Source: Bike Bound
[[{“value”:”A Look Back at “The Black” — A Vincent-Powered Custom by Falcon Motorcycles…
At the inaugural Handbuilt Show LA last month, a great many eyes were drawn to a pair of customs from Falcon Motorcycles: “The Kestrel” and “The Black.” Despite being built well over a decade ago, these unique bespoke machines still command nearly as much attention as anything else on display. So we decided to shine a light back on our favorite, The Black, built around a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow engine.
First, a little backstory. Builder Ian Barry and his partner, entrepreneur Amaryllis Knight, founded Falcon Motorcycles in 2008 with the express intent to build The Falcon Ten, a series of custom bikes each designed around a different rare or iconic engine. Most would be named after a specific type or species of raptor from the Falco genus.
“Throughout history, culture and myth, Falcons have symbolized, vision, elegance, speed and power.” -Ian Barry, Falcon Motorcycles
First came The Bullet, built for actor and skateboarding legend Jason Lee from a 1950 Triumph Thunderbird. The bike reportedly involved over 1000 hours of fabrication work and announced Falcon Motorcycles as a workshop to watch. However, Barry decided to take a slightly different direction after this build.
The Bullet and The Black
Whereas The Bullet was a highly customized bike, Barry wanted to quit “customizing” and truly build each bike from scratch: designing, engineering, and fabricating everything but the engine, carburetor, wheels, and tires.
The Black with “drag” tank
The Kestrel, built around a 1970 Bonneville engine, was Barry’s first such “total design,” and it made major waves in the motorcycle world. Cycle World named The Kestrel one of their 2010 “World’s Coolest Bikes,” praising its “purity and depth in both aesthetic and functional execution” and the “mind-bending volume of time spent on the details.”
The bike was featured in many leading motorcycle publications, and Falcon Motorcycles became something of a household name in the customs world.
“Among the designers building new-generation customs, none rose as quickly into superstardom, nor any quite so high, as Ian Barry and his LA Falcon Motorcycles team. The execution of each Falcon is so detailed as to beggar belief.” –The Vintagent
So the stage was well set for The Black, which would be built around a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow engine. Now, any Vincent V-twin would be special enough as the heart of a build, but this one had been modified for land speed racing at El Mirage Dry Lake in the 1960s.
To those purists who might suffer an infarction at thought of a Black Shadow being chopped-up and/or cannibalized for this build, don’t fear — the donor engine was a complete basket case.
“Barry purchased the Vincent engine in parts, to be modified once again. Complete analysis of all parts proceeded, and Ian collaborated with the world’s foremost Vincent expert, Herb Harris, on the engine.” -Falcon Motorcycles
Aside from a single small frame lug, the chassis was fabricated from scratch: the frame, forks, tanks, controls, handlebars, seat, fenders, and even the brakes were handmade in Barry’s Los Angeles workshop.
The front suspension resembles the “girdraulic” fork of the original Black Shadow, but the alloy blades were hand-shaped from forged 7075 T6 aluminum, matched with needle bearings and bespoke gas shocks.
“A castellated axle nut sits captive in its own hexagonal recess, locked in place by a cotter pin passing through the fork leg. The fork spindle nuts are similarly locked, but with a kind of circlip, in a system Barry invented.” -Falcon Motorcycles
The 8-inch front hub was machined from a single block of aluminum in a twin leading shoe design, laced to a 21-inch Borrani rim.
One of the signature features of The Black — and a tack we wish more builders would take — is an incredible level of adjustability to suit both the rider and riding conditions. Without a single tool, the seat, handlebars, foot controls, and even the fuel tank(s) can be adjusted, so that the bike can be converted from “drag” to “street” mode in just a few minutes.
Take the seat, for instance. The saddle has three different positions and two different leather covers, and the multi-spring design itself is a sight to behold.
“A stainless steel perimeter frame attaches to dozens of springs radiating from a central plate, guiding their shape into a concave arc, a seat-shape solution usually accomplished with padding.”
The handlebars are similarly adjustable, composed of two curved “half-bars” whose tapered ends fit into internally-grooved risers designed to securely hold the bars in a variety of positions.
“The humble handlebar clamps are a poem to function; they control both the rotation of the handlebars and the position of their risers on the fork yoke (to alter bar height). Each part is held on tapers that are cinched together and locked with a serrated-head bolt, the cap of which is the very wrench used to adjust it; it looks like a dragonfly’s wing and is held in place with a circlip.” -The Vintagent
Meanwhile the foot controls can be rotated on one-way ratchets. By simply pulling outward, turning, and easing onto the mating surface, both the brake and gearshift levers are fully adjustable.
As if that weren’t enough, the bike can be fueled from a single small drag tank or a pair of aluminum touring tanks, and switching between them requires no special tools.
“First, one locks the rear suspension with a pair of hand-wheels beneath the saddle, pops the marine-sourced fuel connections, pushes the spring-loaded tank retaining pins until they click, then the twin, hand-formed aluminum pannier fuel tanks are removed. Reverse the procedure with the single drag tank option; push-click the tank onto the sprung pins, and pop the fuel lines together.”
The resulting bike is something of a two-wheeled chameleon, a bike whose very aesthetics, ergonomics, and geometry can be fine-tuned in ways uncommon for a custom motorcycle. Bobber, drag bike, salt racer, boardtracker? We’ve seen every one of these terms used to describe it…
No matter what you call it, The Black made one hell of an impression when it broke cover in 2011.
“There was a surprise at the third annual Quail Gathering in Carmel Valley last Saturday: Though the Best of Show was an exquisite 1939 Brough-Superior, a Vincent ended up stealing the show. Not an ‘ordinary’ Vincent, but custom builder Ian Barry’s third creation, the Black Falcon.” –Cycle World, 2011
Unfortunately, we’ve seen only one more build out of Falcon Motorcycles since then, “The White,” built in 2013. Hopefully Falcon Motorcycles will spread its wings once again in the years to come.
Detail Gallery
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