Langen’s bright future: High-end Brit firm reveal plans for four-stroke and electric models

Wigan-based Langen Motorcycles are here for the long haul, with founder Chris Ratcliffe revealing a four-stroke model is set to appear in the next 18 months and development of an electric bike is already well underway.

Langen burst into the British biking consciousness in 2020 with their £33,600 Two Stroke café racer. A glorious hand-built mix of top shelf componentry, carbon fibre, and 24ct gold leaf, production has now begun with the first bikes set to be delivered in May.

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“We set a limited run of 100 bikes and it’s looking like by summertime we’ll be starting to build a waiting list and perhaps we should’ve made more,” Ratcliffe told MCN. “We didn’t do that much market research, we just built what we liked and seemed to have hit a good spot on the dartboard.

“The next bike will be a four-stroke and it will not be a café racer, it will be completely different,” he continued. “We’re going to create something two-thirds of the weight of the competitor bike, it will probably have more power, it will have better equipment and perform better on the road and track.”

Ratcliffe and his team have also dipped a toe into electrification – working with larger two and four-wheeled firms on development.

“We absolutely have to be looking at electric,” the Langen boss added. “We are all petrolheads here – make no mistake – but we appreciate that if we want Langen Motorcycles to be here in 20 years we’re probably going to have an electric offering.

“We’ve developed our own special modular batteries… and we’re working with other car and motorbike companies to explore electric solutions.”

For now the team remain focused on the delivery of their Two Stroke models, having had the first customers in before Christmas to sort out the final spec. They’ll start by building one per week, before ramping up production to two.

Ratcliffe said: “We’re still 18 months away from launching [our four-stroke], so all our attention is on the Two Stroke production.”

Despite initially planning to build all 100 Two Strokes in a similar spec, with ergonomic and geometry changes to suit the rider, customer demand means each bike is likely to look different – with the list of extras growing all the time.

“We realised we were actually going to make 100 different bikes,” Chris explained. “If it’s not too unreasonable, then we’ll design it and develop it, because that’s what we’re here for and gets us out of bed in the morning.

“We’ve a bikini nose cone fairing on the way, lots of carbon fibre extras, and have Dymag wheels now that save 3kg per wheel, and then there’s the colour schemes…”

What’s more, Ratcliffe is toying with a trackday conversion kit, adding: “We’re thinking about entering some races towards the end of the year for our customers to come along and really see what it can do. Off the back of that, who knows what we might do?”