Last night I was able to go really really fast around a race track without ever actually stepping outside. A fellow V-Strom rider buddy of mine named Keven is friends with one of the chief engineers at Motoczysz in Portland, Oregon (pronounced “moto-sizz”). They are a custom race bike manufacturer coming out with a revolutionary new bike called the C1. The specifics of what makes it revolutionary are hush-hush — we had to sign non-disclosure agreements before entering the building — but I can tell you it is definitely not an ‘also ran’ like the big bike manufacturers.

We were given a tour of their entire facility and got to see how they concept, design, engineer, prototype, test, and manufacturer almost every component of the bike (very little of it is after-market). Even if the bike itself were ordinary and uninteresting — two descriptions that definitely do not apply — being able to see their facility and processes was a fascinating treat.

After our tour we parked our bikes in front of their logo-painted motor coach and took a group photo. I’m the one on the far right that looks like the Secret Service bodyguard detail attached to the group.