Hans Quirijns:
“In 2015, while searching around the internet for a suitable roadbike, I accidentally struck upon several Cafe Racer projects. Funny enough I hadn’t shown much interest in these kind of bikes in the past. I guess most of these bikes never really stood out for me and usually were more or less standard bikes with some out of shape aftermarket gadget fixed to it. One design I saw however, really stood out from all the others and I decided that this could be the base for a road motorcycle design project.”
What attracted me the most in the WSM design was the pure simplicity as well as the perfect balance in dimensions. Things just matched each other perfectly! No unnecessairy extra’s, just characterizing the pure beauty of a sleek motorcycle. I just instantly desired to own a thing like that!
But the question was how do I obtain a bike like that? Partly buy the parts at hand or build from scratch myself? Having thought it over a couple of months, I decided to build one myself.
Despite knowning that building a bike can be a very tedious process I started out in late 2015. (With the chance of throwing away again years of not riding on the road). It turned out that getting started was the easy part. Getting a donor bike was easy, especially as the Ducati 900SS ie models are easy to come by and have a strong reputation. Besides, the engine mounting dimensions would make it possible to build this type of bike again with a wide range of choice of Ducati (twin valve) engines. That also made me decide to buy another fairly cheap 900SS ie which came along for perhaps a future second StrikerX and as an active working road model in the meantime.
As I knew from experience, there would probably be a lot of unplanned delay during the building process. Given the fact that all parts were going to be made inhouse, the making of all the moulds and carbon parts, frame, engine rebuild, etc. demanded extensive time in conjuction with my professional work as an pilot. Besides the final product would have to be perfect in detail and that would take precious time.
I decided to make a design using lots of the original 900SS parts. The first StrikerX would be a ‘practice’ project before I would start using much more expensive parts. The second bike will presumably be much more exclusive. Think about a pair of full carbon 1199 rims lying around in the shed for example increased 1179cc engine etc..
Special thanks goes to my friend Pieter Hagenouw who owns and operates a car repair/custom shop specialized in luxury cars. (www.PACR.nl). His relentless and effortless help to fine finish the basic tank and seat design as well as the paint jobs are priceless. Besides working close with a pro is very inspiring in itself.
The name and logo of the bike . I started out with the name Striker because of the looks and concept of the WSM Leggero which I saw initially on the internet. That bike struck me like lightning. The X refers to the number of the bike. I had visions of building more than one bike because of the many different ideas I had on parts and colors, so started with the name Striker01. But the name would bring more complications in the future i.e. I didn’t want to manufacture a new leather stamp for the saddle logo for each new bike. So it would be easier to call the bike StrikerX.
Finally my wife Nicole, most supportive fan and love of my life, came across a beautiful scandinavian sketch of a squirl. Now it happens to be that we live in ‘Squirlstreet’ (Eekhoornstraat, dutch) and sometimes these rare creatures race up and down the trees around our house as if they weigh absolutely nothing, so I decided to use this picture as a base for the logo, symbolizing the light and fast spirit of the StrikerX.
July 2019 the first StrikerX was finally finished after almost 4 years! (Except for a few details) and ready to roll…..
