It's common stunt knowledge that Bill Dixon's Yamaha R6 has been leading the pack in stunt technology for years. The man behind this freestyle engineering masterpiece is Runman Inc. and more specifically Bob Runman who took time out from hand crafting the next big thing in stunt riding to speak about his company and future plans in the sport.
StuntBums: What is Runman Inc?
Runman: Runman Inc is a small machine shop in west central Florida just north of Tampa. Run by a self proclaimed "extreme sports engineer" named Bob Runman. Working with top athletes in the world in such sports as freestyle moto, Freestyle Snowcross, Wakeboarding, waterskiing and Freestyle stunt riding.
StuntBums: What is your greatest accomplishment with the shop?
Runman: Wow there is so much lol...One thing that really sticks out in my mind is the Red Bull Wake Lab in 2008. I was asked to engineer and build the world's largest floating obstacle for a wakeboarding contest in Orlando Fl and only had 47 days from concept to contest. I logged 850 hours on this project and that in itself nearly killed me!
StuntBums: How did you get involved with Freestyle Stunt Riding?
Runman: In 2007 I met Bill Dixon I was working at a chopper shop and Bill was hired to help promote our sportbike builds. Bill Dixon and I would talk about collaborating a competition stunt bike that would blow minds and help him win. The crook that owned the shop ran that business into the ground.
So I started my shop in 2008 building wakeboarding rails, custom motorcycle wheels, injection molds and general job shop machining and engineering. Bill Dixon came out to my shop in the spring of 2009 and said he wanted to build the ultimate stunt machine. He knew exactly what he wanted. We worked together every day and night for months to get the bike ready for XDL. Then Bill went out and won 3 XDL series championships: 2009, 2010 and 2011.
The bike was on the cover of 2-Wheel tuner December of 2009 and was featured in several magazines worldwide. And we are working on a new project now that will eclipse what we did with his R6.
StuntBums: What are your plans for 2012 as far as freestyle stunt riding goes?
Runman: I have that bike build with Bill Dixon that will consume a lot of my time. Without giving up to much information it is a clean slate build built around a motor wheels and suspension parts and I will be designing and building the swing arm, frame and everything from the top down.
I also am working on building another drift bike for Jesse Toler. And then there is my product line. I won't be stocking anything, everything is built to order this leaves room for customer input.
StuntBums: Do you have a quote for us?
Runman: Hell Yeah! “MACHINE SHOP…. DON’T STOP!”
Thanks for this opportunity StuntBums!
Photo by Jeremey Bilera.
I think I had a dream last night my bike had one of these in purple and black ;)
Is it just me or does that orange bike in the pics have a thumb throttle?
Yup, Bill Dixon runs both -
Bill Dixon uses a thumb throttle because of his quad racing back ground but the bike has 5 different throttle controls..... The fast idle screw type, a push button fast idle that takes it to 4,000 rpm, a choke type trottle that he can run it flat out WOT, and a trigger under the tail section of the bike