ARCH KRGT-1 Ride

Sponsored by McCams, getting you back on two wheels when it wasn't your fault. Welcome to LA, welcome to California and we're here with Arch to test their new KR GT1 which is all new for 2020. There's 20 major design changes and 150 component changes for the bike for 2020. Some of those changes have been done for Euro 4, for example the rear mud guard is slightly higher to give more space and the different upgrades in the suspension, the steering and we've been out all day today testing. So we've done just over 100 miles which was a mixture of freeway, town work, city work and then up in the mountains. And when you come to ride a bike like this you kind of have expectations and you kind of go okay it's going to be a big cruiser, we're going to be in America, it's going to be a bit soft, the ground clearance is going to be a bit rubbish and the brakes aren't going to be as strong as they say they are. But it's completely not what I was expecting, soon as we left here you could feel that the suspension was really really taut, the suspension is very sporty, it's very agile, the power is incredible, it's over a two litre capacity and the brakes are really strong. As soon as we got on the freeway cruising at 75, 80 miles an hour, 3000 rpm, very little vibration, sounds great, looks cool, turning heads, everybody in the car's checking you out. Then we got up into the mountains, I was like okay, it's probably not going to handle as well as expected but the initial turning is a little slow, it's very planted and stable, it's not twitchy and then once you get it on its side you just keep leaning and then you lean a little bit more and then you lean a little bit more, you know we're not dragging pegs, we're not dragging exhaust, it just keeps leaning over and leaning over. But what's really impressive is the transition from left to right, so a roll, you get this like beautiful like roll from left to right then into another corner from right to left and it just it's just a toy with. For such a big bike it really does turn, you're not kind of raising it over the suspension and then it doesn't sit on the shock and then vice versa and vice versa, it's just nice and planted, nice and rolling. If you really rev the big engine, yeah it's got loads of power but after around 4000 rpm you really don't need to, just stay between two and a half and three and a half thousand rpm, massive torque, massive power. Noise wise, sounds really good but it's not overly loud, it's not scaring animals and making people be frightened, there's a nice pop on the overrun but when it just cruise around town it's nice and nimble, nice and quiet but then when you do give it a big handful it just reminds you this is over two litre in capacity. The machine work on it and the billet work on it is just it's just beautiful, you can take parts of this bike off and put it on your mantelpiece at home, get rid of the tv, just put one of these in front. So yesterday we got to ride the new Arch motorcycle, today we've come down to the factory to see how the bikes are built, to see how they're put together, to see the CNC machining and to see the design process. Let's go inside and have a good look. So we're inside the factory here at Arch and what makes these bikes so unique is everything is built and done here in-house with meticulous detail, a huge amount of aluminium CNC machining. So this is the fuel tank, so you've got the right hand side and the left hand side fuel tank, these are both connected so if you feel the right, the right feels the left and the left feels the right but just to produce this tank, this is obviously very rough, it's 15 hours per side on the machining, so 30 hours just to produce the fuel tanks. Then they've got to be welded with the back plate and as you can tell this welding is all done by hand because each weld is slightly different, so this is not a machine that's done this, this is a guy here in the workshop and once this is being welded and put together, it then has to be finished, it then has to be painted, so you're looking at around 50 to 60 hours just to produce the fuel tanks and this is repeated throughout the bike, you just pick any section of the bike and again it's CNC machined, it's been done by hand and it's not machined and then put on a shelf and left covered in dust, they're producing around 7 to 12 items each time, so here in the factory there is only 5 or 6 of these fuel tanks ready to go and then when the order comes through, they will make more fuel tanks. It's just a beautiful work of art, I mean you could have that fuel tank on you in your front living room as a display, it's just a beautiful bit of work but then you can see where the hours and the painstaking time has gone in because obviously this was designed before it was made, the machining was done, the tooling was done, the CAD design was done, so it's 50 hours to produce a fuel tank but before that there's months and months of design and prep work. So believe it or not, this is a swinging arm, well the right hand side section of a swinging arm, so we take the huge big block, this goes in the CNC machine and after many, many, many hours we kind of get this level which as you can see is starting to develop as the side of the swinging arm and then carefully, finally we go from there to here and then this section here is what has come out of this giant block. Now to produce each bike here in the workshop, we're looking at around 1,200 pounds of aluminium, so each section of this swinging arm where it's welded started off as a huge block like that, then it's in the CNC machine which can be anywhere from one or two hours for some parts to up to 15 hours for other items and then it's beautifully hand welded together, there's a beautiful finish and then we end up with the final swinging arm which this is the new swinging arm with improved rigidity over the previous model and it's the attention to detail again, like the beautiful finish here with the slight ribs which is all deliberate, this is absolutely stunning and again from 1,200 pounds of aluminium that they use, they end up using around 200 pounds worth of actual aluminium that goes in the bike, so there's a thousand pounds worth as it weighs of aluminium that's recycled and comes back into the system. So this is the finished article and I just wanted to pick out one or two little bits that I find intriguing, so for example these are not just any old levers, you want one lever that's a thousand dollars, the calipers huge six pot radials, $1,500 per side, the reservoirs have changed so now you've got ABS, it's a Brembo one on the back, the dash completely changed, again that's for Euro 4, this is much larger, the fuel tank has changed in shape, this isn't as aggressive as it was on the previous bike, so all these little changes and all these little bits of trinket, this is the highest end of custom bike building at its very best. So this is the final production model, it takes around 90 days to produce this bike from absolutely nothing to the finished bike and if the parts are not already made you're looking at around four months to make the parts, add everything together and to produce the bike. The bikes are made here in LA, if you want to purchase one of the bikes you can choose different seats, everything can be bespoke to the way you want to ride and your setup and your weight and where you ride. You can come down to the factory, you can discuss with the guys, discuss what paint scheme you want, what kind of finish you want, it's all down to yourself as the end customer. But what a machine to have in front and yeah 90 days to go from, if all the parts are in stock, if everything is on the shelf, one guy, 90 days at work.