CUSTOMS
… not a Ronin? When it’s Tex Design’s stunning lookalike based on the affordable Buell XB
3D-printed kit turns Buell XB12R into custom contender. Yours for £11,000.
LAST MONTH I unwisely alluded to an ambition to build ‘a poor man’s Ronin’ which some may recall was my 2016 Bike Of The Year. The Ronin, named after a leaderless band of Samurai, were and remain a limited edition of 47 industrially chic monopostos created around a bankrupt stock of Buell/rotax 1125 engines by a team of design engineers in Colorado called Magpul. Using the 1125’s already extraordinary alloy upper chassis, swingarm and rim-mounted front disc, Magpul added a unique single-shock front fork which also housed a radiator and oil cooler, plus bodywork, seat unit, rear subframe, exhaust system and electrics to create an extraordinary whole at an extraordinary price: upwards of $38–50,000 depending on tune and paintwork. Which is why I could never buy one. But what Ronin wanna-haves might be able to afford is a Buell XB gcode 1.2 – the latest creation from Italian custom house, Tex Design. Tex founder Paolo Tesio is best-known for 2004’s radical Ducati S2R Brieda concept which he followed with his M-S4R kits that turn a stock Ducati 916 Monster into a sci-fi café racer. Two years ago he started thinking along the same lines, but this time using the Buell XB12R Firebolt as a donor bike. Some 40bhp less grunty
than the Rotax-engined Buells – but still a 150mph machine – Tesio added his own bodywork, air-box, seat, electrics, exhaust system etc to the stock alloy ‘Uniplanar’ (vibration-isolating) chassis. And what he came up with looks a lot like a Ronin. Where it significantly differs is in utilizing the stock 43mm Showa USD front fork and cladding it in electrical and instrument housings made from ABS using a 3D printer. Tesio claims this is, ‘the future in the field of design (because) everything comes back without surprises’. Also unlike the Ronin, whose radiators nestle inside its fork-cum-headlight housing, the snappily-named code 1.2 employs the stock, nearside-mounted Buell oil cooler and its headlight is plucked from Husqvarna’s Supermoto parts bin. The distinctive flat spoke cast wheels and perimeter front disc brake are lifted straight off the Buell, too. 3D computer software was also used to design the intricate and elegant rear-subframe, and the mountings for the fork cladding, which follows the style of Tesio’s M-S4R. Prices for this new Tex Design kit are unconfirmed but expect it to be between 6250-8000 euros plus £3500 -6000 for a used XB12. Which, even adding on your own paint, is a lot less than a pukka Ronin.