Motorcycle ideas

[Geoff]

A rat bike (or car) is a bike that looks ratty. Rusty *, nonessential parts like body panels missing, never washed, etc. The builder often tries to put the best mechanical bits into the worst-looking enclosure.


* but not in the usual sense. A door panel for instance won't have a rotted-through bottom edge, it'll be structurally intact but with all of its paint removed and evenly rust-brown.

And it has to be matt black 
Chris

MUST be matt black

[Geoff]

As an aside how about modelling a survival bike based on the old "Dark Future" game?

[Weaver]

OK, please explain what defines a 'rat bike' to the unitiated.

Having only ever ridden one motor-cycle in my entire life I haven't got a clue.  (for the record it was a Triumph Bonnevillle with a sidecar, sometimes with all three wheels......)

Hah! That opens a can of matt black worms: asking that question at a bike rally is like asking about RLM colours at a model show...... duck.

Basically, as others have said, a rat bike is ratty and usually matt black, satin black or army green. Good ones feature "creative" solutions to accessories or even basic parts that avoid spending money at all costs: why buy a shiny chrome bike exhaust when you can bend an old car one to fit, right?

The debate comes in when contemplating what constitues a "real" or "proper" rat. Some purists hold that a proper rat is one that has been owned by the same guy for 20 years and only been maintained by his own hand and frequent trips to the scrapyard. These same purists reject "contrived" rat bikes with extraneous gas masks, spikes, skulls and plastic rats in cages etc... Others regard the latter as just another custom syle (the "survival bike"), and happily take perfectly okay bikes and rat them in one go at no small expense. There are also cynics, who hold that the whole rat bike thing is completely bogus and just an excuse for lazy building and bad maintenance, or a way of getting a crashed bike back on the road on the cheap.

Rather good little essay on it all here: http://www.ratbike.org/feature.php


The Rat Bike thing had always gone on at a low level in the UK, but it got a massive boost when Back Street Heroes magazine did a Mad Max style "Survival" bike in the early 1980s. Can't for the like of me remember what it was called though.... It's actually this one from the Wikipedia entry (doesn't name it though):

[Captain Canada]

Ooohh that's a gorgeous rat bike ! Love the pipe ! Thanks for the read too. Gonna print that one at work and file it.

[Captain Canada]

Now if only I had some spare cash, this would be a real beauty to start with. Be a hoot to show up at airshows aboard !

http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-motorcycles-dirt-bikes-motocross-Can-Am-Military-W0QQAdIdZ423975664

[Weaver]

Now if only I had some spare cash, this would be a real beauty to start with. Be a hoot to show up at airshows aboard !

http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-motorcycles-dirt-bikes-motocross-Can-Am-Military-W0QQAdIdZ423975664

The British Army used those too. For a while you could buy them and the later 500cc 4-stroke version as army-surplus, complete with SA-80 case for the latter:

[Weaver]

Ooohh that's a gorgeous rat bike ! Love the pipe ! Thanks for the read too. Gonna print that one at work and file it.

Now I'm home and can get on more websites.....

It was called the Future Bike, and it was originally quite a bit different to that:



It languished in somebody's shed for a few years, then got re-built with some help from a guy on the same Motorcycle Mechanics college course as me in '95/'96. That was when it gained the upside-down forks, modern wheels and the exhaust.

Video of it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oEQn4XyDKA

[Weaver]

Some other influential rats...

The Changeling:




Li'l Mark's Auntie Social:



And yes, it COULD be ridden:

[Weaver]

Another one of mine. This XTZ750 is still in my garage and is theoretically my "backup" bike though trying to actually get it started at short notice could be interesting now....



I can't take credit for the blackness (already there when I bought it), but there's a fine collection of random angle-iron on the back, designed to support some luggage far enough forward to keep the front wheel on speaking terms with the ground when the tank's less than half full.....  Two of the boxes, including the one you see there, are proper bike panniers, but the other "custom" one, which fits in the space above the stupid high-level exhaust, is a converted plastic toolbox....  

Much of the effort with this bike went into undoing the horrendous and mostly unneccessary bodges perpretrated on it by previous owners. Exhibit A: the welded-on threadless front sprocket nut... Price of a brand new, un-stripped nut from Yamaha? £2.75......

[Captain Canada]

lol...some people are not only cheap, but lazy as well !