Road 2 London: “Riscatto” Beta M4 Supermoto

All-Metal Supermoto from Rome’s Emporio Elaborazioni Meccaniche…  

At the 2024 Bike Shed Moto Show earlier this month, six builders from six different Italian cities brought six different bikes from their native Italy to the plinths of London’s Tobacco Docks. These “Road 2 London” builders included Officine Rossopuro, Fuchs Moto, Roscoo, Bottega Bastarda, REmastered Cycle, and Emporio Elaborazioni Meccaniche.

“With the Italian MotoGP screening in both our London and Los Angeles venues, we thought it timely to honour the very best of Italy…” -The Bike Shed

We’ve been fortunate enough to feature builds from several of these Italian workshops over the years, but our closest association may be with “Dopz” of Rome’s Emporio Elaborazioni Meccaniche (EEM). Dopz took a bike-building break for a couple of years to build a free skateboard park for his neighborhood, but now he’s back to bikes.

“I believe it’s important for everybody to do something manually (from cooking to gardening, from building bikes to painting). So guys out there, let me give you a little advice: try, fail, and re-try something using your hands. It’s worth it. No Ctrl-Z, just old fashioned work!” -Dopz

Today we’re excited to feature the bike he brought to London, a 2007 Beta M4 motard dubbed “Riscatto,” meaning ransom or redemption in Italian. That’s a great name for the bike, as the M4 is a functional but relatively unexciting commuter in standard trim — a perfect donor for Dopz’s redemptive touch.

In fact, while deciding on a donor bike, Dopz and his client realized the M4 is actually powered by a slightly detuned version of the Suzuki DR350 engine — a tough and proven power plant, perfect for a city bike.

In order to unleash the bike’s inner hooligan spirit, Dopz operated according to the old Lotus philosophy of “adding lightness,” cutting more than 55 pounds from the stock machine.

“I worked on making it lighter (- 25kg!) to improve all the performance benchmarks (braking, acceleration, consumption) to add a bit more spirit to this fun motard.”

We’ve seen one too many motards and dual-sports with bench seats and old CB tanks, but Dopz took a different tack entirely. Leaving the standard chassis in place, he worked with steel and aluminum sheetmetal to build a slim, minimal, ultra-light motorcycle with a strong attitude.

The handcrafted aluminum tail, slightly pointed and shaped to incorporate the taillight, lends a touch of real class, while the tightly-wrapped aluminum side panels confer a lean look.

 

The slim, slightly angular tank is completely handmade, inspired by 70s trials bikes.  Two forward “spikes” help hide the fluid lines and control cables, contributing to the bike’s unique aesthetic.

The headlight area, consisting of polished aluminum and a curved satin polycarbonate sheet, encloses three asymmetrical light elements to capture a bit of the numberboard style of enduro / flat track bikes while beaming plenty of candlepower down the road ahead.

The supermoto spirit is evoked by the high and short aluminum fender, also shaped by hand. The constant search for the balance between past and future is expressed through materials and workmanship that come together to define EEM’s personal flavor of “Retro-Future” style. There’s very little plastic on the bike, eschewed in favor of hand-shaped aluminum.

The digital speedo standing out on the tank and the carburetor air intake facing the left side are other distinctive touches.

A custom exhaust, polished fork and fender plates, bespoke saddle, and hydraulic clutch conversion complete the design of this singular bike.

One last peculiarity the bike is that it doesn’t have a key. Instead it starts by a combination of hidden buttons, not unlike Furiosa’s “War Rig” in Mad Max: Fury Road!

Main Work

• Handmade metal tank inspired by 70s trial bikes
• Hand-molded aluminum bodywork (tail, front fender, under tail, side panels)
• Custom rear frame
• Custom exhaust
• Custom electrical system
• Custom-made air filter
• Modified and polished yokes

A Few More Questions for the Builder…

What’s the story behind the Suzuki engine?

When my customer and I were deciding which donor bike to start with, we found out (thanks Andrea Sileo for the suggestion) that this bike has a solid engine (old Suzuki DR350) with reduced HP and very good fuel consumption…so it was perfect as city bike. I worked on making it lighter (- 25kg!) to improve all the performance benchmarks (braking, acceleration, consumption) to add a bit more spirit to this fun motard.

Any changes to the suspension, wheels, or brakes?

The design challenge was to keep everything legal (more or less 🙂 ) for Italian papers and make it more “aggressive,” reducing all the volumes over the tyres. With this balance the tyres look bigger but they are standard!

For the brakes we changed the pump putting a nice CNC machined radial pump from Messner Moto, same for the clutch (with a hydraulic conversion).

Front forks were completely overhauled as was the rear monoshock, but they are standard. The monoshock was also disassembled for powder coating.

Follow the Builder

Website: www.emporioelaborazionimeccaniche.it
Instagram: @emporio_elaborazioni
Facebook: Emporio Elaborazioni
Sponsors: Daje Company and Pontecorvo Metalli 
Photography: @vd__photo

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