Langen Motorcycles is a vintage British brand from Manchester with a storied history reaching back to ... Oh, 2019. Well it certainly looks vintage, in the finest hipster tradition. It's a new concern started by Christofer "Langen" Ratcliffe, the ex-Chief Design Engineer at CCM Motorcycles, which explains some of the visual similarities between the new Langen 2-Stroke and the CCM Spitfire we first saw in 2017.
That was a beautiful bike, and so's this with its tastefully curvaceous trellis frame and swingarm, spoked tubeless rims, carbon tank and bodywork, 24-karat gold leaf detailing, rubber fork gaiters and neo-retro cafe racer styling.
The big news, of course, is in the model name. A two-stroke road bike, the kind of thing we all thought died out with the mighty Aprilia RS250 back in 2004. Indeed, the motor comes from the manufacturer of the only other two-smoker streetbike we've seen in the last ten years: the Vins Duecinquanta, a featherweight 250 weighing just 95 kg (209 lb) in road trim and even less in a track version.
The sound of this thing on a dyno should put a few smiles on the right faces. The Vins bikes cost nearly US$50,000, though, so back in 2017 we found ourselves hoping that somebody might put that same crazy motor into something a little more approachable. Perhaps this is it!
In the Langen 2-Stroke, this fuel-injected, 250cc, 90-degree v-twin motor is tuned for a very feisty 80 horsepower and 45 Nm (33.2 lb-ft) at 11,700 rpm. And while Langen hasn't put quite the same obsessive focus on lightweighting that Vins has, the 2-Stroke is as light as a 450cc dirtbike at just 112 kg (247 lb). This bike will change direction like a frickin' mosquito and be terrific fun to ride.
As a small-run machine with Ohlins forks, a pair of "bespoke" K-Tech shocks, HEL billet brake calipers, a removable 6-speed gearbox and the aforementioned carbon and gold leaf bodywork, this is sadly not going to be the affordable street stroker many are hoping for. Langen is floating numbers around the £30,000 (US$37,700) mark, and says the engine, with its CNC machined casings, is "the majority of the cost of the bike."
So it seems these nutty, featherweight beasts will remain out of reach for the majority of riders for the time being. But what beauties they are, and we can all dream!
Source: Langen Motorcycles
