This 26" Chacha we designed correspondingly to the iconic BMW R 80 GS raced by Gaston Rahier 1983 in the famous Paris-Dakar desert rally. I stumbled over this absolutely stunning motorcycle while attending the german framebuilders meeting in the Neckarsulmer motorcycle museum in the beginning of 2019.
Being absolutely blown away by the pure and brutal beauty of this machine, I instantly knew I had to make a matching Fern! Luckily enough I found in Julian from Munich an avid customer who was equally excited about the idea to make this dream become reality!
To me this motorcycle resembles in many ways how I see our Chacha touring bike, a very fast and reliable enduro machine, where you can go everywhere no matter if going on- or offroad. The Chacha is a true performance travel companion, very light weight but strong enough to go on even the hardest trips, combining just the best from the worlds of touring-, gravel- and racing bicycles.
It comes with a full custom made rack set up, rear wings and mini rack for light stuff sacks, a porteur rack and even an additional 2-in1 platform rack, which also accepts lowrider panniers for longer trips. Rolling supersmooth and fast on Rene Herse 26" x 2.3" Rat Trap Pass tires, mounted to Ryde CSS (carbide super sonic) coated rims for extreme braking performance, covered up with beautiful Gilles Berthoud fenders and flap. Crisp shifting with a Gevanalle powered 1x11 Shimano drivetrain, turned by a vintage square taper Dura Ace crankset. Frontlight and energy supply by SON hub dynamo and Edelux 2, combined with a rear rack mounted supernova E3 taillight. The ESI wrapped handlebar is tightly clamped by our infamous custom made Fern Slingshot Stem.
All that brought to perfection with the Velociao GS paint sheme and matching bags made as always by my love @ Gramm Tourpacking!
Hope this beast will see some desert sand pretty soon!
Photography: Florian Haeussler / FERN Bicycles.