MOBILITY/MOTORBIKES: World-renowned custom bike designer Roland Sands and the R 18 Dragster
Custom bike designer Roland Sands comes up with a straightforward conversion for the BMW R 18 that perfectly showcases the iconic and impressive boxer engine. The result: the R 18 Dragster. He and his team have given free rein to their creativity around the two-cylinder big boxer and created a unique masterpiece.
Above all, Roland Sands‘ personal past served as a source of inspiration. „With an engine that is so visibly the centre of attention, I thought directly of muscle cars. My family has always had a soft spot for fast driving and my father was a drag racer. So I thought it made sense to reduce the bike to its essentials and convert it to go fast on a straight track,“ explains the designer.
The new BMW R 18: confident cruiser with historical roots.
With the new R 18, BMW Motorrad presented the first production vehicle in the cruiser segment in April 2020. Like no BMW motorbike before it, it is completely in the tradition of historic BMW motorbikes in terms of technology and design. Both technically and visually, it borrows from famous models such as the BMW R 5 and puts the focus back on the essentials of the motorbike: purist, no-frills technology and the boxer engine as the epicentre of riding pleasure.
The heart of the new BMW R 18 is a completely newly developed two-cylinder boxer engine, the „Big Boxer“. Not only with its impressive appearance, but also in technical terms, it harks back to the traditional air-cooled boxer engines that have provided an exhilarating riding experience since the beginning of BMW Motorrad production in 1923.
Roland Sands‘ technical design process.
Roland Sands always starts with sketches on paper. This allows him to analyse the shapes and fundamentals of the bike and figure out what is possible with the existing build of the bike. „The real magic happens at the end when we bring the sketch to life,“ Roland Sands describes.
Unlike almost any other motorbike, the new R 18 offers a very conversion-friendly architecture. Accordingly, it has an easily removable rear frame and an easily dismantled paint set. This grants a high degree of freedom to rebuild the rear section of the new R 18 with comparatively little effort according to one’s personal ideas and to design the paintwork according to one’s own wishes. „The electronics were definitely the most difficult to work on, as we added nitrous oxide, removed the stock exhaust and drastically changed the engine’s intake system. It was a bit of an experiment, but we did it! The R 18 is impressive and very well finished, as you would expect from BMW Motorrad. I was really looking forward to starting this conversion from the beginning!“ emphasises Roland.
In the case of the R 18 Dragster, Roland Sands‘ team retained the R 18’s standard steering axle, removed the bike’s original rear end and transformed it into a drag bike. Roland Sands also decided to modify the front and rear wings to match the modified frame. The whole customisation process took three and a half months. After that, the team drove the bike to the workshop for final assembly and, of course, to a race track for a day.
„Every motorbike needs different sources, special materials and parts depending on the build. Even after building over 200 bikes, each new concept is a bit of a learning process. We always want to understand the genre we are in. That’s the key to keeping it authentic and functional,“ Roland explains.
In addition to the custom bike, Roland Sands created two different design collections of aluminium machined parts for the new R 18, which will be available from the market launch: „Machined“ and „2-Tone-Black“. The „Machined“ and „2-Tone-Black“ scopes include, for example, front and rear wheels. In addition, the range of these exclusive machined parts extends from speedometer housings to handlebar clamps, handlebar risers, handlebar grips, hand levers or mirrors to engine housing trims, fuel filler caps, airbox covers and much more.
For the R 18 Dragster, Roland Sands used the „2 Tone-Black“ design collection of milled parts to customise the hand lever, hero chest, wheels, headlight and valve cover. The front end of the dragster was taken from the R nineT. Both the seat and the exhaust are customised and made from scratch.
The R 18 Dragster in detail.
The frame was completely revised, the rear suspension fundamentally changed for drag racing.
The front and rear wings were slightly modified using the stock parts to maintain the classic R 18 silhouette.
The headlight was taken from the R 18 and complemented with the headlight trim from the Roland Sands design collection of aluminium machined parts from the R 18.
The stock exhaust has been replaced with a handmade stainless steel twin megaphone system using the tailpipes from the Design Collection of aluminium machined parts.
The expansion tank lids are by Roland Sands Design.
The fuel tank was taken from the original production vehicle.
The paint is a two-tone metallic blue with classic white double lamination by Roland’s long-time painter Chris Wood.
Roland Sands: The man behind the designs.
Roland Sands basically grew up on a motorbike. His father was a drag racer who made custom motorbikes and parts himself. As a result, Roland grew up surrounded by workshops and motorbikes and it wasn’t long before he was also riding dirt bikes and taking them apart. In addition, he pursued a racing career of his own for over 10 years.
Today, Roland Sands is an internationally renowned custom bike and motorbike clothing designer, with clients all over the world.
His team is best known for combining styles to create new genres. „Combining racing aesthetics and function, coupled with our custom style – that’s probably what we’re best known for. We want our conversions to perform even better than the production bikes in the end,“ explains the designer.
For Roland Sands, motorcycling is not just a job: „It’s really hard to describe it in a few sentences. For me, riding a motorbike is the incredible feeling of becoming one with the machine. My motorbike is my life. It’s everything for me – it’s what I do.“
More photos of the development of the BMW R 18 Dragster: (Photo text in German)
https://virtualdesignmagazine.de/bmw-motorrad-praesentiert-den-r-18-dragster/
BRAND: BMW AG
virtual design magazine Michael Hiller
