When I received the first pictures of this totally ground up Egli-Vincent built by Dag Sinclair Riise from Norway, I immediately asked Dan to send me more pictures and details. Dan talked about his project, which included the manufacturing of parts such the frame or the tank as well as numerous components like hubs and sprockets.
Dag is the “boss” of the Bergen Old Bike Club in Norway and according Colin Taylor, these are “a great bunch of people”! This must be true considering this project came together thanks to a great team effort in order to stay focus on Dag’s vision.
Such ground-up project requires time, dedication, patience, motivation and obviously skills and effort. Through this slide deck you will see that Dag’s has definitely all of these but he also succeeded to get the help of two very qualified members on the Vincent community: Cyril Malem (today retired), Trevor Southwell and Colin Taylor, which have been providing both advises and materials to kick-off or finished this project. Cyril mentions, “the bike is stunning”, knowing the quality of his work, this is definitely a compliment.
According Colin, the birth was not done without headaches and “we should not only hear the exhausts but also the tales of woe which Dag could tell concerning all the troubles he encountered”; Those being mainly due to supposedly “quality made” replacement parts, ordered from official sources, and not fitting this stupendous motorcycle.
This project was meant to deliver a classic looking or old looking Egli says Dag and there was much work put into the design, to avoid design flaws that can be found on some Egli replicas. With some simplicity Dag also recognizes that beside the “international” support, his local friend Helge Crnic must get most of the credit to achieve this objective. He was the “Style Police” behind the build at every step, and definitely did a great job!
Philippe Guyony © 2013
The Egli-Vincent 