The Motorheads

If first SoHo and then Tribeca used to be the home of creative types, Brooklyn now has that distinction. You have to go to Brooklyn. For the duo behind Jane Motorcycles, Adam Kallen and Alex DiMattio, getting to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn from the Upper East Side is easier than for the rest of us. Traffic tends to disappear when you ride a motorcycle.

We catch up with them finally at Brooklyn Moto on North 10th Street in Williamsburg; it’s one half of their creative pursuit. Threading past their friend’s garage filled with street bikes, dirt bikes and the bike of the moment, the Scrambler, Kallen and DiMattio are in the back next to a motorcycle that DiMattio is rebuilding for a friend. It’s a 2015 BMW R nineT, a beautiful motorcycle to begin with, and one which DiMattio took to pieces.

He’s almost got it back together, and the new version of the BMW includes a hand-built aluminum tank swathed in chrome, custom wheels, a low-slung seat, and big knobby tires. What was once a pristine $15,000 BMW motorcycle is now worth a lot more.

The Jane Motorcycles co-founders met about six years ago when Kallen moved to New York from Los Angeles. A lifelong dirt biker, DiMattio got the L.A. surfer into motorcycles, and then the two started plotting how to build not just bikes, but a brand that reflected their take on motorcycle culture.

“We weren’t Harley guys; we didn’t have any connection to the outlaw biker or sport bike culture that most people think of,” Kallen says. “We wanted to redefine what motorcycle culture was, which is also why we came up with the name Jane Motorcycles. That doesn’t sound like something your typical Harley guy would bother with.”

The second half of their creative energies went into a retail shop and coffee bar on Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg. “We had no idea what a retail shop would look like, or what it would entail,” Kallen says. “We also got told that is about the dumbest thing you could do.”

Doesn’t seem so dumb now. A vintage Yamaha greets you as enter Jane Motorcylces. More bikes take up places of honor in the gallery-like space. The best exhibits are their fellow motorheads sipping coffee and swapping stories in the front. They are built-in test pilots for the motorcycle-ready clothing that Jane Motorcycles also sells alongside helmets and gloves. The pieces include hoodies, t-shirts, and hats, but also beautiful waxed canvas jackets that look like anything you might see in fashionable Williamsburg, but with slots for D30 protective armor.

Shrugging into his own jacket, DiMattio reaches for his helmet. “There were certainly lots of haters in the beginning,” he says. “But they’ve come around. And what do we get? We get to build custom motorcycles, design clothing we’d wear, and go ride with our friends. I’ll take that kind of adventure any time.” And with that, he fires up his bike and rides a wheelie halfway down the block.