2Loud is a custom shop based in Taipei, Taiwan. They have created many custom motorcycles and scooters that display a tasteful minimalist, but functional, design. Not the least of which is the subject of this project, a 2017 BMW R nineT Scrambler, a bike we tested a few years ago.
The BMW is a nice starting point for customization and, in our opinion, 2Loud has done a great job with the bike. You can see the many fine details in the photos, which starts with a smaller fuel tank. Just to mention a few additional mods, take a look at the new rear suspension, exhaust system, oil cooler, K&N filter pods, and lights. Take a look at the 2Loud Facebook page to see some of their other modified bikes.
See more of MD’s great photography:
Great looking solo ride….nice job.
Oh, boy! A custom motorcycle.
Not familiar with that type of tire, but it looks like the front is mounted wrong. Yes/No?
Weird criticism here. Overall a very nice looking machine (better then the original IMO) and while I’d quibble with a few details that’s to be expected when looking at a personal vision. Really seems off the rails.
I can see the owner now, big guy, full beard, flannel shirt under a brown leather jacket,jeans with the bottoms folded up 2″, brown shoe boots with white soles, black open face helmet with chrome trim around the opening, and a pair of goggles. Probably a chain wallet too.
Really? With the price of the original bike, and the customization you think it’s a guy working on a cb500 in his garage? Doubt it.
Well, I don’t see the owner wearing a Schubert Full Face helmet, Hi Viz Aerostitch Roadcrafter one piece suit, Held gloves and Sidi Goretex boots. Just doesn’t go with the style of the bike IMO.
Funny how we seem to place certain owner types, clothes types and bike types together.
Style? How about dry, warm and comfortable, although poseurs do have a specific costume guideline to adhere to.
“Customs” have become so derivative. Tractor tires, no front fender, minimal seating, a touch of steam punk here and there. Yawn. And, at least in this case, perhaps the worst lump available for an engine…a BMW opposed twin. Ugh.
Odd that there is no mention in the article or comments about 2Loud fabricating a new frame, at least from the front engine mount back. There is far more work involved here than the typical mods of taking/cutting bits off and bolting a part or two back on…
They have some great work on their site. Give this particular BMW custom front and rear fenders – so that you can actually ride it – and it would look awesome and certainly unique.
I thought that the BMW R nineT already was a scrambler.
I don’t see the point of customizing it into something that it already is.
…oh, that’s right, they put on knobby tires…sort of.
I like the 2017 BMW R nineT Scrambler for the same reason that I like my bike. Few parts to fall off!
I call these “take-away” bikes. Take away everything that makes it rideable or comfortable and double the price. When is the Emperor going to put his clothes back on?
I could not feel more strongly about one mod on this bike and many customs. Motorcycles have computer engineered airboxes to maximize performance under all dynamic load conditions, including rain. IMO the only range (and even this is suspect) where “velocity stacks” or individual air cleaner elements might, and I stress might have an advantage is somewhere up close near redline. In every other dynamic load condition performance (especially noise emissions) performance is likely worse.
One obvious defect is that one cylinder bank may have greater positive atmospheric pressure than the other. Does anyone think that’s good or irrelevant?
Weight savings can not even remotely justify the performance deficit; IMO the same for perceived cosmetic advantage. To call such mod stupid is an understatement.
Otherwise, except for the above and the obvious missing fender, this looks appealing.
The computer engineered airbox may have become irrelevant the moment they changed the exhaust. In any case, most of the airbox engineering has to do with packaging and noise reduction, and the objective is usually to get as much volume as possible into whatever space they have to work with. Tuning for power typically starts at the velocity stacks/manifold.
From my experience, there is no power to be gained by running pod filters unless unless the airbox is too restrictive or you can position the pods to take in notably cooler air (usually not an option on a motorcycle.) Otherwise, any power gained or lost is imperceptible. So if you like the look, go for it. It just doesn’t matter powerwise.
I currently have one bike where I’m using an oiled foam pod filter instead of the stock airbox, and there is no perceptible difference in performance one way or the other. The bike just thinks its faster courtesy of the fierce intake bark it now makes under load.
You might be right, but I strongly doubt it, based on years of dyno results for various motors, stock air box vs. pods or V-stacks.
IMO, in all or almost all cases, the torque band is net overall worse for street use, without the OEM air box, regardless any other bolt-on mod.
Do not the electronic controls of modern high performance engines alter the internals of the air box depending on load conditions, for the exact reasons described? Are there not conditions in the lower 2/3rds of the rev range where less intake flow increases torque?
Apologies, but seat of the pants conclusions are unreliable, and I’m sure this is not news to you. Humans generally correlate noise and performance. In any AB test in audio/music, where A is moderate level, and no change except B is +3 dB louder, humans “prefer” B.
Increased intake noise could mask degraded torque curve.
