Watching that annoying Henry Cole bloke on Worlds Greatest Motorcycles Rides....
South Africa on a McQueen Replica Metisse.
Now the bike he's on has a re-con classic Trumpet motor, but on checking out the Metisse website, they build bikes with their own in house engine, the Adelaide.
Looks a lot like a modern bonny bottom end with a double overhead cam head.
I just feel like they're a fail tbh.
The Metisse bikes came about the same way that most specials did, because improvements needed to be made on factory bikes that were a compromise of performance/handling/price.
But these new ones seem to be going in the opposite direction, they're a compromise with form as the priority.
I generally like retro bikes, e.g. I really like the Paton, not enough to spend £30k+, but at least they're performance orientated whilst managing to capture the same kind of retro feel (IMHO anyway).
In my view, if bikes aren't better than the originals by a margin big enough to make me notice, whilst still maintaining the original philosophy, then I'd rather have an old one and live with it. I'm struggling to see anything in that Metisse other than a lash-up to appeal to people that think entirely differently to me.
I think these things are made to be investments or toys for those with a shitload of disposable income, 30k is a lot of coin to find for something that would be most likely slower th.an an old CBR600.
Two things would concern me about them. Firstly I know the ECU has problems ( a friend of mine who’s business is setting up race electronics for race cars/bikes was asked to try and match the unit to the engines spent ages trying to solve fuelling and ignition problems on them - not sure if he was ever happy) and secondly the owner of Metisse had 4 other companies that have recently gone into administration (including the golf club where the factory is located) and I wouldn’t be surprised if the bikes business was next
