owned eight, and died on that last one. At the time they cost around £150 when new, which was supposedly more than a house. They lasted about as long as well: 3,000 were made, 1,000 of them are still running.
Those thousand are about to have company, since the company has been bought and restarted production on the original Brough Superior. The new, handmade-in-England Superiors and exact replicas of those first Superiors, down to the 60-cubic-inch V-twin engine, lack of electronics, 55 miles per gallon, and 100-mile-per-hour top speed. The dearer-than-a-house price has come down, too: you’ll spend at least £120,000 ($183,607 U.S.) to get one built for your pleasure. If your love of nostalgia doesn’t go that far, there’s always a Brough Superior t-shirt for £14.50 ($21.80 U.S.). It’s what T. E. would have worn…
Packed with modern technology but sporting a design straight out of the past, the Triumph Thruxton SE ($10,649) is an intriguing update to the café racer. First impressions start off with the powder-coated red frame, crystal white bodywork, low rise handlebars, 18-inch spoke wheels, red stripe down the center, color-matched fly screen and blacked out engine cases, but it’s the Thruxton’s fuel injected 865cc parallel twin engine that delivers the thrills, pumping out 68hp and 51ft.lbs. of torque, which makes for some beautiful sounds emitting from the megaphone style pipes. If Speed Racer rode a motorcycle, we think it might look something like this.
Now here’s an idea that’s just so crazy it’s actually brilliant! A company called Brit-Brothers have developed a new kind of seat for racing bikes that uses toothed belts and tapered rollers that rotate when the rider is sitting on them, instead of the traditional padded cushion. The design makes it considerably easier for riders to lean back and forth when navigating tight corners and chicanes during a race, but built-in adjustable friction controls ensure the rider doesn’t just easily slip off the bike.
Not only does the seat make for smoother transitions when leaning from side to side, it also makes it considerably easier on the riders since they’re not continuously lifting their bodies off the bike, which means they’re going to tire less quickly during a long race. Now I’m not sure if the new seat design has much application outside racing, but in a competitive field where seconds count, I’m sure there are plenty of professional racing teams who are ready and willing to adopt the new technology if it provides them with a competitive advantage. And while the images above are obviously just concept renders, in May of last year Brit-Brothers was awarded a patent for their Chicane Saddle seat, and are now working to see it go into production.
Custom-built over the course of 1,000+ hours and sporting more hand-made fine details than we could possibly list here, the only bad thing we can say about the Falcon Bullet Motorcycle ($TBA) is that it’s going to be impossible to get your hands on it — unless, of course, Jason Lee decides to put it up for sale. This custom Triumph began with a derelict frame and engine cases from a 1950 Triumph Thunderbird, and features modifications like a 750cc engine made specifically for this machine, a vintage brass lucas tail light, handlebars and levels hand carved from solid rounds of stainless steel and shaped to contour the gas tank during agressive turns, a hand made leather seat, and a stretched frame for a longer stance.