Ecosse Heretic: American Monster?
ECOSSE HERETIC: AMERICAN MONSTER?
ROUNDUP
BUILD YOIJR OWN BIKE? Easily done these days, what with an abundance of available engines, frames and other vital components needed to put rubber to the road.
But a mail-order chopper wouldn’t cut it for Don and Wendy Atchison, owners of Denver’s Iconoclast Motorcycles, a one-time Bimota, Confederate and MZ shop. Says Wendy Atchison, “We wanted an allaround performance streetbike, something that bridged the gap between a European streetfighter-an MV Agusta Brutale, for example-and an American musclebike.”
So, with $200,000 in funding from Colorado’s Clear Creek Economic Development Fund and help from some engineer friends, they built their own bike: the ECOSSE Heretic. One hundred examples are planned, each selling for the lofty sum of $44,800.
Heart of the matter is a 107cubic-inch Patrick Racing VTwin that makes a claimed 120 horsepower and 125 footpounds of torque at the rear wheel. Baker helped design the six-speed transmission and supplies the gearsets. Final drive is via chain. A Yoshimura-fabbed exhaust exits under the stubby tailpiece, dual mufflers hung off the sides.
The chromoly-steel backbone-style frame, which doubles as an oil reservoir, is pretty conventional. Not so the Ducati-esque trelliswork that makes up the swingarm. Top-line ISR brakes, Öhlins suspension and 17-inch forged-aluminum O.Z. wheels cap the chassis. Answer Pro Taper aluminum handlebarslike those used on the Aprilia Tuono and KTM Duke II-give the bike a bolt-upright riding position. Passengers are welcome, but allotted little space.
Wheelbase is 61.0 inches, claimed dry weight is 450 pounds and seat height is 27.5 inches. “It feels so ridiculously light,” enthuses Atchison. “The handling is good, the cornering clearance is good. It’s not a racebike, but we’re really happy with how it performs.” Named after Ecurie
Ecosse, the Scottish car-racing team best known for its wins at LeMans in 1956 and ’57, ECOSSE (www.ecossemoto.com) likens itself to Atlanta-based carmaker Panoz. “They’re about performance, they’re small and they do things differently,” says Atchison. Unlike pharmaceuticals millionaire Donald Panoz, however, the Atchinsons need additional funding. “I’d love to get $1.5 million to go into production correctly,” says Atchison. “We want to continually innovate and evolve, to bring to market really unique, performance-oriented products.”
Matthew Miles
