Akira Burgman

Aug 9th 2025

Kaneda's bike is a futuristic recumbent motorcycle (or possibly scooter) from the Akira anime series. It is commonly known as the "Akira bike", and it is known for it's bright red paintjob with stickers, very long front wheel trail, encompassing seat, and steering offset.

This is an iconic bike, and many people have tried to recreate it. Some notable examples are here, here, and here.

But, reality is harsh. It is thought that the steering geometry is not well suited for handling on real roads, partially due to the large turning radius. Frame stiffness also suffers as the scooter-like design is weakest near the rider's legs. The rider is down low too, making visibility, both being visible and seeing others a concern. At least one replica can only drive at "roughly 10mph", although it's unclear if that's a limitation of the steering or powerplant.

But what if you want a functional Akira bike without the challenges of a custom build? It might be possible to wrap and slightly modify the seat of a Suzuki Burgman scooter to look similar to the Akira bike.

Here's some reference and AI-generated images of what the might look like:

A relatively simple yet cannon modification to the Burgman would be to wrap it, install a short/sweeping windshield, and install a custom seat to look more like the original AI mockup. The seat modification is particularly interesting, because it gets rid of the pillion, but it can greatly increase the amount of storage without using a top-box.