BMW K1600 by NURB

The BMW K1600 is anything but a custom bike builder’s dream, and not necessarily because it’s very expensive, but because the Bavarian touring flagship is a bike delivered with all the amenities and high-tech engineering one can think of. However, if your name is Fred “Krugger” Betrand, BMW might just give you a K1600 to have your way with it. Thankfully, this is no wet dream scenario, as Krugger was indeed asked by BMW France to build a custom K1600 machine, and the NURB was born.

While the name harks back to the Nurburgring, the acronym stands in fact for Non-Uniform Rational B-spline, a math term which refers to the freeform surfaces used in car and ship design, as bikeexif tells us. The NURB only retains few of the original parts and is by far one of the boldest takes on a K1600 ever. The Belgian builder faced a great challenge as he had to come up with a new bike, which was easy, but retaining all the technology the K1600 is loaded with was quite the opposite.

The engine was not altered, but the frame had to go, replaced by an all-new chassis. Long, low and boasting completely different ergonomics, the frame Krugger built arrived with a new swingarm and a completely new Douolever fork, with the shock absorber being the only original component left.

Relocating the radiators to the sides of the bike freed up the front end and allowed the six headers to be seen better. NURB has two fuel tanks, with one under the seat and connected to a secondary tank in the tail section, which also has its own filler.

Krugger machined custom wheels from billet US-sourced units, indulging in using the same fluid, almost organic shapes the rest of the bike proudly showed off. A 21” front rim is complemented by a no-nonsense 20” rear one for a huge visual impact. And the fact that both the bespoke fork and the swingarm are single-sided makes things even more thrilling.

Old-school flat track racer bars replaced the high-tech original unit, and Beringer hardware was installed in place of the stock one. Krugger had a hard time mating the Beringer 6-pot and 4-pot calipers (front and rear) and the rest of the braking system to the BMW’s standard ABS, but in the end everything worked out.

Source: Florin Tibu, Autoevolution