Light the fuse…

Just when you think you’ve had your fill of boxerpowered custom bikes, along comes a meticulously engineered 140kg wonder. Yours for £70k…

After 12 years of building land speed record bikes in his spare time, Scott Kolb decided it was time to have a crack at a modern cafe racer. His 1976 BMW R90/6 was sitting idle in his garage, so he started there. Two and a half years later he had a 140kg track weapon that’s quite possibly the prettiest boxer ever built.

Scott started by stripping the R90/6’s cycle parts and selling them, leaving him with just the motor and the beginnings of a plan. ‘I’d worshipped people like Niko Bakker, Rudy Ottenhoff and John Britten – everyone who raced in the Battle of the Twins back in the day, basically,’ he tells Bike. ‘All those guys made bikes that blew my mind and I wanted to do something super-modern with that old motor, as if we were going to contest the Battle of the Twins.’

So far, so normal – plenty of us have wild ideas for custom bikes. The difference here is that despite building bikes in his spare time, Scott is no amateur. ‘This was chassis number 22 for me,’ he says, ‘so I’ve had some experience building frames, and that didn’t present too much of a problem.’ He has a business in New York making high-end architectural metalwork, so those skills might have chipped in too.

The bike’s geometry was dictated by two factors. Firstly, Scott built the bike for a client who was 6ft 4in. ‘He wanted it to fit him,’ says Scott, ‘so I made the bike bigger than normal. He sits on a Ducati and it’s like a mini-bike so this has a wheelbase of 59.75in [1517mm – 48mm longer than a Ducati V4].’ The second factor was that Scott wanted it to steer like a sportsbike, so the rake and trail are feisty – 24 degrees and 95mm. That’s Yamaha R6 territory.

But does it work? ‘I’ve yet to ride it because we’re in the dead of winter over here [in New York] – there’s 6in of snow on the ground. I’m waiting for a break in the weather to get it on track and shake it down. But I’ve been blown away by the reaction. I was a bit nervous because styling is such a subjective thing but I’ve had some really positive comments. And most importantly, my client was blown away.’

Scott is now planning to make a run of five similar machines. He’s at scott@ kolbmachine. com if you have the necessary

£70,000

($90,000).

WHEELS

Thanks to a 140kg weight target every component had to be ultra light. Wheels are Rotobox carbons from a BMW R ninet.

ROAD LEGAL

It’s a street legal trackday special, so indicators and numberplate can be removed in minutes. Headlight can be covered with a silicon plug.

BODYWORK

All made by Scott: ‘I’ve only done bodywork from scratch once before so doing the moulds, carbon lay-up and finishing was a challenge for me.’

SWINGARM

Made by Scott from 4130 chromoly tube, the swingarm is a thing of beauty. Shaft is R ninet and tyre is 200-section.

DIMENSIONS

Bar-seat-peg dimensions are 5% bigger than a normal sportsbike because the owner is 6ft 4in.

ENGINE

The heads are ported, gas flowed and have dual plugs. Valves are larger, there’s a lightened and balanced flywheel, a performance clutch, and the crank was dynamically balanced. It’s now 1000cc thanks to a Siebenrock big bore kit. Power is 82bhp.

‘I wanted to do something super-modern, as if we were going to contest the Battle of the Twins’