Kenstomoto: A Bike From The Future

Welcome to the future, or at least a very unconventional two-wheeled view of it, courtesy of Kenny Yeoh.

This bike captured my attention the moment I walked into Art Of Speed on the first day of the Malaysian event. Sitting low and stretched over the ground, the custom creation looked like something out of the Akira anime.

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This is not the first time I’ve posted images of Kenstomoto bikes; Kenny’s builds stood out to me at the last couple of AOS events. They’re always highlighted by a recognizable style, a mix of aggression and forward-thinking design. But this year he’s taken things to a whole new level.

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The Valkyrie was designed then built in house Kenstomoto, beginning with a detailed and thoroughly engineered 3D CAD model. The second step of the process was to turn the design into reality, and for this Kenny hand fabricated the frame. This is his first venture into a full-frame build, and as he told me, once you start drastically lowering the overall shape of a bike the packaging starts to become quite a challenge, the biggest headache of all being the front end and the steering.

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The stretched-out front end uses a single-sided swing arm with a cable-actuated steering system. Thick cabling is used to push and pull the massive front wheel left and right over its pivot point.

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A single coilover then takes care of the damping.

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The 21-inch front wheel was purchased as a blank and machined in a way that it would support both the custom hub and the mounting for the brake rotor on one side, leaving the other side completely clean.

The candy red body parts and cowls were 3D printed, again highlighting the precision and planning that Kenny puts into all his creations.

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On top of what you would commonly call the ‘tank’ sits a Daytona tachometer sourced from Japan. That’s not the tank, though. Because of the bike being lowered and stretched over its extended wheelbase, the fuel tank had to be relocated, and the custom 6L unit sits under the seat protected by the steel plating of the frame itself.

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You can get a good idea of the amount of work the packaging took from this angle.

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The un-suspended hardtail sits almost recessed in front of the massive rear wheel.

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It kind of resembles a conventional, modern day custom show bike from this angle.

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At the heart of the Valkyrie is a Kawasaki Ninja 650R engine, 650cc sitting right on the frame which itself is only 50mm off the ground.

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The ‘foot-warmer’ exhaust pops out from the front of the frame and curves over and downward on the left side of the bike, also serving as a distinctive design touch.

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The 10-month build was rushed to get it finished in time for the AOS show unveil, so Kenny’s plan now is to go back, take the bike apart, and rebuild it in an even more focused way. He’ll starting with a refined new frame, then add a hydraulic steering setup and countless other details in order to make Valkyrie more of a ‘bike’ than a ‘show bike.’

Dino Dalle Carbonare
Instagram: speedhunters_dino
dino@speedhunters.com

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1

Your entire left leg would be a mangled, burned up mess after probably 30 seconds of driving lol.
This thing is damn cool though. Custom bike fabrication is so bizarre sometimes.

2

Hahahaha. The exhaust is really harmless, its angled away from the foot and not that close really. The chainsaw may soo become a belt, i just needed it to run for the show really. Thanks for the feedback

3

will there be a speedhunters bike too ? like your project cars.. that will be interesting, who will bring it to the family and what kind of bike would it be..

4
Daniel P Huneault

love it!!!

5

Extreme G.

6

first thing I thought of too

7
Dovydas Grigas

Reminds me of a small honda dn01 parked in between two wheels

8

Pretty sweet visually

9

Rad! I love how unconventional it is

10

Remind me of "Shamblo Mobile Armour" from Gundam Unicorn series... Good job mr. Kenny

11

Thank you!

12

The main thing he must reconsider is the exhaust for sure, the challenge will be to keep its design as cool as it is now not a lame strait pipe to the back (maybe going up in the air?)

13
JBfromSiliconValley

I want to use it as a camping generator. A sweet, awesome looking camping generator. I'm not riding it w/o fully armored pants.

14

My professor once told me “There are 2 things you need to know about engineering. F=ma, and you can't push a rope”
How on earth does that cable operated hub centre steering work?!

15

Them cables are 10mm thick each and with a fiiting sleeve the cables work extremely well in push motion. Theyre very stiff cables, made for remote control purposes, mainly used to shift gears in large vehicles. The 2 cables works with one being lil too short amd the other a lil too long hence cancelling out any loose fitting in the sleeve translating full motion on whatever the handlebars inputs to the wheel precisely.

16

Ah. Cool trick. Would not have been my first choice but hey, if it works

17

I assume the cables are opposing so one pulls each direction (otherwise no need for two) but anyway it's covered in the article that it will change...

18

Very cool concept. could be improved if he change the power plant to electric and use a wheel hub motor in the back to eliminate the chain saw and oven on the left leg.

19

I wished i had access to a good motor, the central section of the body can house alot of batteries. Do have that in mind really

20

So... what are the possibilities of there being an actual AKIRA motorcycle in the future?

Cause I've been waiting forever to see one of those on the road, and this just tells me it is feasible!

21

I’m wondering what the steering feels like using cables? But it does look cool!!

22

I'm not even into bikes and I love this. Mad and brilliant.

23

this thing is way cool. Now I wanna learn how to ride a motorcycle just because of this bike.

24

Umm.. I really love that "Valkyrie" font, i want to have that font in my R6 2018 with mystic chrome: blue agat wrap
so, can i know the font name ?

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