All of that brouhaha is just leading up to my own declaration of the creating a new category for Richard Balicoco’s customized Nightster (get ready to set brain to dispute) I call Frisco Café. Two old, already-recognized styles, Frisco and café bikes both share a lot of similarities with good handling, agility, and rideability as a priority along with not being festooned with needless furbelows for the sake of style. Richard’s ’07 Nightster combines the trademark Frisco high-tank position with low café-style bars to set the tone of looking cool in the corners or what some of us call unadulterated fun at speed. His choice of Ferris-wheel tall 26” SMT Machining Sinister wheels, front and rear, on a somewhat stock profile Sportster doesn’t look strange in the flesh. Hey, if someone just told me they were going to put 26” wheels on a Sportster, I’d probably think they were crazy, the bike would look stupid, but after seeing Richard’s bike, I’d be all wrong. There’s that something special thing about Richard’s bike called Nightlife that makes me want to take it for a ride on twisty back roads and wring the hell out of it. Probably because it looks totally capable of doing it and wicked fun while you’re doing it.
The Nightster’s frame was left factory fresh, but Richard chose a sharp looking DNA springer matched to the black and machined finish of the SMT wheels to hang off it. With the big front wheel surrounded by super-low profile 26” Vee Rubber sitting between the slender, wheel-complimenting black and chrome springer legs, Richard’s created an aggressive mechanical airiness that’s quite attractive. Slamming the bike to the ground with a pair of miniscule Burly Brand rear shocks makes it look ready to pounce at the slightest whiff of the throttle. The for-all-intents fenderless, open-wheel look (a Schwinn Stingray’s tiny front fender is bigger I think) makes this bike appear to be stripped to the bone and ready to rock. The minimalist West Eagle seat lowers the profile even more and the white covering makes it almost disappear. It’s almost as if Richard decided to design an attractive caricature of a motorcycle using the old motor and two wheels definition of what makes a bike. The choice of the Jammer headlight and the mounting position Richard chose couldn’t have been done better to give a sense of forward motion. Really well done.
Using a Nightster as a base allowed engine mods to be kept to a minimum with basically a set of Vance & Hines Short Shots and a Joker Machine air cleaner adding personality to an already potent engine. Richard left the factory paint alone and it’s just peachy as is. The overall brooding black effect adds the I’m-too-dangerous-for-you-to-ride-me aspect that the 26” wheels bring to the table. It’s easy to imagine Richard tearing up the back roads of Hawaii and taking no prisoners while he’s at it. With a minimum of changes and all the right choices, he’s created a look that exudes a hard-edged mechanical toughness without spoiling a good road bike. Frisco Café ole!
Up close: Joker Machine Sportster Air Cleaner
Joker Machine of La Verne, California, has their own take on everything with items like their tight and tidy Joker air cleaner that Richard Balicoco chose for his ’07 Nightster Hawaiian road warrior. Although relatively tiny in size compared to the big protruding OEM oval air cleaner, it’s actually a high-flow unit compared to stock with a 4” K&N filter doing the flowing and protective duties they’re known for. Made in the USA for ’04 and up Sportsters with either carb or EFI fuel mixers, it features CNC-machined billet aluminum throughout. Another important feature that Joker Machine designed into this air cleaner is their “exclusive baffle plate crankcase breathing system held all together with high strength 12-point alloy mounting bolts.” One of the interesting and useful by-products of this tight, tucked-in design has nothing to do with performance whatsoever, it’s about comfort. Joker says it improves leg clearance over the stock air cleaner assembly and if you’ve got a permanent bruise on the inside of your right knee area from the bulbous factory unit, this could be your savior.
Joker makes this air cleaner in four distinct styles ($250-$260) that are sure to compliment your Sporty’s looks whether it’s stock or custom. Choosing between their smooth, finned, finned with the Joker Racing moniker machined on the face, or the slightly flashier, but no less classy three-spoke contrast cut style face with JM USA machine-ghosted between the “spokes.” It even gets a bit more complicated as Joker offers a choice of “hard black” anodized, clear anodized (silver), or the old standby of bling, chromed finishes.
Be sure to check out all the cool Joker stuff at www.jokermachine.com or call 909-596-9690 for more information.
Builder: Richard Balicoco
Out in the shop of Richard Balicoco Designs in lovely Ewa Beach, Hawaii, where a 2007 XL 1200N Nightster was taking on a whole new persona, it wouldn’t surprise me if Sly and the Family Stone’s 1971 hit Family Affair was loudly resonating from the speakers as this bike was being transformed from “That’s a nice bike” to “Man, that thing’s wicked cool!” Oh it’s a family affair all right, at least as far as owner Richard Balicoco is concerned. He can’t help but give credit to his two enthusiast sons, Christian 17 and Alex 9, for helping him get this striking, but tastefully modified Sportster back on the road. And when it was finally done and done, he turned to his lovely better half, Crystal, to shoot the photographs for this feature. Hey, it doesn’t get much more family affair than having family members each make their contribution to the on-going project Nightster. Not only was Richard’s family involved, but his good friends Mike, John, Del John, and last, but not least, PJ (hey guys with initials for names always take a hit) contributed “help and crazy ideas” so old Dad Balicoco could have a ride that can tear up the twisty roads along the coast to the beautiful secluded beaches of Kawela Bay or show the motorcycle-owning tourists from the mainland how they do it on the Big Island.
So how did this unusual 26-inch wheeled blacked-out Nightster I continue to claim to be the first Frisco Café style bike ever come about in the first place? “It was built on a dare. I wanted to show that a Nightster can look just as good as a custom bike,” said Richard. “It rides and handles like a sportbike.” So the lesson here is to never dare a local riding a black Nightster with 26” wheels on Oahu’s back roads and never dare Richard Balicoco he can’t do something.
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