Ratbike

Ratbike from Sweden

Ratbike ( Rattenrad ) is called a motorcycle with deliberately unkempt to a neglected appearance. To emphasize the Ratbike, the motorcycle is modified in such a way that it is hardly possible to make a reference to the original motorcycle. The paintwork is usually matt black, brown or camouflaged, applied with a brush or roller. All sorts of useful, practical and nonsensical things are added to Ratbikes (mostly). For their owners, Ratbikes are a commodity that is kept alive by all means, conventional or unconventional.

Styles

• Decorated Bikes ( Garbage Wagon , literally garbage truck): Everything that the owner can get their hands on is hung on these motorcycles.
• Survival Bikes : This direction is more militarily inspired, mostly painted olive; Headlight grilles, additional headlights and ammunition boxes are added. This variant waspopularized by the 1979film Mad Max .
• Bikes In Use (BIU): Their more pragmatic owners also speak of a vehicle that is not a cleaning tool .
• Noble Ratbikes : Often custom bikes that take up style elements of Ratbikes.
• Mutant bikes : See Burning Man

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  Decorated bike

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  Diesel rat bike

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  Sidecar rat bike

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  Harley-Davidson sidecar rat bike

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  Sidecar rat bike

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  Scooter rat bike

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  Ratbike (Honda CB 400 N)

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  Custom bike in rat bike style from Thunderbike

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  Mutant bike

literature

• Ratbikes - dead people live longer . In: Bikers News . Huber Verlag, Mannheim issue 314, June 2008, pp. 134–141. (Report with many photos)

Web links

Commons : Rat bike  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• English website