huge moto mono racer is an aggressive yet refined concept motorcycle

huge moto is a custom motorcycle design and fabrication shop run by a handful of motorbike enthusiasts with industrial design and engineering backgrounds. the company is a spin-off from a product design firm located in san francisco, california — huge design. the american outfit is now tackling its most ambitious project yet: a complete, ground-up concept motorcycle called ‘mono racer’.

the virtual bike build began with an ‘aggressive yet refined’ design philosophy at the core: an approach borrowing from the past when race-bike components were simply chosen for purpose. to huge moto, it seems that many of today’s modern sportbikes have gone slightly overboard with chaotic surfacing and superficial details. the studio believes bike manufacturers are now burdened by the constant need to out-do themselves (as well as standout among evenly matched competitors) year after year, and this is driving many of the ostentatious aesthetics found today.

when designing the chassis, huge moto started with the idea of a futuristic carbon fiber frame and swing-arm, which matched the hard point dimensions of race and sport bikes. the studio then focused on the relationship of the frame to the motor and other significant components. through gaining insight and influence from existing bikes, huge moto was able to concentrate on the build, rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’ with every component. once a frame design had been achieved, the team started to lay out everything with the vision of creating a highly refined, curved form.

with the ‘virtual rolling chassis’ complete, huge moto created iterations to stand out from current sport bikes, for design consistency and ‘clean’ aggression. this was the biggest challenge to do without sacrificing practicality or performance — once all of the functional constraints had been met, there wasn’t much left, so it became a very subtle design exercise. a bold, simple design thinking was required, one that could be flexible enough to pull the whole bike together visually.

huge moto came with the idea of an angled vector line. the side view of the bike is comprised of these repeated design lines from front to back. this style of line works well with the constraints and ergonomics, and gives classic character without being a too ‘over-the-top’ design. 

from the perspective of being realized, the bike is at the stage of a refined concept (about eighty percent complete). this allows decision-makers to decide whether or not ‘mono racer’ is compelling enough to create a fully staffed team of engineers, to tweak it into a final product.

the american company hopes that this bike can generate enough excitement to enter the fabrication process. huge moto is moving into a new shop facility in downtown san francisco within the following six months, with more machines, tools, and the capability to prototype motorcycles.