People say that everything has its own special purpose. Race cars are meant for racing, sports cars for sporting and all-roads for going where there are no roads.
And that’s why we can’t help but assume that this custom moto must come with some kind of ninja-esque secret challenge for its rider. Though the verdict is out on whether it carries the villain or hero.
Conceived and crafted by Winston Yeh, of Taipei-based Rough Crafts, the Onyx Blade motorcycle is as dark and stealthy as they come. Which is why it’s tough to believe that there’s a reworked middleweight Yamaha MT-07 skeleton in there. Because this bike has a serious juicing problem.
Ain’t nothing middleweight about it.
A commissioned project, the Onyx was designed at the request of a client wanting a slick, darting ride to go head-to-head with the manic traffic in Taipei. A “little” aluminum bodywork in collaboration with Onehandmade plus Rough Crafts’ signature muscular build and matte finish and voila! — one death-defying ride at your service.
“I think the stock MT-07 has got quite a lot of ‘design’ going on, but it’s actually the frame that’s really interesting — especially the triangular tubing that the engine hangs off. That’s what I wanted to show,” said Yeh. “The original idea was to do a glossy Lamborghini grey, with no matte, but the owner insisted that rough crafts bikes have to be matte — so a layer of matte clear was applied on top of the base paint.”
The race experts at Gears Racing finessed the job with a modified front end with shortened forks with covers to account for the monsoon that blesses Taipei a third of the year. And Yeh snuck back in to pepper the Onyx with Rough Craft accents like the gas cap, finned risers, fighter bars with grips and signals from Motogadget. Locked and loaded to conquer rush hour (or save someone’s child from impending doom).
via designboom
images: © JL photography
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