Keanu Reeves Shows Us His Most Prized Motorcycles | Collected | GQ

When do you become a collector? When you have more than two or more than one or more than three. Are there more than three? I'm barely a collective. Hi, I'm Keanu Reeves, co-founder of Arch Motorcycle, let's take a look at where I am. I grew up in Toronto every summer the biker gangs would come to a place called New York ville those bikes those people those pirates I think they touched that ten year old boy in a way that I learned to ride a motorcycle when I was making a movie in Munich, this young lady had one in Durham and I asked her if she would teach me how to ride it and when I got back to Los Angeles it was probably around '86 87.

I bought my first motorcycle so this is where it all happens. backstage please, we have some customer bikes here being assembled and repaired and personally this is the second motorcycle I bought in Los Angeles around 1987, it's a 1973 Marc; a Norton commando had a great time with this bike and just I grew up loving Norton a lot, the upswept tube, it's an English twin. Norton was famous for the feather frame which means the engine is rubber mounted which takes away a lot of vibration, it has a nice sound, it smells good when the oil heats up and I put a lot of miles on that bike in movies.

I wrote a chain reaction motorcycle and a movie called My Own Private Idaho in my own private Idaho, the gentlemen came out with a canary yellow Norton and the guys like it, you know this? on a bike and well, that's how you know, I thought I got it, it was a fun day riding that bike and riding with River Phoenix, what about John Wick? Didn't you read that? Yeah, recently in John Wick Chapter Three, yeah, I got on the bike so I had to write it in an alley and yeah, I wrote it on a bridge and there's a fight sequence, yeah, I wrote in John League three Norton the year in I bought the 73, the patterns shift on the other side of the bike in a different direction, so that took a second and then when the reality of the Norton hit, it was surprising, you know, it's not that scary, especially for a young driver, you know, I didn't get on a motorcycle that's a hundred horsepower and I can go 150 miles an hour.

I can do it now, but I've never gone 150. I'm actually um, I haven't actually gone that fast. I'm like other 135s. This is the Ducati that I was. in the spectacular bike Matrix Reloaded, the beautiful motorcycle Ducati made a special green and a kind of matrix green, which makes it a kind of trick, it has Matrix Reloaded, carrie anne moss roy, who had never ridden a motorcycle in her life , learned to drive a Ducati nine. nine eight the motorcycle was with the keys to the rich house, who were the writers and directors of the Matrix trilogy, we have become custodians of the motorcycle and it is really cool to be able to show you this bike, we will review it and make sure everything works . and the next time we're at the track I think we'll eliminate it, you know, when I work or when I work on movies, you know, in the past they would know that they had contracts that said you couldn't ride a motorcycle.

I know you're on a set and they don't want you to crash, so sometimes I paid attention to that and sometimes I didn't. Oops, I can't help it, it's not difficult to communicate what it's like to ride a motorcycle. because you know if you've ridden a bike you understand it and on a motorcycle you're a little bit more vulnerable so the stakes are higher, what I like for me is the visceral quality of it, the vibration, the wind, the sound and then it's It really is a great place to think, feel and escape. You know, when I'm not riding a motorcycle, I suffer from withdrawal.

It's not good for my health. He had a Harley-Davidson, a Dyna Wide Glide, which was an incredible motorcycle. I was looking to customize it and then I was introduced to guard Hollinger, who owned a custom building company called Chop Rods. We ended up working together and he ended up building a custom motorcycle. He took the Harley engine and then built a motorcycle around it and that. It became the prototype of the arch motorcycle, so this is a 2019 kr GT 1. The company makes more than 200 parts for the motorcycle. It's all billet aluminum. We manufacture those parts, but we also work with other high-end third-party companies, so we have a high-end öhlins front suspension South African company called BST four-wheel carbon we are working with a great Wisconsin company called S&S for the plant. energy what else we have we have some michelin tires that are pretty impressive we work with an italian company called rhizoma signals mirrors foot controls we also make the custom seat for the owner so you know, it's equipped look when you start this sounds good they ride amazing so in terms of the company I'm definitely involved with the dream of the company the ambition of the company I can't ride a motorcycle and you don't want me to fix it I can test it and I can tell you what's wrong and I can know what quality control how we want it to be I feel what we are doing I am not doing anything the drawing guard is doing that but he will show me and we will know how to talk about it and then the infrastructure and what is the voice of the company who we are what we are I present and I don't work with that, like this that if the KRG t1 is a high performance cruiser, then this motorcycle is like a sporty high performance cruiser, which makes it sporty, so the riding position instead of having four controls we have a central control that has a different inclination.

In the 1 it has been incorporated a little, so the handling is a little different. Also, we will have different wheels, obviously, different bodywork, so there are other types of developments in terms of tank design, we are still working on our final exhaust. system for it and then there are a lot of other design elements that are happening here we have a new instrument panel, the frame is different from the KRG t1, it is not exposed and what happens inside is a little different, we like it too The rides on two tracks, so there are ponies for when we want to go fast on a race track.

I'm riding the zx10 here ninja guards got the r1 Ross who works at the company he's dealing with Aprilia and that could be Simon is really awesome. They are awesome

motorcycles

and it's a lot of fun to be together, we ride the bows a lot and we participate in bow events and we tour the Santa Monica Mountains and that's great, but we all love to ride bikes and if you're on a track. you don't have to worry about traffic or speed limits yeah let's look at bikes I have written down that wouldn't matter I'm of course referring to Vincent Black Shadow and there are a couple of examples that are probably about 20 years older than I have .

I've never been on a modern MotoGP motorcycle, that might be fun, you know, you gotta be crazy, oh my god, I've never ridden one of those anyway. If I get on a Brough on a Vincent Black Shadow and have the opportunity to ride an emoji. A MotoGP bike would be pretty impressive. What we have here is what we call the one four three method. This is a prototype, so you can't get on it and ride it yet. It's kind of like the way the car company makes concept cars. This is kind of a concept motorcycle that we are looking to bring to production.

It will eventually have a carbon fiber monocoque frame. You can start to see the idea that going down here at the bottom of the frame, this will become carbon fiber. The engine is an S&S, but it's going to be ridiculous, it's 143 cubic inches, it's a little futuristic. We like the idea of ​​how we're layering to integrate different materials, the aluminum carbon fiber goes into the elements of the seat skins and then just. some of the design elements are quite spectacular BST is going to develop a new wheel for us. It will be scandalous. This motorcycle is outrageous, but that's part of the fun advice for a new rider.

I mean, if you're a kid and your legs are starting with a little minibike, I mean, people will show you what to do if you're a young adult and you're not on dirt and you want to get out there, take a class, you know, get started. with a small CC, get a bike you can put your feet on the ground, something that doesn't scare you, you know, if you're not going to do all that, don't go crazy like you've never ridden one. The bike doesn't let you know that it's a sport bike that has a lot of horsepower, but yeah, get comfortable with it, don't get too much power, you know it can overwhelm you too quickly and have fun.