\u201cIf I was any good at marketing, I\u2019d have capitalised on that, but it really is just a coincidence,\u201d said Ratcliffe. And thanks to a grant-funded project to design a modular battery for a motorcycle, he also managed to establish the Langen headquarters in Makerfield, Wigan \u2013 the small town whose MP will be the next prime minister.<\/p>\n
Gut feeling<\/p>\n
\u201cI had enough money to commit to a workshop and take on my first member of staff. I was taking some big risks, but I had this gut feeling that it was right \u2013 even though it looked insane from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as Langen had its first machine ready, Covid struck. \u201cSo we spent more time developing until there was a window in the lockdowns when we could launch the bike.\u201d The appropriately named Two Stroke duly made its debut at the Salon Priv\u00e9 motor show and concours at Blenheim Palace in late 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great. We took a lot of orders, so it was a case of \u2018OK, this is real now\u2019.\u201d Ratcliffe quickly expanded his workforce and the first batch of 100 machines is now sold out.<\/p>\n
The detailing on the Two Stroke is exquisite, with threaded handlebars, gold-trim chains and carbon-fibre casings. Each is fully customisable to suit the rider, with bespoke geometry and ergonomics. Its 250cc V-twin engine was hand-built by Vincenzo Mattia, a Ferrari F1<\/a> engineer,. \u201cVincenzo is a very talented engineer and was really excited about the prospect of working on a two-stroke engine, but it\u2019s like working with an artist \u2013 you can\u2019t rush him because what he does is so incredible,\u201d said Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf I was any good at marketing, I\u2019d have capitalised on that, but it really is just a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7816,59,655,102344,6040,3005,5438,86,56,54,55,157732],"class_list":["post-700210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-cars","tag-gb","tag-lifestyle","tag-motorcycles","tag-motoring","tag-motorsport","tag-standard","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-us-content"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}