What will you do if you own a chopper and you want to go off-road too? How about buying something for the back woods and highway riding becomes uncomfortable? I think the only solution to your problem would be Erik Brinkman’s shape shifting motorcycle.


Erik Brinkman, an inventor and designer with IDS (Interactive Design Studios) in Victoria, British Columbia, thought about the problem and came up with the R-Bike, a bike able to shape shift to chopper, cruiser, tourer, enduro and deep woods too.


A complete re-think of motorcycle design. Mimics shapes of each bike style precisely. It is able to go almost anywhere you need or want to go. .... two lane twisties, horse trails or the beach. Go to the corner store, or ride 4 days in the saddle on the open road.


Whatever the ride or rider calls for it delivers; an Enduro bike one minute and a Cruiser the next. The R-Bike does not make trade-offs between the needs of hi-ways and horse-trails. It very accurately adjusts its center of gravity and overall geometry to differing riding conditions.


The key to the R-Bike is the frame which has a scissor action built in. The bike has a multi link suspension on both front and rear and is designed around a single cylinder engine. The seat, footpegs and handlebars all adjust as the frame shifts giving the rider the correct riding position for each style of bike. A nice feature is the ability for anyone to easily mount the bike with the seat in the lowest position and yet still have the ability of riding a high seat off road bike when the frame adjusts.


Erik Brinkman: „We are not based in Victoria. We are all over the world and based on the Web. It is hard to gather enough quality talents together in one place, so, thanks to the internet, we can spread all over the world and it still feel like we are in one place. I spend half my time in Victoria, although at this time of year, I’d rather be in Maui :>)


This is fully engineered and so is way beyond a design concept. That is what 9 years of work brings. We will be taking pre-orders hopefully by the end of this month.


We have one thing left and that is the variable valve timing I need for the Diesel version. Not a big deal. The patent on VVT has run out, so it is a matter of making it.


The only thing up in the air right now is a matter of how to structure the long term manufacturing. On the one hand we have had requests from bike builders for regional building, yet I worry about quality control in such a “Third Wave” decentralized approach. A central factory allows better control over quality. Quality is everything. Then there is the matter of whether we should build the military version in a special facility. We are in discussions on that matter.”