Wacky engineering always makes for good eye candy. But every time we see it, we think the same thing: does it work"
For Dutch builder Wido Veldkamp, that question is a deal breaker. Bikes that come from his shop WiMoto have to perform as good as they look.

?Our slogan is ‘We build show bikes for the road’,? he says, ?and that is what we truly believe. A bike should look great?but it may never be more important than the way it drives and handles.?
Wido’s background has a lot to do with this philosophy. He’s been tinkering since childhood, eventually studying industrial design and engineering at Delft University of Technology. (He even designed and built a new chassis for the university’s race bike.)
A lot of his work is bread and butter stuff: making components like swingarms and exhaust systems. This board tracker-cum-cafe racer called Timber is his third ‘ground up’ build.
It started out as a rather vanilla 1979 Suzuki GS550E. Wido’s client picked it up for cheap, and had started chopping it up himself. He soon ran out of skill, and handed the project over.

?He did have money to spend, but wasn’t sure that the GS550E was the right donor to spend it on,? Wido tells us. ?He was very skeptical about the possibilities of this bike; ‘what the hell can you make with a Suzuki GS550E"’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t it be a waste of money"'”
?Well… it was my challenge to prove tha...