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Scotopia Technologies NVx Visor Review

This time we take a quick look at a pre-production unit of a night vision technology visor for a motorcycle helmet that shows a lot of promise.

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Ride The HighPipe Motorcycle Festival

Come Scramble at 7,500 feet with Cruiser and our sister brands June 9-11, 2017

Join Cruiser and the Bonnier Motorcycle Group for some epic rides in the Sierras on June 9-11, 2017. Register for the event today!
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2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500: First Ride Review

Bikes

Honda’s iconic entry-level cruiser redesigned in all the right ways

2017 Honda Rebel 300 and Rebel 500 improve on the classic cruiser in every way…
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Cruising Other Motorcycle Blogs

2017 Honda Rebel 300: Walkaround Video

Videos

Engine noise and video walkaround on the new Honda Rebel 300

Honda’s all-new redesigned cruiser motorcycle: the Rebel 300, video walkaround and engine noise…
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Moto Where Motorcycle Travel Other Motorcycle Blogs

Passeio TA2017

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This route passes through: Fafe

Length: 448.66km / 280.41mi

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RSD Spring 2017 Leathers

Roland Sands Design adds perf leathers and new colors to the lineup

Roland Sands Design adds perforated leathers to the lineup for Spring 2017…
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BikeExif BMW motorcycles BMW R100 BMW R80 BMW R90 cafe racer Custom Motorcycles Diamond Atelier Other Motorcycle Blogs

Diamond Atelier puts the Mark II Series into production

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Building custom motorcycles for a living sounds like a dream. Who wouldn’t want to spend all day in the workshop—getting their hands dirty and letting their creativity run wild?

The reality is, it takes more than talent and a shed full of tools to create a sustainable business; you need a good head for business too. And despite their tender years, Tom Konecny and Pablo Steigleder of Munich’s Diamond Atelier are two of the most switched on dudes we’ve met.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
We haven’t heard from Diamond in a while—but that’s only because the boys have been heads down on their latest project. And here it is: a limited production run of stunning BMW café racers called the Mark II Series.

Diamond’s bikes are always radical and aggressive (we once referred to them as “more of a swift kick to the jaw than a breath of fresh air”), but a completely bespoke machine takes time to complete. The Mark II Series is a bid at capturing that same ethos, with an end product that’s a bit more accessible.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Naturally, each Mark II starts out as a classic R-series BMW. Diamond have turned screws on a number of Beemers already, so it makes sense to go with what they know. The engines vary according to each client’s specifications, but the frames are always from Monolever models, with their single-sided swingarm.

Each bike is given new bodywork and a host of other changes. This is where it gets interesting; rather than build everything from scratch for each build, Diamond went through the process of designing and prototyping each part for production.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
That includes bits like the redesigned fuel tank, tailpiece, and engine covers (and a whole lot more). The tail section’s a real highlight—it’s designed to ‘float,’ with a hidden, CAD-designed subframe fully supporting the weight of the rider.

All parts have design patents and won’t be sold individually. The subframe is even compliant with Germany’s uber-strict TÜV standard.

Diamond tell us that they aren’t pitching the Mark II as a ‘race-spec’ bike—but they have still added a few key performance upgrades. There are refurbished 53mm upside-down forks up front, and a fully adjustable Wilbers shock out back.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
The wheels are pieced together from three different bikes in the BMW fold, and feature BMW’s neat, tubeless ‘cross spoke’ design. Braking upgrades include 320mm discs with 6-piston Tokico calipers, hooked up to an ABM radial master cylinder via braided lines.

When necessary, the donor engines are completely rebuilt, and the transmissions and final drives overhauled. The carbs are refurbished too, and jetted to match whatever intake and exhaust system the customer opts for.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Each Mark II is rewired as well, using Kellermann and Motogadget components, along with a few bits that have been made just for the series. Diamond have gone to great lengths to tuck everything away too.

Of course, each Mark II can be ordered with personalized options. The bikes you see here are sporting two different exhaust systems, three different air intake setups, and both analog and digital speedos.

You also get a choice of 17” or 18” wheels, and a solo or two-up seat. And the clip-ons and rear-sets are fully adjustable, helping each rider fine-tune their ergonomics.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Most importantly, you can pick any color or livery you want. So you could end up with anything from a laid-back café hopper (like the turquoise bike above, complete with 18” Firestone Deluxe Champions), to a sharp canyon carver (like the purple bike below, with its sticky 17” Metzeler Racetecs).

We’d be happy with any of these machines—they’re as sharp as anything we’ve seen from Diamond. But we’re even more impressed at how Tom and Pablo have have stepped things up.

So here’s a look at how they got to this point—and some of the challenges they faced along the way.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
What sparked the idea to launch a ‘series’ of bikes? We were facing an immense issue. It was not a lack of clients—in fact it was the exact opposite. The demand for our products outnumbered our possible output many times, which forced us to create long waiting lists for future projects and eventually declining many commissions we would have loved to accept.

We were even forced to cancel events and meetings we were going to attend, to make sure we could cope with the work. As a result, some people perceived us as acting exclusive, arrogant and cocky. This was the exact opposite of what we wanted.

We understood that the time has come to decide which direction to go in. So we decided to take the risk and expand the company to see how far we can go.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Does that mean you’re done with ‘one-off’ builds? We will always produce our unique “DA#” builds. These projects shape our brand, they are what we live for. They are radical, aggressive and set the bar higher one notch at a time. Sometimes I come up with concept in my mind and eventually turn it into reality at 3am if necessary. We can never foresee what the exact outcome on our DA# builds will be, since the best ideas happen spontaneously.

