Non V-Twins
The genesis of his Ducati builds actually traces back to a Sporty that he kept tearing apart to make it lighter and faster, eventually achieving a 10.9 on the drag strip. According to Mat, “I thought, ‘What if I just built a bike from scratch?’ I was thinking of doing a Sporty engine with an overhead cam but then I started researching motors and the Ducati engine was everything I was trying to turn my Sporty into. It’s got the desmodromic valves, which is an amazing engineering part that pretty much makes a Ducati a Ducati. It’s an L-twin [90-degree V-twin], it’s got that signature sound. It’s a light motor, has the 6-speed transmission, dry clutch, and revs up like crazy.” So in 2002 Mat bought himself a Ducati, rode it around for a week, and then tore it down to the engine to build his first chopper.
Mat cites Confederate’s Matt Chambers as one of his influences, and in fact it was the Hellcat which informed the styling of the 913XL. The bike’s owner, Scott Finkel, is about 6’5” and 230lbs so Mat had to make design choices around a big boy’s body. Mat’s original “spaghetti” frame was designed for an air-cooled motor, so he revised the geometry for a new liquid-cooled 6-speed L-twin mill stolen from a Ducati 916. The racing-pedigreed powerplant provides ample oomph and also acts as a stressed member. When it comes to the 17” Marchesini five-spoke aluminum alloy wheels and Michelin ZR-rated tires, it’s clear that this is no trailer queen. Mat claims, “It’s all about performance. These are the high-end tires, rims, and brakes you would want on a race bike, so that’s what I wanted on my custom and I built the aesthetics of the bike to look good around them.”
Scott worked on the Celtic tribal designs embossed on the leather trim with his uncle, Vic Finkel, a saddle craftsman. Mat really liked the idea of using leather to bring an organic element to the bike, softening the retro-futuristic styling. If you’re wondering what that flat rectangular thing is on top of the rear fender and you happened to guess, “laptop rack”, you’d be a damn good guesser. It’s that kind of “screw the purists, I’m doing it my way” attitude that birthed custom bike building in the first place, and has expanded the palate of American builders in recent years to include metrics, café racers, board trackers, rat bikes, and a jumbo-sized crayon box of stylistic possibilities that simply wasn’t marketable stateside back when Mat debuted his first build.
“Everything’s come full circle from where it started out just chopping up bikes and stripping them down, to where it got so expensive that nobody normal could afford them. Now everything is back to the more raw, rowdy, rat bike style, and opening up the metric and British stuff again. People forget that that’s where the roots of choppers were at. People grabbed what they could for cheap, like surplus military bikes after the war. Back in the 70’s guys took Hondas, Triumphs, BSAs, and made them into choppers. There were probably as many of those bikes around as Harleys,” said Mat. “For a while everything got so homogenized and now it’s coming back around to more rebellion, chaos, and individuality. If I can say that I had some kind of small influence somehow by being that weirdo showing up at a Pomona Easyriders Show back in 2001 and entering my Ducati custom, then that makes me feel awesome. I still remember how at the end of that show, as we were packing up the truck, I heard, ‘Will Mat Zabas please come up on stage,’ called over the speakers. It blew my mind that they actually wanted to hand me a trophy! That said something to me that I guess I had actually reached some people with what I was doing.”
Up Close: Michelin Tires
For a lot of motorcyclists, tires are nothing more than a necessity and as long as they’re holding air and have a modicum of tread left, they’re just fine. For some, like a lot of unmentionable things, size is the only important thing ― the bigger the better regardless of whether or not it screws up the handling and enjoyment. Other Harley riders only care if “Harley-Davidson” is written on the sidewalls and if the last set went round and round, why would you look at anything else? Anytime I recommend a different brand of tires other than OEM to improve handling and braking on their belovedMilwaukeeV-twin, I can’t help but notice a glazed look on the recipient’s eyes, much like looking into an Irish Setter’s eyes to see if there’s anything going on behind them.
Michelin is not a name that one would normally associate with custom bikes or factory V-twin models, but that’s about to change big time. Harley-Davidson has been breaking out of its comfort zone with OEM suppliers starting with specing Pirellis on Buells and now choosing Michelin as standard equipment on Dyna models. For those that need that H-D branding on their rubber, yes the Harley-Davidson name is on the sidewall. That’s all fine and good, but after taking a test ride on a few different H-D models fitted with Michelins, the handling and braking improvements are definitely noticeable. Like any premium rubber, you can feel the newfound ease of handling and confidence that puts you one with the road.
From wet to dry weather grip, the up-market materials used in the carcasses makes for a safer and more fun to ride bike.
Check out Michelin’s website for more info at www.michelin-us.com or visit your local Harley dealer.
Builder: Mat Zabas
Mat Zabas grew up on Long Island, New York, in a family with four kids, a disciplinarian dad, and a focus on academics, but that didn’t stop the biker bug from finding him. “We had a station wagon and one time I was sitting in the cargo area facing backwards when this bad ass on a chopper pulled up behind us for awhile. Even though I was a total little nerd at the time, I still remember how much that guy influenced me towards buying my first Harley many years later.”
Later, in junior high school, Mat discovered that his buddy had a 3-speed Honda trail bike buried in his cluttered garage. “He told me, ‘Oh, it doesn’t run.’ I was a smart kid though, so I said, ‘Well if I can get it running can I ride it?’ And he said ‘sure,’ so a couple of hours later I had that thing running, and we tore around his yard just ripping up all the grass. We literally rode it until the tires popped, and that kind of ended our day! But I was so hooked on riding a motorized two-wheeled thing, just the wind in your hair and the excitement of all that. I didn’t come from a family that was into motocross or riding. I didn’t have that influence. It was the opposite. I was NOT allowed to do this kind of stuff, so I was like a true rebel. I had a strict Dad and had to get straight A’s in school, so that was how I rebelled, on a little trail bike!”
For more info on 13choppers, visit www.13choppers.com or call 760-809-9606.