BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- The motorcycles built by Motus in Birmingham are designed to beat any other at going from 20 mph to 90 mph, but the company's founders will have to get them to go much faster than that this weekend.
Lee Conn, the company's president, and Brian Case, the vice president and director of design, are going to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah to see if two of their production motorcycles can go faster than any similar production bike before them.
Conn and Case will ride two of their MSTR bikes running the salt flats in two different categories, trying to break land speed records of 127 mph and 132 mph -- for 1650cc production pushrod and production gas bikes, respectively.
These aren't custom-built bikes designed to go fast, though. These are bikes that, once the Environmental Protection Agency certifies their emissions testing, will be available in dealerships around the country.
"These are bikes that are off the showroom floor," Conn said. "You basically take the mirrors off, tape up the lights and go."
The MSTR bikes are street-legal in all 50 states, but their test at the Bonneville Motorcycle Speed Trials will be a bit different than a ride down Highway 280. Bonneville is where the fastest vehicles on two or four wheels compete against the clock. It's where the record for fastest two-wheel vehicle -- currently more than 376 mph, set by something you can't buy at a dealership -- has been set, broken and beaten repeatedly for nearly six decades. The surface is packed salt, which means plenty of friction, and it's as flat as the name suggests.
Motus has had bikes run on the flats before, but this is the first time they've entered to compete officially, Conn said. It's part of an effort by the company to demonstrate the products before they hit dealerships.
"We've been telling people they're fast. They'll break the speed limit in every state," Case said. "This will prove just how fast they'll go."
While these bikes may be fast, they aren't even designed for racing. Conn and Case call them comfortable American sport bikes, built to be fun to ride for the motorcycle enthusiast, but also easy to sit on for hours upon hours on those long, cross-country trips. Conn and Case started the company because the two motorcycle enthusiasts wanted an American-made bike that was both fun and comfortable.
Most American bikes, Conn said, are either "crotch rockets" or cruisers. There's little middle ground.
The design of the Motus bikes blends structural elements of European motorcycles -- like how the rider sits -- with the heart of American motorsports. The engine is a V4 they call the "Baby Block," inspired by the classic Chevrolet small-block engine. Around the Baby Block is a bike built from the ground up. While the engine is currently assembled in Texas, Conn said they hope to move production of it to Alabama within a year, and eventually build every part of the bikes in the state.
"It's nice to make things locally," Case said. "There's a sense of pride in it."
Right now Motus has about seven employees at their facility in Birmingham's Lakeview area. Once they're able to go into production and start shipping bikes out to dealers, Conn hopes to raise that number to 20 to 25.
While they wait, the focus is on the next few days in Utah, and how fast these bikes can cover the second mile of a three-mile course. Once it's over, new record or not, Conn and Case plan to do what any true motorcycle lover would do with a fast bike: hit the road.
"If they don't break, if they don't crash," Conn said, "we're going to put the mirrors on them and ride them home."