Bike thieves can't steal it if they don't know it's there ... This remarkable motorcycle looks for all the world like a telecom signal box covered in graffiti – but at the touch of a button it rises up on wheels and rides away.
It's called the Nomoto – as in, "No moto here, buddy, just this piece of public infrastructure." And when it's parked up, there's little to suggest it's anything else, although the eagle-eyed might look at the graffiti tags on it and see the name, as well as "JRUITER"– the signature of designer Joey Ruiter.
New Atlas first featured Ruiter's work some 18 years ago, in the form of a remarkable 215-horsepower watercraft pulled chariot-style by a pair of forward-mounted jet-drive motors, and steered with an aircraft-like control system.
We took another look in 2016, when he released the Snoped, an upright single-track snow bike with boxy black bodywork as stark and featureless as a server rack. Ruiter clearly loves to poke people where it hurts with his designs: "I don't mind if somebody doesn't like my work," he told the Work Hard Play Hard podcast in 2021. "That's totally fine, and I want my work to be very polarizing. I think the polarization makes it fun."
In the case of Nomoto, he reduces the form of a motorcycle to a pair of metal boxes, eliminating the need for a side stand by having the bodywork lower itself down to sit flush with the ground when the bike's parked.
Unlocking a drop-down cover reveals a basic set of handlebars, and a button raises the bodywork back up so the wheels are partially revealed. Flip-up covers on the front and rear boxes open up a pair of rather meek storage areas for carrying your shopping bags around, and the rear cover makes a small concession to comfort, revealing a half-inch thick seat pad when it's fully flipped open.
The bike itself is a very basic electric scooter, apparently devoid of mirrors or indicators, but furnished with stealthy headlight and brake light arrangements. Here's a look at the frame under the Nomoto's skin:
"I'm constantly disappointed in the lack of creativity in the products around me," Ruiter told Work Hard Play Hard. And he'll continue to be disappointed if he's hoping major manufacturers come up with ideas as creative as this one – although he might take some joy from Honda's very cute US$1,000 Motocompacto – an electric motorcycle that folds down into a briefcase.
Either way, the Nomoto project made it as far as the MOTO MMXX exhibition at San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Design in 2020, but despite having a rideable prototype, it never went to production and appears destined to remain primarily an art project.
More's the pity, this magnificently weird idea has a certain practicality to it, as well as a truly bizarre aesthetic that would definitely turn heads on the street - while not so much as raising an eyebrow when parked.
Source: Joey Ruiter