No apologies needed. Seat of the pants conclusions are nothing more than that, no science to them at all. That said, I’ve seen enough dyno runs on bikes to know that changes made to airbox and/or filter modifications fall within the margin of error for dyno runs, which most people would be surprised to know is pretty large. Unless one does at least 10 runs to establish the baseline and 10 runs to measure the effects of each change, one’s data is no better than seat of the pants usually. And I stand by my observation… Statistically, with modern bikes there is usually no material difference anywhere in the rev range so long as the stock airbox/filter provides sufficient volume and flow for the engine to breath. That of course likely wouldn’t be true for any type of positive pressure/ram-air design as found on some sport bikes, but one would need a specially designed dyno to even measure that scenario.
Also, there are no conditions where less air equates to more power regardless of where you are at in the rev range. I think the single intake valves of Harleys or the classic American V8s may have contributed to perpetuating that myth. Those designs typically increase the velocity of the air coming into the cylinder, the same way a river increases current speed where the banks narrow. The increased velocity of the intake charge fills the cylinder with more air at lower rpms (and promotes better “swirl” inside the combustion chamber) than a larger valve opening would at lower engine speeds. But that has nothing to do with the volume of air available so long as there is enough to meet the engine’s demand.
BTW, the bike I have currently sporting the pod wasn’t done for looks (it isn’t visible to onlookers actually) or to increase power but to have a filter that can easily be swapped out, cleaned, and reused as the bike is used 95% offroad, and the dust in Colorado and Utah especially could pack up the stock paper filter in a few hours if riding with a group sometimes. This model also had a reputation for airboxes with imperfect seals that would let dust past the filter, so the mod was also considered a precaution as well.
While the airbox and exhaust mods may or may not degrade the power. Saving significant weight would more than make up for those degradation. Weight savings “adds power” everywhere from idle to red line. Drop another seven pounds and you just added one horsepower’s worth of acceleration everywhere all the time.
Ducati Performance actually sells airbox mods that do increase power.
I had one XR650R with a cam and another sticker with just a different carb and an airbox delete. The one with just the carb (41 FCR) makes better power everywhere.
A fair bit of thought, effort and materials in that headlight mount. A bit of bent tin and a couple of nuts and spring washers. LOL…
Actually, it looks like those are two “Nylocs” installed backwards. I can’t judge, my custom BSA has a 5/8” Craftsman socket as an exhaust hanger spacer. I wasn’t about to give up a metric socket!
This is one mod that I like considerably. Kudos to 2Loud for this marvelous example!
I especially like the “no front fender” paired with scrambler “off-road” tires. It just screams “This bike is not meant to be ridden.”
And yet, I still think it’s sort of pretty. In a conversation piece sort of way.
It looks like those Happy Days reruns finally made it to Taiwan. Rip and cut it down to a frame and engine and now your cool as Fonzie. Should have made it a hardtail to make it totally useless and it might appeal to the “pirate guys” if you know what I mean.
Take one $13,000 bike, remove fenders, add stupid seat and off-road tires and turn it into useless machine. And the crowd roars for more…
First sentence is a gem!
I like it! Is it a running bike? How do you program the computer to run without a catalytic converter? I hate those things….ed
Seldom do I see a properly photographed motorbike anymore.
What’s the life cycle for bikes like this? Do they all end up collecting dust in the corner of executive garage collections?
Good looking machine.
Hideous. Tank is way below the top triple clamp, which apes the bars and ruins the lines. The seat looks like an afterthought and ruins the lines. The centerpiece of a stripped-down machine is the engine, yet it’s all blacked out so that one’s eyes are drawn to the shiny forks which don’t fit the style at all. The taillight looks stolen from a Yamaha. There’s no front fender, which just looks stupid. The front brakes look like pizza platters and completely destroy the attempt at flat-tracking the style. I like the mufflers (not the ugly mounts), the wheels, and the turn signals. Other than that, if I were the sap that commissioned this POS, I’d demand a do-over.
Perfect a motorcycle with everything possible chopped off and yet it looks as if nothing was chopped off. Art in motion perfect.
I must be blind. Looked right at it and didn’t even notice the lack of a front tender.🤪
Good looking custom scoot. Maybe someone could point out where the functional design element is on the 2Loud project machine. If you have spent anytime on a stock R nineT, you know that with the mods made to this bike, it would be atrocious to ride.
Now that is the way to do a custom without getting all weird. For me personally though, I would lengthen the rear fender just a bit.
And a front fender. How about a bit more suspension travel while they are at it. Hey! How about more seat and rear fender?
The sad thing is that they probably had to do work to take away some of the suspension travel.
It’s supposed to be a “Scrambler”, but unless there’s some on 2Loud’s floor, that’s about as close as it will get to some dirt.
Looks like a sweet design exercise. Pretty bike except for the urine specimens on the handle bars. Certainly there is a better way to do that.
You wouldn’t be taking the piss, by any chance?
They really do stand out there, don’t they?
To me, it screams “I’m too cheap to buy controls with integrated reservoirs”, or “I don’t bother with that level of detail”, or “this is all that was available in the catalog”.
Perhaps the reverence the Japanese have for small receptacles of saki or tea is the influence here. I doubt they even dreamt of something as gross as urine specimens, so the criticisms are based on Western/US associations IMO.