The Big Wheel 650 Is The Fat-Tired Dirt Bike of Your Dreams

Classified Moto beautifully reimagines the old-school dirt bike.

Nostalgia may be the biggest driver of custom car and motorcycle projects, but that doesn’t mean everyone’s fond reminiscences are the same. Classified Moto‘s John Ryland remembers his youth spent aboard a fat-tired Yamaha playbike, the Big Wheel 200.

These balloon-tired PW200s were made in the late ’80s, and along with their medium-wide siblings like the PW 50 and PW80, introduced a generation of kids to the fun of trail-riding without the seriousness of wannabe-racer full-on motocross machines.

In adulthood, Ryland wanted to recapture that feeling in a bike scaled for a grown man. Starting with the ubiquitous, stone-simple air-cooled single-cylinder engine from a Honda XR650L, Classified Motor created the Big Wheel 650.

The front fork comes from a Yamaha WR250R, with custom triple clamps set wide enough to accommodate the fat front tire. The swing arm is borrowed from a Triumph Sprint ST street bike and the tires are STI Black Diamond ATV tires with Department of Transportation approval, so the BW650 is fully street-legal.

This one is Ryland’s own toy, so it isn’t for sale, but of course Classified Moto will gladly build anything customers request, so put your order in now.

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