The difference that makes Dab Design stand out of the crowd is their unusual and I wouldn’t hesitate to say – progressive approach to custom bikes building. 3D printers are the yesterday’s news but printing motorcycle parts with them – that’s something I’m excited about. In fact, I believe this practice will get even more popular as technology improves and I’m not talking about big factories here but rather small workshops that would probably benefit a big deal from such flexibility in producing various parts in different forms.
Dab Design is a French motorcycle building garage ran by Simon Dabadie. Recently, they celebrated the first anniversary and to make it even more memorable Simon previously set a goal to build a bike like never before – the result is this futuristic Honda CR500.
The donor is 491cc 2-stroke engine Honda CR500 that was found in the back of a customer’s garage. This enduro model was made for extreme riding and has proper characteristics to back it up. Dab Design wanted to preserve that dirt bike style while transforming it into something completely new with the particular custom design (DB stays faithful to) – a bike that wouldn’t have analogs in the world.
The bodywork uses 3D printed molds. This way the whole design can be visualized and precisely planned at the very beginning. A customer can see what the end result is going to look like. Lightweight materials like fiberglass, carbon or even linen make parts a perfect fit for a custom build.
But taking advantage of the modern technology doesn’t stop there. There’s also a flat headlamp made using a LED system.
The exhaust of this CR500 is a hand-made unit misleadingly routed to the one side of the bike, then redirected to the other and finally finished with an FMF silencer under the seat. To save space the original air filter was replaced. The new one was fitted onto a specially printed pipe, routed around the Ohlins mono shock which was developed and adapted specifically for this build by Bud Racing.
The bike’s engine was completely disassembled and put together again by experts. The front suspension has been designed and made right there at DB. The tank was replaced as well and with that a new radiator had to be installed. After calculating all the measurements and actually designing the new unit, it went right between the fork and the frame where it’s supposed to be.
The whole build came together impressively great! Featuring black leather seat and finished with deep black and some contrasting yellow, the project is absolutely something to be proud of.
BikeVX claims no credit for any images featured on this site unless otherwise noted