Project MEGA: Royal Enfield Bear 650

Burly Bear 650 from Black Cycles Australia…  

The Bear 650 is Royal Enfield’s production scrambler, which combines the 650 parallel-twin from the Interceptor and Continental GT models with a reinforced frame, spoked 19/17″ wheels, longer-travel suspension, and other upgrades. So far, most of the Bear 650 customs we’ve seen have leaned into the bike’s heritage, which harks back to 16-year-old Eddie Mulder’s victory in the 1960 Big Bear Run against a field of 765 competitors. 

For Royal Enfield’s Custom World challenge, however, our buddy Noel Muller of Black Cycles Australia partnered with our friends at Pipeburn to create something much more extreme. If you’ve been following BikeBound or any of the custom motorcycle publications for any length of time, you’ve almost certainly seen Noel’s work — in fact, we’ve got a full list of his builds at the bottom of this feature. He’s certainly one of Australia’s — and the world’s — most innovative builders. Given that Pipeburn is based in Sydney, it was a match made in heaven. 

Apparently, it all started with a discussion between Noel, the Pipeburn bods, and Royal Enfield themselves, where one fateful question was asked: What would Black Cycles do with a Bear 650 and complete creative freedom? 

As you can see from the images, Noel’s answer was no simple desert sled or blinged-out scrambler. It’s more like a piece of functional art, incorporating an aluminum frame, converted 4WD wheels, and hand-cut, organic-looking panels. Pipeburn themselves said it best.

“The line between custom motorcycle building and art has always been difficult to define. Art is free to exist simply to provoke a reaction, while a motorcycle still must carry its rider, manoeuvre, stop and survive road conditions. But every so often, a builder creates a machine where those two worlds collide. Noel Muller’s latest creation is one of those motorcycles.”

Noel actually got started on the build long before the Bear 650 donor arrived, using a seized Interceptor 650 engine for his base. 

“I pretty much had a complete vision for the build, and I definitely wanted a couple of features that hadn’t been seen before.”

The giant wheels are certainly one of the signature elements. Believe it or not, those started as a pair of 17 x 8.5-inch hybrid beadlock 4WD wheels from All Terrain Industries, which Noel cut down to a width of 5.5 inches!

He machined an entirely new front hub in-house designed for a 25mm axle, while the rear wheel had a center bore welded into place and drilled to accommodate a Triumph 955i swingarm.

Noel added a second ring of beadlocks to the opposing side of each wheel and machined a 40mm offset front sprocket with its own outboard bearing support to get the power to the rear wheel. Both wheels feature one-off center caps to hide all the mounting hardware, and they’re wrapped in beefy 180/55-17 Karoo Street rubber.

The front forks are USD units with their yokes widened by 60mm, and XXX Rated Suspension rebuilt their internals to suit the rest of the bike.

Out back, there’s a fully adjustable YSS gas shock mated to the Triumph swingarm, which was highly modified. The original linkage and all the holes and mounts were removed and smoothed over, creating room for a custom electronics box with battery, starter solenoid, horn, and regulator-rectifier. A custom center stand folds nearly around the box — trick!

And that’s just the undercarriage. The frame itself is a one-off creation that Noel fabricated from 32mm aluminum tubing, and the neck tube, engine mounts, bungs, etc. are all custom. The tubes themselves were put through a roller to introduce subtle curves before they were bent and welded together. There’s no lower cradle to the frame; instead, the engine serves as a stressed member, opening up that part of the bike and putting the engine on display.

As for the fuel tank, it began life as a Harley-Davidson X500 unit. However, Noel narrowed and sectioned the shell, fabricated a new base, and divided the tank internally to hold 2.4 gallons of fuel one side and most of the electrical components — along with the front brake master cylinder — in the other. 

The cockpit and bars are exceptionally minimalist. Not only is the front master cylinder hidden inside the tank, but Noel built an internal throttle, welded the lever perches to the bars to create a single unit, and machined the grips, which are wrapped in the same material as the seat. The bars themselves are made from the same tubing as the rest of the frame.

“The right-hand lever operates the concealed master cylinder via cable, while two momentary switches hidden beneath the left grip control eight functions, including ignition, starter and indicators.”

In similar fashion, the foot controls were scratch-built using the same materials as the grips.

Then there’s the engine. Noel smoothed away the casting marks and tabs, removed the lower-front engine mount, and installed a right-side Interceptor cover so the Royal Enfield logo would be on one line instead of two.

The fuel injection was eschewed in favor of a Mikuni TM40 flat-slide carb, which breathes through a one-off manifold and custom-machined velocity stack that doubles as a structural support for the carb itself. The exhaust was hand-built from stainless steel, with the two pipes crossing beneath the engine in an X-shaped arrangement that Noel calls the “X-it” — one of our favorite elements of the build.

The electronics suite comes from Motogadget, and Noel even built a small actuator that deploys the license plate from beneath the seat — a nice little trick when you’re passing a speed camera. Then there’s the bodywork:

“Noel wanted them to resemble organic structures produced by an enormous metal 3D printer, as if the aluminium had grown around the machine rather than been attached to it.” -Pipeburn

Of course, the panels were actually hand-cut from 4mm aluminum plate, sanded, die-ground, and rounded to shape. Noel estimates the body panels required 40-50 hours of work.

This level of labor-intensive detail is everywhere in the build. For instance, Noel machined a seven-degree taper into the 200 stainless-steel allen bolts used in the build — 96 of them in the beadlock rings alone. In fact, Noel has approximately 600 hours in the build, spread across just five months of work.

The paint is a Toyota LandCruiser gold-bronze mixed with black to become an olive hue, with the same color used in gloss and matte applications.  Justin from Popbang Classics gets credit for the tank graphics and wiring up the bike’s electrical system.

All in all, Project MEGA comes across as a piece of rolling, thundering, functional sculpture — a machine that required a bold vision, world-class fabrication skills, and an obsessive attention to detail. Bravo to Black Cycles, Pipeburn, and Royal Enfield for working together to make this machine a reality. 

More Photos

Follow the Builder

Black Cycles Australia: Facebook | @blackcyclesaustralia
Pipeburn: Website | @pipeburn
Studio Photos: Gold Coast Studio
Warehouse / Outdoors Photos: Tom Fossati (@tom.fossati | @fossatone)

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