Harley-Davidson LiveWire – The Rule Breaker

The story: It all began with a bike builder’s dream. We got the great opportunity to design and build whatever we think is cool! As long as it is futuristic and black. And as a bonus the base of this build was a brand new electric Harley LiveWire! The customer’s assignment was to build a battery-powered sportbike with the looks to match the performance the LiveWire already has! So if given the opportunity… we gave it all! We wanted to make a real significant design change to the stock bike, because we weren’t limited by design rules. That’s why we cleared our minds and dropped all conventional methods. As it was Daan’s dream to go out with a bang we asked him to assist us with the design!

Functional art: We wanted to start from scratch, so we threw away the stock body plastics to get to the bare bones of this beast. No minor modifications, just a complete build with no limitations except riding position and performance. The kind of bike we were making, is meant to be ridden like a hooligan. Hard and fast! Custom bikes are a form of art, but we like to make it functional art!

Ready in 4 months: Although there were no limitations in determining the design, there was one big challenge: the bike had to be ready in 4 months… that is quite a task if you know a bit about bike building, but we were up for it! We had to assemble a great team of extra craftsmen and just had to work more and harder. There were some really hard deadlines in this build, but we managed to make sure that time did not affect the end result.

Build Process: We started with rough sketching by hand and sharing ideas between the customer and us. The second step was to make some Photoshop montages. After the customer’s approval, we started with the real build process. First in cardboard and tape. Once we all agreed on the lines, we started shaping aluminum with a hammer, english wheel and all the other tools we need to get the shape right. And of course a lot of welding. Eventually, a lot of blood sweat and beers goes into a project like this.

As for the futuristic parts, we add several LED lights into the bodywork and seat. These can be operated by the smartphone, one color for every mood. One of the challenges was to not change the wiring because of the factory warranty and of course we don’t wanted to burn our fingers on this …volt output, so we had to work around the original components like the charging dock and the speedo. As we always do, a custom bike needed to be made for riding. This meant we had to keep a storage place for the charging cable. So we reinvented the seat piece to make it cool and still functional.

Despite not having much time, we still made some chances to the design. Our belief is: ‘If it could be better, you should make it better!’ Painting the bike semi gloss black was also a challenge because the body had to be really straight to make it look perfect, but it was word it. In our opinion, we chose the perfect color for this mean looking bike, it means business!

The result: We as Moto Adonis are really proud of how this bike turned out! We are building custom motorcycles since 2012, but this was our first EV  we have ever build. We would love to do it again! Conventional motorcycles with petrol engines are our drugs, but the taste of power and a different kind of sound and experience is something really special. If you rode this beast, you’d probably share the opinion that this is awesome too!

Bodywork: Handmade full aluminum. Lighting: LED lights for all running lights and several LEDs underneath all body panels which can change color by a mobile app. Front brake: Brembo’s with Moto-Master disks

Motorcycle Gear in pictures and film: Jacket Revit Cordite, Jeans Revit Detroit TF.
Helmet – BY CITY – Roadster White II helmet – white

In the media (small selection).
BikeExif
Designboom
The Pack
FHM
The Man

Credits: Bike design by Moto Adonis – Arthur Renkema, Job Leussink and Daan Borsje. Upulstery: Miller kustom Upholstery. Bodywork: Moto Adonis – Carrosseriebouw Jansen. Photos: Mark Meisner. Filmed: Deep bold studio. Production and copyright © – Moto Adonis Motorcycles b.v.

Content free to share (no modification) under conditions of mentioning Moto Adonis with link to social (instagram: @moto_adonis) and website (MotoAdonis.com).