Photo: Motor Rausch
We’ve seen bikes made out of wood, we’ve seen another one made using 3D printing technology, but who would have imagined someone would make one out of rock? You read that right; this Honda appears to be coming straight from The Flintstones.
What you see here is a former 1982 Honda CX500 with all its bodywork now being made of carefully carved stone. Its story starts when German magazine Custombike invited readers to build the baddest motorcycle in a competition that says it all - “Build da Fukker”.
The contest had only two rules - one, the budget cannot exceed €5,000, and, second, the final machine has to be functional. And for custom motorcycle builder Chris Zernia, the basalt is both cheap and crazy-cool looking, so he decided to use it in its creation.
“Basalt is my favorite stone, I love it,” said Zernia. “The problem was the weight in respect to the capability of the bike's frame. Due to the stone it had to carry an extra weight of about 130 kg.”
It might not look that heavy, but the basalt is a very dense volcanic stone and the headlight cover, gas tank, seat, number plate and foot rests are enough to make the whole bike tip the scales at around 350 kilograms or 55.1 stones (pun intended).
The additional weight forced Zernia to reinforce the chassis with additional steel tubing as well as replace the suspension. The forks are borrowed from a Honda VT600 Shadow while the rear shocks come from a Harley-Davidson Dyna.
Chris said that despite the added weight, which kinda makes it top heavy, the bike rides pretty normal. The problem is, it doesn’t have a front brake, which means that you have to be quite brave to ride this. For you, the custom bike builder has also carved an open-face basalt helmet to match the bike.
Zernia said he isn’t done with building stone bikes. His next project is an old Harley-Davidson 1100 Sportster, which will be named the Rolling Stone.
The contest had only two rules - one, the budget cannot exceed €5,000, and, second, the final machine has to be functional. And for custom motorcycle builder Chris Zernia, the basalt is both cheap and crazy-cool looking, so he decided to use it in its creation.
“Basalt is my favorite stone, I love it,” said Zernia. “The problem was the weight in respect to the capability of the bike's frame. Due to the stone it had to carry an extra weight of about 130 kg.”
It might not look that heavy, but the basalt is a very dense volcanic stone and the headlight cover, gas tank, seat, number plate and foot rests are enough to make the whole bike tip the scales at around 350 kilograms or 55.1 stones (pun intended).
The additional weight forced Zernia to reinforce the chassis with additional steel tubing as well as replace the suspension. The forks are borrowed from a Honda VT600 Shadow while the rear shocks come from a Harley-Davidson Dyna.
Chris said that despite the added weight, which kinda makes it top heavy, the bike rides pretty normal. The problem is, it doesn’t have a front brake, which means that you have to be quite brave to ride this. For you, the custom bike builder has also carved an open-face basalt helmet to match the bike.
Zernia said he isn’t done with building stone bikes. His next project is an old Harley-Davidson 1100 Sportster, which will be named the Rolling Stone.
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