BIANCHI ROTAX SPECIAL
This is ‘Flying 57’, a Rotax-powered special created by Plan B Motorcycles based on the frame and style of a classic Italian commuter bike
From Italian commuter bike to extraterrestrial barn find...
BIANCHI IS THE world’s oldest bicycle manufacturer still in business, and continues to produce top-class machines – although the famous Italian brand is now owned by a company in Sweden. Edoardo Bianchi opened his Milan bicycle manufacturing business in 1885, moving into the production of motorcycles in 1897 and cars in 1900.
Post-world War II, Bianchi produced a range of lightweight machines to satisfy the demand for low-cost transportation, but the firm earned a reputation for its race bikes – initially 125 and 250cc singles, then later, 250, 350 and 500cc double overhead cam twins.
When Italian-based Plan B Motorcycles owner Christian
Moretti decided to build this special using a Rotax single cylinder single, he was drawn to the style of the post-war Bianchi – but wasn’t quite sure how to classify the final product. It’s not a café racer and neither is it a street tracker. So how does he define it?
“It’s not a proper tracker, for sure. It’s not a chopper, either – and definitely not a scrambler, even if it has some characteristic of all these different styles,” he muses. “It has a small frame and an engine which is too big for it, which meant coming up with strange technical solutions and a lot of baroque details. And because it’s not a street tracker, it has brakes... barely.
Christian’s aim was to build a ‘barn find’ motorcycle from an alternative universe – an Italian ‘moonshine racer’ packed with ingenuity and hidden details. So you could probably call it a hot-rod on two wheels – or whatever other name you want to give it... but you get the idea.
“I built it around the frame of a 1957 Bianchi Tonale 175cc, which is not much more than a bicycle frame,” he adds. “Ultimately, though, only the front section of it is still there – all the rest was custom built, reinforced or modified to let the new motor fit.
“The new engine is still a singlecylinder, just as it was in the donor bike,” Christian continues. “But this time it’s a four-valve, air-cooled 600cc Rotax, stripped down and polished, with a big Mikuni flat