Brothers Derek and Don Rickman believed that there were good frames and good engines but the two rarely were put together. The brothers built the lightweight 'Metisse' chassis to fit a number of various engines to create off-road machines.

In later years the company made high quality street and racing frames and even began building motorcycles using left over Constellation engines after the demise of Royal Enfield. During the mid-70's, Rickman used Honda CB750 engines in their street bikes. The company stopped producing motorcycle chassis in 1975 and concentrated their efforts on manufacturing accessories.

Rickman Enfield Métissi

Key Features

Capacity 750
Max Power 52 hp @ 6000 rpm
Dry Weight 365 lb / 166 kg

After the death of Floyd Clymer in 1970 the Rickman Brothers acquired the rest of the Enfield Engines. The engines were in possession of Mitchell's in Birmingham waiting to be sent to Italy to be assembled. Mitchell's were an import/export company and wanted to dispose of the engines as soon as possible. They approached the Rickman Brothers for a frame and the Rickman Metisse was born.

There were however, only 137 Rickman's originally made. There were six or seven prototypes also made (R651, 797, 810, 811, 979) Production went from April 1970 until January 1972.

Rickman Harley 1200 Sportster

The Rickman Metisse is, by its name, a mongrel of sorts. You get a great frame and then install any of a variety of engines which results in a very nice looking and extremely capable motorcycle.

Back in 1984,the frame builder Pat French, of M.R.D., came to an agreement with the Rickman Brothers to build exact copies of the famous Metisse street and competition frames. Over the next 16 years, he produced about 1000 of those frames. During that time, in 1997, he produced 12 of these Harley Davidson Rickman Metisse combinations.

The chrome moly oil bearing frame holds a moderately massaged Sportster 1200 with Andrews cams and Mikuni carb. An inverted front fork holds the wheel with twin disc brakes and 6 piston calipers. The finished bike weighs 396 pounds compared to over 500 pounds for a stock Sportster. Dropping that much weight and improving suspension has got to mean a huge performance increase. It's just a very nicely done bike overall and shows one possible result when you start with V-twin power and decide to wrap an improved frame around it.

Along with the Street Tracker by Mert Lawwill, the Storz XR1200 and the many Buell variations, this bike shows another possibility of how the Harley Sportster 1200 engine can be a good base for a street bike with loads of usable torque.