Vikki's Royal Enfield 650 Tracker

Hi, I'm Vicky from The Bike Shed and I'm with Remy from Angel Moto Works, who has kindly built me a fabulous bike in collaboration with Royal Enfield. I've just literally been out and ridden it for the first time and I'm absolutely in love. It's so much fun. But really, this kind of project started quite some time ago and I think it's been in the works with Royal Enfield for quite some time. Let's not talk about that. It's like the COVID period, right? There were some ups and downs. There were some slight ups and downs, but we got there. The most important is now. We're here. The bike is here. You're happy. I'm very happy. We're happy. But the bike was really, for me, was inspired when Royal Enfield said, we want to build you a bike because they built Dutch one. And they said, we're going to build you a better one than Dutch's. This is what happened, which obviously we did. But the whole thing for me was really, I love the style of flat track bikes. I love dirt bikes. I love that feeling of, you know, flickability. And with a 650 engine, it just felt like this was perfect. And I obviously saw the race team that Royal Enfield have, the flat track team. So I was very much, I was like, I want one of those from the road. Which was not possible, but we made something very special. We made it kind of possible, right? Although I could take this this weekend to the school and actually slide it. I mean, now it's your racket. It's on you. This is all carbon fiber. So easily replaced, obviously. But the inspiration was really, I have a bunch of bikes. I'm very fortunate. I have Ducatis and I have, you know, some Hondas. I felt like this bike would be perfect for me. Obviously I'm always in black. And so I love black and I really wanted to kind of represent my sort of native American Raven sign. So the paintwork was very delicate and I know it was a really hard job because it took quite a few coats and the guys that painted it for us, we were like, it's a bit too gray, not black enough. So we had to work with that. And obviously the weave of the carbon fiber, but really for me, it's like an extension of my identity. It's like, it's loud. Yeah, it's loud. It's little. It's got a bit of like muscle. It wants to kick you in the face. But it breaks on a penny. I mean, literally it was fantastic just riding across the bridge and breaking, engine breaking. And it was just like, but also just like to kind of bring it up to, you know, with the headlight, just having it really looking different and feeling different. I always love that vision of when you're on a bike and it's like gnarly and it's like at night and it's like, so I feel like we've got the gnarly in there. There is no other 650 like this out there. We've changed quite a few parts and bits on that bike. We dropped a fair amount of weight. I would say something in the 50 pounds. Yeah. The exhaust, the new exhaust provided by our friends at S&S. We love S&S. Look at that big open. You can't see, but it's got a big open, no baffles. No baffle. That was the first thing I took off. I love the black S&S, you know, bespoke sign. Yeah. Changing the factory exhaust to that beautiful S&S system allowed us to drop in the 30 plus pounds. We got rid of the air box. We got rid of the headlight, headlight bracket. Just going back to the exhaust, that is the race exhaust, right? It's what they put on the flat track bikes. It's the race set up. It's the commercial version. That's the one that anybody can buy directly on S&S website. So it's not special? It's special because it's black. It's special because it's black. We had to ceramic coat it in black just because you didn't want a brush line. But to give you credit, it gives a very nice frame to the engine. So I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. And then, yeah, we got rid of all the headlight, headlight bracket. I'm loving the indicators in the bar ends. Yes. Little race levers, which is, you know, for me is really useful. The fact that I can change, you know, change the pull. And we have small hands, so that's perfect for us. Another big feature on that bike are the developed flat track tires. Those are the road version of what you can find on the race bike, which is fantastic. They look amazing. They have that chunkiness. They feel chunky. On the road, it felt good. I was like, OK. Unfortunately, it does add a little bit of seat height because they are so chunky. I'm still tippy toes. Yeah, me too. But that's all right. I'm actually taller than you today. Yeah, just today. And then another big, big work was to fit that beautiful carbon saying because it came out to us from Royal Enfield as a monocoque. So it integrated the cover for the gas tank because that's the actual thing. There's only three in the world. Two for Johnny Lewis, the AMA flat track racer for Royal Enfield. And the third one is on your bike. We had to chop it off. But I think we made it work very nicely. I love it. The good folks at TFX from the Netherlands provided the suspension. Big shout out to them because it works fantastic. Yeah, that was perfect for me. And then, yeah, it was a quite a little bit of work. Yeah. But I'm really, really happy. I love some of the light little details. So the headlight is, you know, the back brake light actually is tucked under. But also these indicators here double up for brake lights as well. So you kind of essentially got like a triangle brake lights. Yeah, that's that was very important for me to provide you with a very gnarly badass bike, but also a safe bike. Yeah. So a lot of my builds, I put a central taillight and then the indicators are three in one. So like this, if your car is behind you, it sees three points of light when you're braking, when you're here. Fantastic. The front LED