A Muscle Bike from France? Mais, Oui!

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

Motorcycles don’t come to mind when I think of France. Wine comes first, then Paris, followed by memories of exploring the French countryside on separate trips with my dearly departed parents back in the 1980s.

There was the girl behind the desk at a hotel in Abbeville who was so cute that my mother wanted to wrap her up and bring her home in 1984, and I didn’t disagree. And there the trip in 1985 with my World War II veteran father to Bitche, which the 100th Infantry Division liberated from Nazi occupation in March 1945. There’s so much more of France that I’d like to see, but somehow I’ve never put the words “France” and “motorcycle” together.

Sure, RIDE-CT.com did recently write about the 1906 French-made Griffon that Will Paley of Cornwall recently sold at auction, but when the last time a motorcycle came from France? How about now?

A company called Avinton has developed a line of muscle bikes – naked sport bikes with a nod to the cafe crowd – and is now selling them in Europe and exporting them to individual buyers in the U.S. Here are some of the specs:

Moteur

Type de moteur : bicylindre en V (à 45°) Smith & Smith
Cylindrée : 1 647 cm3 (100 ci)
Culasses : à 2 soupapes par cylindre commandées par 4
arbres à cames latéraux avec tiges et poussoirs
hydrauliques de rattrapage de jeu.
Cylindres : en alliage léger chemisé acier
Refroidissement : Par air
Carter moteur : en 2 parties à plan vertical
Graissage : circulation sous pression avec pompe à huile
Filtrage : par crépine et filtre à huile. Un radiateur assure le
refroidissement de l’huile
Alésage x course : 101,6 x 101,6 mm
Rapport volumétrique : 10.3 : 1(avec décompresseur électronique)
Puissance maxi : France : 106 ch à 5 750 tr/mn
Reste du monde : 150 ch

Got all that? Me neither, but reading specs in English is sometimes just as challenging for me. Suffice to say the Avinton models are powered by an air-cooled, 1,640cc V-twin engine from S&S. There are three basic models; the Collector GT (pictured below), Collector Race and Collector Roadster.In an email exchange Monday, Avinton global communication manager Stephane Devaux said that currently the bikes are only available in the U.S. by direct order. “We are actively looking for an importer in the USA. For the moment, we deliver directly our muscle-bikes from our workshop to our customers homes,” he said. Maintenance is handled by S&S dealers. The Collector line begins at roughly $45,000.