If you have a little beast in your heart,
If you are a "villain" who is obstinate,
Well, I want to invite you to flock.
Dictation / Evil Bird Finishing / Hundred Craftsmen
My dream is to be a villain.
For this ideal, when I was a child, I did not "work hard".
My father had an agricultural diesel engine and would tear it down once a year to make a "big health" one. I watched my father clean every part, oil it, change the belt, and assemble it one by one, and the sense of order of mechanical disassembly and assembly fascinated me deeply. The roar after the engine assembly was completed was even more exciting.
I followed my father's example, secretly dismembered the handheld game console, the radio, and even released the unquenchable villain impulse in my heart in various chemical experiments and animal experiments (Editor: Bad demonstration, please do not imitate). As Freud said, try to create fiction, to satisfy that little dark self inside, to vent violence, and for me that outlet is always changing.
In the beginning, I looked for exits in the game. There I could create a world of self-rules to hold back the violence I had accumulated since childhood. Fanatics like me, even opened a game company, made a lot of money.
The virtual world stuff no longer satisfies my "violent" needs. I've always wondered if there could be a container that would solidify and close the violence, and let the heart of the internal combustion engine be released.
In 2014, having been tinkering with installation art, I was once again fascinated by cold machinery and hot engines. Catalyzed by the speed and passion that represents freedom, I began to make villain bikes.
Yes, build your own locomotive from scratch.
After selling the game company, I embarked on this road with the spirit of migrant workers building airplanes. I didn't understand anything, I could only start from studying professional books, step by step into the pit, the deep pit.
I spent nearly two years studying and researching, from theoretical classics to practical guides, from locomotive culture to corporate brand introduction, I read nearly a thousand locomotive-related books such as "Norton Locomotive Manual" and "BWM Motorcycle 50 Years of Art".
After digesting everything, a more crazy and adventurous idea popped out: in ten years, ten locomotives were reproduced, the history of western locomotives for a hundred years was completed, and the locomotive culture that belonged to China was precipitated, creating a real "Chinese Harley".
In my opinion, being able to maintain one's own personality in a gradually similar society, despite the obstruction of others, and have the courage to pursue one's heart is the spirit of villains. The so-called "evil" is a kind of evil that dares to break through the status quo, an evil that dares to pursue the desire of one's heart, an occasional indulgence of reason, and an ingenuity of willfulness.
In the midst of a sneer, I challenged Halley directly.
In 2015, I recreated the Villain Locomotive 1.0 based on william Halley's first locomotive from 1903. The locomotive is completely original design, from hand-drawn sketches to 3D modeling, rendering of drawings, all done independently, each accessory is personally selected. In that process, I learned a bunch of skills such as welding machine tools and sheet metal painting, and I only regretted how I didn't get on Lanxiang that year.
The Villain Motorcycle 1.0 was limited to 500 units and sold out in less than two months, and even Benjamin Wood, the chief designer of Shanghai Xintiandi, collected two units, one of which was displayed in Shanghai Xintiandi.
The overall style of the upcoming Villain Locomotive 2.0 this year is the military style of the 1935s, and compared to 1.0, we have reconstructed and subversively upgraded in almost all aspects.
The BMW motorcycle of that year was used to tow the cannon, and in order to reflect the military wind on the second-generation locomotive, we used two missile-like fuel tanks. Motorcycle suspension technology at that time was a type of gothic fork, which has long been lost in industrial manufacturing. In order to overcome this difficulty, we specially reproduced the drawings, created it, and truly achieved the first suspension system in history. In order to keep the locomotive style in a linear pattern, we redesigned the suspension and made the tilt suspension of all motorcycles completely horizontal.
In the process of designing and manufacturing each generation of villain locomotives, I always remind myself that "reproducing" the mechanical craftsmanship and culture of that era is not a replica design. The design must be completely original, and the industrial design under the influence of the culture of that era must be integrated into our current new design ideas.
So, I named the whole project "Time Machine." On the one hand, we must let everyone re-see the culture behind the best industrial design and design of those eras, and sort out the cultural background and locomotive situation of those eras through the manual attached to each generation of locomotives; on the other hand, grasp the accumulation process of Western industry, including the improvement of technology, the evolution of culture, and the expansion of design styles. It seems to me that all this constitutes a mechanical order.
The villain locomotive, the thing to do is to master the order of this machine through ten generations of tempering.
A lot of people ask me what it's like to drive a villain motorcycle. I would say that it is a flow of force. When driving a car, all operations are electronic, and between your movements and mechanical feedback, there are too many electronic interventions and hiding, all hidden by a black box.
And riding on the villain locomotive, you will clearly feel the progress of every action, from the combustion engine burning gasoline to push the piston, the force is transmitted to the chain to drive the axle to the ground, and then the ground feedback vibration to you, that is the flow of force between each part in one go, this is the mechanical bare style. Those who simply use it as a means of transportation, or who understand a villain motorcycle according to a traditional motorcycle, cannot feel or understand this beauty.
In addition, I insist on giving users the pleasure of assembling a locomotive and letting users do it themselves, which is an extraordinary experience.
In the two years of studying locomotives, there was a book that had a great influence on me - Matthew Crawford's "Philosophy of Future Work in Motorcycle Repair Shops", which made me understand that "industrialization" and "craftsman spirit" are not contradictory, and in today's "post-industrial era", it is necessary to call for "craftsman spirit" and let more and more "creators" emerge in this era.
Although industrialization has achieved large-scale mass production, it has restrained imagination and stifled cultural precipitation, but only design and hand-made will also bring problems such as closed doors and uneven quality, and only the combination of the two can integrate its strengths. Therefore, I especially hope that today's designers can increasingly return to the industrial system.
I, even a "villain," still want to invite you to form a group on the way forward.
Come, join the industry, even in the dark night, under the rotation of the "time machine", you can see the hope of the dawn - revival. The United States has the Runaway Riders - Halley, the United Kingdom has The Yupi Rock - Norton, Italy has the Mafia Mount - Motorcycle Guz, Germany has the gentleman's sport - BMW, and China has the subversive adventure motorcycle - villains.
Want to take a motorcycle trip to unleash yourself?
Let the little beast inside erupt!