Written by Martin Hodgson
The spirit of rebellion runs deep in the motorcycle world; from the earliest days of racing on the boards, to the post war biker gangs, Easy Rider counter-culture and lads doing the ton around the Ace Cafe. But with popularity comes those who would push conformity, believing there is only one way to skin a cat and trying to police those who seek to be free. But Balamutti’s Vitaliy Selyukov cannot be tamed, his spirit unrestrained by convention he dreamt up one of the craziest contraptions you could imagine and now he’s brought it to life to race the Baikal Mile. It’s three wheels of supercharged Ducati power with just a handful of spikes to keep it upright on the Russian ice.

?The idea of building this bike came about in 2016, and grew for several months on paper, in the form of concept sketches that I knew I wanted to transform in the future. It?s hard to say how the idea of such a motorcycle came to mind, perhaps I was inspired by Anakin Skywalker?s Z-74 Speeder,? Vitaliy ponders. But not only did he have plans for one of the craziest machines we’ve ever seen here at Pipeburn, he also planned to race it on the ice at the enormous Lake Baikal, in conditions that can see temperatures drop to as low as -25C. But such a bike doesn’t come about overnight! Based in the far west of the country in the beautiful city of St Petersburg, Vitaliy was as far from a complete bike as he was from the icy lake, some 4500km away on t...