The Pure&Crafted Signature Bike.
For years, graduate industrial designer and head of a school for product design and multimedia in Mannheim, Rolf Reick a.k.a. Mr. Krautmotors, has been the bustling personality on the customising scene, and has built a timeless eye-catcher in a joint project with his latest 'Pure&Crafted BMW R5 Sprint Bike'.
Less is more
The designer made the saying 'less is more' into his philosophy not only professionally but also when modifying primarily older motorcycles. When 'customising', everyone knows that it's not just about transforming superfluous industrial ballast into a motorcycle, for instance in order to be able to choose the furlong distance for yourself at the drag race or to race as quickly as possible to your favourite café, but much more besides.
It starts with the engine aesthetics, whose individual elegance in a sleek frame can set the scene as a central element, includes the homogeneous styling of the respective mounted parts and ends with technical solutions, which can trigger either a thumbs up or thumbs down from those in the know when it comes to the subject matter. Oh yes, and it should be ridable as well. A simple principle on balance, but one which not everyone achieves. However, this bike gets our thumbs up.
At first glance, the bike looks as if it had been sent through time using a flux capacitor during the final stretch of its last drag race in 1966 and straight into its parking space at the BMW Motorrad Days in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. All modification trends in between seem to have passed this puristic vehicle right on by, which is why this cooperation has churned out an extremely suitable Pure&Crafted Signature Bike': pure and handmade, and still on the basis of an 'Old Heritage'.
Rolf Reick
A penchant for old steel frames
After buying the basic motorcycle, a legendary BMW R5 from 1937 off former chief editor of 'Bikers News' Michael Ahlsdorf, he started by fully stripping it down together with his screwdriver buddies from the 'Mannheim plant', before reassembling it as a sprint bike with only the absolutely essential parts within a few weeks. The BMW R5 was a ground-breaking model for a long time. Since its introduction onto the market in 1936, its new technical developments have characterised vehicle construction at the Bayerische Motoren Werke deep into the 1950s.
The 24 bhp, 500 cc machine has won many races, making it a true collector's item, especially considering only 2,652 of them were made. The 80 year-old model is considered an icon of BMW motorcycle construction amongst experts – which was also one of the reasons why Edgar Heinrich and Ola Stenegärd, together with Swedish twins and Chopper customising specialists Benna and Ronna Norén from 'Unique Custom Cycles', built the BMW 5R Homage Bike, which was recently presented at the Concorso d'Eleganza.
Rolf Reick