bar, also super bright. And then we have the nice MotoGadget gauge right there. And then all our little details, we wrap all our cables in braided sleeve, make it nice and tight. Yeah, it's very tidy. Yeah, I really like it. And I think that, you know, for me, I could have, you know, gone for kind of a bigger size bike, but the 650 is perfect. I think it's just so much fun in L.A. and just kind of being able to just chuck it around and the exhaust. Did you do some sort of like mapping afterwards just to make sure it's all the fuel is OK, or did you just put it straight on and it was golden? The good thing is as soon that pipe directly with Royal Enfield, so we don't actually need to remap the bike. So it rides fantastic. And yes, the 650 platform is just fantastic because right out of the dealer floor, it's a great bike already. And then when you start to change a few things here and there, make it truly your own. No, I'm super happy with it. And I love, I love this seat. I mean, it's perfect for California when it's not raining because like at the moment every weekend is raining. But this seat is just gorgeous. Like the way that it just finishes here. Who made the seat? Did you kind of buy that or did you send off for it? No, because this is a custom piece we had to make. So Jeremy, our mechanic that does all the work for us, he's the magic hand behind Angel Motorworks, built the seat pan out of aluminum and then we handed it over to a small upholstery shop that did it for us. They did a very quick turnaround, came to the shop, laid the foam and then we kind of shaped it. And I said, I just want black leather, black Alcantara, something simple, but super, super, super raining. I love how it butts up just perfectly against the tank. Yeah. It's just, I mean, it fits my butt perfectly, so I'm very happy. Perfect. Perfect. But yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm just delighted with it. I'm just so glad and I just don't want it to go anywhere now. It's good to be going off to a show and I'm like, no, it's not. I've only just got my hands on it and it's going to rain this weekend. So no chance to ride this weekend, I've got perfect rain tires on it. So I mean, a few little skids around downtown, I'm sure we'll have some fun on it. But yeah, no, I'm really happy. And I think that, you know, when we first talked about the project and going back to the fact that, you know, Royal Enfield built the bike for Dutch in London, the gray one with like the emergency alcohol thing in the side pocket. And I was like, yeah, it's a nice bike. And then we made a better one. We made a better one. Yeah. I love it. And just going on about this, actually. So you guys made this, so is this like fancy? You put it in a machine and it came out as one piece and you did some computer wizardry and it went, just came out or did you just... We 3D scanned the whole front of the bike. Nice. And then we designed following one of the drawings from Adrian Taylor, the head designer. Thanks Adrian. Thanks Adrian. Adrian provided us with a drawing. We had somebody design, 3D design this, then 3D print a prototype. Then this version that we had painted, we reinforced a little bit the back so it doesn't flap around. It's very stiff and painted it to match the rest of the bike. I think you could make these and sell these. I think people, I love the look of it. I mean, not saying that like no one can have the same as mine because it's fine, but I think it looks really, really... And the way the light fits in there and the light is super strong as well. So you get like really good coverage, but it just looks so unique. That's the good thing about 3D scanning and 3D designing is that I had the LED bar. We loosely fitted on the bike when we were doing the 3D scan and then the 3D bar was scanned once again so it fits perfectly into the opening. And all the cables and the gubbins are all hidden behind it. So it just makes it... We tried to make it tidy. And then you mentioned the paint job. That was indeed a big moment. That was a lot of... It was a mission. It was a mission because... We had a hot conversation, give me, in your workshop in the middle of the summer, six years ago, right? And I was like, it's not quite black enough. He's like, are you kidding me? I'm like, it's just a little bit blacker, but it came out so well. Carlos, our painter, came back with a very nice version too. And I like the... So we get a little bit of bling, just a little bit. Blanket gold, fantastic. And then you guys from the video might think it's a black bike, but then there will be some B-rolls showing you the details because that was the whole purpose of that paint job, is that from a distance, it must look like a black bike. And then as you get closer, you see all the spikes and the feathers and... Yeah, the raven wing that kind of, you know, dresses and a little secret raven head at the back. But I just, I love it. And I think though, we have started something now. Because, and Adrian, it's your fault because you kind of started a whole competition between Dutch and I. And now I'm winning. And now I heard there was a conversation going on. So I'm like, listen, you're starting something. So I'm in for round two as well. But next time, it ain't going to take two COVID years. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Next time it will be a much quicker version. But we need to sit down and really think about something to top this one off. Yeah, because there ain't nothing really. So yeah. Thanks, Adrian. We love you. Thank you, Royal Enfield. I'm a very happy lady. Very demanding, I know, but very, very happy. And thanks, Remy and Angel Motorworks for doing such a great job. And I'm looking forward to sliding this around downtown. Okay. Yeah, man. Thank you. That's a wrap.