"Simplicity is the key to brilliance"
Founded in Sweden in 2019, electric motorcycle manufacturer RGNT Motorcycles has won admirers for its straightforward, 'classic' naked-style street bike designs.
Recent news is of a collaboration with German custom bike builders Crooked Motorcycles. The result of this cross-pollination is the Crooked E-Type seen here - a stylish, minimalistic and 100% electric custom motorcycle.
The E-Type made its debut at the Bike Shed London show at the end of May and is now ready for serial production in the Crooked workshop near Munich.
Dominikus Braun, CEO and founder of Crooked Motorcycles, said: "We had been debating doing an EV project for a while, but we wanted to collaborate with a high-quality partner, who shared our vision on custom style and design. As soon as we ran into RGNT at INTERMOT last October, we fell for the classic look and simple design of its bikes. After some talks with its team, we quickly decided we would partner with them for our first EV project."
The donor bike was a RGNT No. 1 Scrambler SE. Following the design principle of its successful Crooked XS400 series - "Simplicity is the key to brilliance" - the biggest challenge for the builders was to reduce or stow away the large electrical modules in the triangle frame, so the frame looks open and the bike loses weight optically.
"Another challenge was to reduce the size of the very large original dashboard. To reach these goals, we've redesigned the subframe in CAD to make duplication easier. We placed the converter unit inside the seat and then CAD-designed a cable duct inside the frame triangle to protect all cables in the best possible way.
"We raised the rear by 3 cm and reinforced the chassis with new, more progressive YSS springs, covered with 3D-printed fork covers. Blacked out rims with Continental TKC 80 tyres, a minimalistic Bates-style LED headlight with Motogadget blaze turn signals and a new LED brake/rear light from Supernova made the build complete."
Gideon Schipaanboord, Head of Marketing at RGNT, said: "We think Dominikus and the team at Crooked have done an outstanding job. Building your first electric custom in a tight, six-week timeframe is very challenging, but they worked day and night to get it done. We were delighted to show the Crooked E-Type at the Bike Shed London show to mark UK availability of our standard models this year."
