Bolton-built brawler: Dot Motorcycles Street Fighter created with help from Guy Martin

The big takeaway from this year’s Motorcycle Live Show at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC) was the strength of the British motorcycling industry and the craftsmanship displayed in their models.

One such manufacturer is Dot, who introduced their 2023 Street Fighter Warrior RD650 to an estimated 90,000 show goers to sit alongside the rest of their premium twin-cylinder range. A work of engineering artistry, it’s a machine company founder Harry Reed would surely approve.

A racer, Harry designed and built his own machine to ride in the 1908 Isle of Man TT and, against all the odds and larger, wealthier manufacturers, he won, and life as a motorcycle manufacturer began.

Fast forward to today and Dr Anthony Keating is at the helm with the company offering three models, the Dot Demon, a scrambler, the Reed Racer, a café racer machine, and the newest, limited edition Street Fighter.

“We developed the bike with Guy Martin during Covid,” explained Dr Keating. “We have designed bikes for other manufacturers including Norton. “Steve Parish did some test riding for us as well and that has gone well.”

The company now calls the National Centre for Motorsport Engineering (NCME) in Bolton home, although the original factory in Deansgate in the centre of Manchester, still stands.

The Street Fighter is powered by the Kawasaki 650 parallel twin found in the current Z650 naked and Ninja 650 sportsbike, producing 67bhp and 47lbft of torque, which is more than enough for a bike weighing just 168kg. The rest of the bike is handmade in Bolton with a tubular steel frame hugging the power unit at the four visible mounting points.

The rear swingarm is a thing of beauty, using the same TIG welded high-tensile steel as the frame, it bends around the rear 17in wheel with the twin exhaust pipes sprouting from its centre.  

Dr Keating told MCN: “We make everything, the CNC machining, the carbon work, everything is done in house.”

Brembo are the brake manufacturer of choice on the RD650, with dual 300mm discs up front and a 220mm rear, while Showa springs smooth out the bumps with upside down forks and a single damper with preload adjustment on the back.

For a bespoke, beautiful mid-sized example of exemplary engineering the cost of a Dot seems reasonable with the scrambler starting at £20,000 and the Reed Racer at £25,000. That’s still a lot of money though for a bike with less than 70 horsepower.

As for the limited-edition Street Fighter? The price will start around the £25,000 mark but that didn’t seem to put potential buyers off at the nine-day NEC event.

“We have had a fantastic reaction, the Street Fighter has gone down a storm,” Dr Keating said. “If we had built 10 we could have rolled them out of the building.”

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Dot Motorcycles return with two new retro 650s

First published 07 December 2021 by By Dan Sutherland

Small-scale British bike name Dot Motorcycles have whipped the covers off two Kawasaki-powered retro 650 twins at Motorcycle Live.

The sporty-looking Reed Racer and scrambler-styled Dot Demon are built to order in Greater Manchester and were developed in conjunction with Guy Martin, who tested the bikes before their reveal.

Both use the liquid-cooled 649cc four-stroke parallel twin motor from Kawasaki’s Euro5-compliant Z650 and produce a claimed 67.3bhp at 8000rpm and 47.2lb.ft at 6700rpm. Housed in TIG-welded steel trellis frames, they share the same claimed 169kg kerb weight and a tiny 10-litre tank.

Where the two bikes differ the most is in their riding positions, with the Reed Racer offering a more hunched-over, focused experience, while the Dot Demon allows the rider to sit more upright. The latter also features slightly heavier bracing in the chassis to cope with some light scrambling.

“We’ve got CNC machines, we’ve got autoclaves, so we can make all the parts in house,” Dot’s Dr Anthony Keating told MCN. “Customers can have whatever colours they want.”

Both bikes feature dual 300mm front discs with four-piston Brembo calipers, plus a single disc Brembo at the rear. Bosch ABS is standard.

There’s also adjustable 40mm Showa forks and a monoshock, with both sprung to the riders’ weight before being delivered.

Of course, bespoke building and quality chassis components don’t come cheap, as Dr Keating explains: “The scramblers start at £18,500 and the cafe racers start at £21,000. We can’t make the bikes for any less than that because everything’s made in the UK.”

Despite the high price tags, Dot say they have taken orders over the first weekend of the NEC show, with the first customer bikes arriving at the end of February, or early March.

The stripped back Reed Racer is named after company founder, Harry Reed, who took victory at the TT in 1908 on a Dot. The firm are now working on an electric motorcycle, which will join the line-up next.

Dot 650 twins explored:

• Easy power The liquid cooled DOHC 649cc parallel twin is taken from Kawasaki. It’s Euro5 and makes 67.3bhp. It’s a reliable motor, but produces less power than an MT-07 or SV650.
• Sitting pretty An 800mm seat height on the Reed should suit shorter riders, with the Demon scrambler sibling featuring a much taller 880mm perch.
• Build-a-bike Dot Motorcycles say that it takes between six and 12 weeks to turn around a finished bike – providing the customer makes no further changes once they’ve ordered.
• Small team The Dot Motorcycles team consists of six engineers, with the capacity to build 60 motorcycles a year.
• Make it personal Alongside colours, a small circular panel on the scrambler can be engraved with your choice of letters and/or numbers – to make the bike personal to you.