At the same time we felt the urge to significantly increase our efficiency, professionalism and simply create more. So we began shaping the idea to launch a small series of custom motorcycles.

A small ‘series’ bike is faster paced in production, suitable for a larger group of people, and carries less risk regarding the outcome. With our first series we’re trying to make our products more approachable, so more people can enjoy the feeling of owning and riding a custom motorcycle.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
How different was your approach this time around? Usually when starting a new custom project, the design is the first thing that needs to be worked out. But this requires a predefined standard, such as a stock donor bike, to base a design on.

In our case there was no such standard—we started from scratch on the most fundamental pieces such as the gas tank, frame, forks and wheel set. This doesn’t sound overly spectacular when considering a one-off custom build, but given that our parts needed to be scalable and reproducible to the exact same key figures, this quickly became the hardest part of the process to tackle.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
The idea came up to produce parts industrially. Even though the fixed costs would be immense, the quality standard (contrary to popular belief!) would rise to an unmatched level in bespoke motorcycle building. And variable costs would decrease, directly reflecting on the costs of the finished product.

Eventually we teamed up with Mr. Jens Buchert, an engineering expert from Munich who agreed to ‘translate’ our ideas into viable versions for industrial partners in Germany. Through this partnership we are able to produce what we believe is the highest quality bespoke motorcycle on a reproducible level on the current market.

And we won’t just sit back and relax now—there’s a constant development ongoing during manufacturing.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
What about the design, how did that come about? We knew that we needed to come up with a bike that would appear radical enough to unmistakably count as a true Diamond Atelier build. It also needed to be well balanced and perfectly proportioned, to work as a blank canvas for the personalization options we offer within the Mark II Series.

Having motorcycle designer Julian Weber on board during the process, who selflessly spent countless nights creating life-like renderings of THE perfect cafe racer, we finally came up with our best design up to this day.

It features a timeless shape, as well as an aggressive stance and low-slung silhouette in the true Diamond Atelier manner. One could say that the Mark II Series, style-wise, is a homage to our first ever build, the DA#1 (below).

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
A lot of people don’t realize what an in-depth process design can be… It’s important to have all components of the bike work together in the big picture. The length of the forks combined with the size of the wheel set makes for the perfect stance. The kick- up tail section flows with the angle of the gas tank. The single-sided exhaust ranges back as far as the bodywork—which is exactly to the center of the rear hub. There are tons of details to be found, many only on a second, third or tenth look.

How important is personalization with the Mark II Series? Building a small series of motorcycles doesn’t mean they all need to look alike, such as production vehicles from OEMs. You can go batshit crazy on the personalization options—and we hope people do. There are tons of things we can do with this blank canvas. The bikes shown here are just a humble start.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
How many Mark IIs are you planning to produce? The first run—which had special pricing since people did not know what they were getting into, and ordered a bike solely on a Photoshop rendering—is ten prototypes. From then the Mark II becomes a constant series. But the availability is not infinite. We’ll do as many as we want and eventually stop production to go for different projects or start a new series.

So what is the starting price, for a basic Mark II? They start at €20.990 (around $22,400), including the donor motorcycle.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
Any closing thoughts? With the Mark II Series I believe we have created a cross between high quality bespoke motorcycles and reasonable delivery times and pricing. Thus we hope to be able to reach more people with our brand and in general spread more Diamond Atelier bikes around the globe.

Even if this project is just an experiment as we strive to improve our skills, it is a win-win situation for all sides. We gain tons of experience and knowledge from the work with our new partners and a completely different production approach and in return more people get to have their own custom motorcycle, which enriches their life even by just a tiny bit.

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier
As always, in the custom world you get what you pay for—but this sort of limited production model should make high-end custom work more accessible to more people. After all, $22,000 is roughly the cost of a mass produced Harley Road Glide.

Here’s wishing Tom and Pablo the best of luck with their new approach.

Diamond Atelier | Instagram | Facebook | Photos by Lukas Magerl

BMW cafe racers for sale by Diamond Atelier

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Builders Custom Motorcycles Customs Editorial Other Motorcycle Blogs

Triumph Street Tracker Kit From Standard Motorcycle Co.

So, you want to be a Hooligan Racer? (many asked me how to become one) or you just want to look like one? Jason Paul Michael from Standard Motorcycle Co. in Orlando. asked for some advice to Roland sands and built his own kit to turn his Triumph Street Twin in an Hooligan…

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Builders Custom Motorcycles Customs Editorial Events Other Motorcycle Blogs

Kuryakyn And The Sturgis Buffalo Chip Debut Signature Build At Donnie Smith Bike And Show

Kuryakyn® and the Sturgis Buffalo Chip® kicked off the Midwest’s biggest bike show with a bang, debuting the 2017 Rock, Rumble & Rebellion signature build in front of a packed house at the 30th annual Donnie Smith Bike & Car Show. Representing seven days of…

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Custom Motorcycles Editorial Other Motorcycle Blogs

Joke Of The Week

A Psychiatrist versus A Bartender Ever since I was a child, I’ve always had a fear of someone hiding under my bed at night. So I went to a shrink and told him: “I’ve got problems. Every time I go to bed I think there’s somebody under it. I’m scared….

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