WHO WE ARE
Tony,
I broke up the first two intro paragraphs to 1.) even out the layout, and 2.) fit the feeling the writing conveys; shorter paragraphs make for faster exciting reading.
A NOTE FROM TONY
For me, motorcycling is about perspective: set your sights further down the road, look where you want to go, and be aware of your surroundings. Live in the moment. The solutions to most problems we encounter on the road while riding is the same as the solutions to most of life’s problems. Look further down the road when you’re feeling unstable, and you’ll be all right in the end. The concentration riding requires gradually pushes aside the mess in your mind and shakes the problem down to essentials. Void of distractions, a solution typically appears.
The type of riding Audette loved was the American back road, away from the highways and towns filled with people rushing from place to place. He prefers the twisting and turning roads around the hills and mountains, racing up the roads running next to rivers and fields. Audette dreamt of the places that turn into his own personal playground and what type of motorcycle he wanted for it.
From the moment he decided what he needed out of his motorcycle, it turned into a burning obsession. He set out to build motorcycles with no mass market compromises, built to the highest quality. Having real-road performance, and to be the most refined motorcycles in the world to maximize his time riding. To end the hunt for relentless power and precise handling. To create an experience so unique there are few people in the world who can lay claim to it.
Anything that gets your blood pumping is probably worth doing. For many people riding motorcycles isn’t a hobby or a need — it’s a passion. When turned into a profession, passion gives birth to storied champions like Joey Dunlop and the Honda Motor Company.
You ride to be completely immersed in the here and now, to be in total control of the moment. To give yourself complete autonomy and agency over your decisions; when to twist the throttle, when to weight the peg, and when to lean into a turn. Your actions are yours alone; distractions become non-existent.
Riding Motorcycles is one of the last bastions left on earth where you can feel what it means to truly be alive.
You hunt for the sensation and thrill of turning onto a road where you know your speed is too fast, but you have the confidence to lean in, you feel your eyes widen, your breath quickens, you feel your heart thumping and the engine revving beneath you.
Your body starts to flow with the road, everything melts past you as the machine becomes weightless. All that is left is a body moving through space and time.
That sensation is what Tony Audette was hunting for when developing the VELOS
Tony first felt this sensation when he was 15 after spending the previous year rebuilding a 1972 Honda CL350 with his father. As with most things in life though, we become numb to these sensations and search for something more.
He went in search of it in larger and newer motorcycles but came up dry. It wasn't until he felt the adrenaline rush of combat, did he know what he was searching for again. Tony began looking at the problem in a different way, why couldn’t he find the rush he was looking for from motorcycles anymore?
He began dissecting the problem, finding that companies were making mass-market compromises either to save money or “adapt” to the changing tides in the market, creating copy-cat models rather than putting forth effort and imagination into what a new motorcycle should be.
Intentionally, or worse, unintentionally engineering the soul out of the machines we love so much. Adding rider aids, large display screens, connectivity, control modes, baggage, etc. Motorcycles and the manufacturers making them have become focused on the technology, not the riders.
From the beginning, Audette designed the VELOS to be decidedly analog, unfiltered through onboard computers and a pure riding experience.
The VELOS is the concentrated essence of what I believe a motorcycle should be: powerful, purposeful, and analog. My dream was to engineer the purest, most powerful, and most refined motorcycle by innovating on the fundamentals. Then make them the most beautiful, most exclusive, and sought-after motorcycles available. To seek perfection in every single detail of material, shape, and performance. Making each Audette VELOS an example of mechanical excellence and material elegance, intended for the connoisseur and true lover of motorcycles. To leave no doubt in your mind that the Audette VELOS is the one vehicle in your collection that is your go-to, the one thing in your garage that is purely yours.
When I finished building the VELOS prototype, there was nothing else to compare it to, but what it is for and who it is for lead us to call it an American Superbike.