With the Meteor 350, Royal Enfield has launched a fun bike that has been crowned “2021 – Retro Bike of Year” by MCN’s British colleagues. At Ironwood Motorcycles they have gone one step further from their Amsterdam custom workshop and have launched “The Starship Meteor” – a custom version of the affordable urban cruiser.
Since its launch in late 2020, the Meteor 350 has quickly established a cult following worldwide, garnering multiple awards and accolades around the world. Acclaimed for its build quality, retro styling and refined design – and the remarkable price point for a motorcycle that offers so much more than the sum of its parts – it offers a rather remarkably blank canvas to imprint your own personality on.
The in-house Custom Team of Royal Enfield’s UK technical center therefore presented Ironwood Motorcycles and their creative director and founder Arjan van den Boom with the challenge of designing and building their own ideal Easy Cruiser.
“The Meteor fulfills a lot of requirements, and our job was to spice it up a bit. As a basic package, the Meteor is hard to beat for the budget-friendly rider. Ultimately, we wanted this important element of accessibility and entry into the world of the retaining motorcycling and motorcycle customization that the Meteor offers – but of course adding our unique Ironwood creative touch to the build.”
“We received a Meteor Fireball Yellow from the team at Royal Enfield and immediately rode it through the streets of Amsterdam as much as possible to get used to the feel and ergonomics of the bike before taking it apart. super comfortable and fine-tuned the balance, we wanted to preserve as much of the original Meteor DNA as possible.”
“Small displacement motorcycles are too often classified as entry-level bikes, which is a shame. Our goal was to give the Meteor a touch of our unique Ironwood sauce and an overall more powerful look by upgrading a number of parts, and at the same time to ensure that the Meteor’s core identity would remain intact.”
Arjan had a very clear visual identity that he wanted to develop, largely inspired by his love for all things Star Wars! He decided to blacken many of the parts so that the fantastic “Meteor Rain” paint from Royal Kustom Works would show up well on the tank. The black fork guards, the black supercross handlebars, custom mudguards, the fat thick rubbers from Continental and the piggyback shock absorbers from YSS complete the exciting look.
The CNC machined seat post, our signature bobber floating seat, further adds to the bike’s custom look and the diamond pattern on the seat is all hand finished by Miller Kustom Upholstery. The Biltwell grips, Motogadget front turn signals and the Kellermann 1000DF rear lights, together with the custom piping that breathes through an Akrapovic muffler results in a beautiful little Urban Cruiser that exceeds expectations.
“Ironwood’s creative minds have followed through on the brief we gave them to perfection and we are very pleased with the end result. Importantly, the core identity of the Meteor 350 – a bike we know provides a fantastic base platform for creative expression – preserved and embraced. This project reinforces how important accessibility is to us as a brand, and how much can be achieved with a little imagination. Kudos to Arjan and the Ironwood team – this is the first custom build we the Meteor, and it marks an important and exciting milestone for this 350 engine platform.”
– Thanks for information from Motorfreaks.