Besides being a custom bike that will surely catch your eye even if you’re a hardcore metric hater, the story behind it is pretty damn interesting. It’s about two guys, Izzy and Cookie, who just happen to be special forces spending a lot of time in forward positions calling in air strikes. For a day job, it’s quite a bit more harrowing than sitting in front of a computer writing an article or probably whatever you’re doing too. So, to keep themselves sane under such unbelievably stressful conditions, whenever they get time away from the battle they talk about what they’re going to do when they get back home. Nothing too unusual about that train of thought as I’d venture 99.9% of active soldiers entertain the same thoughts.
What makes this different is that their off-duty pitter-patter involves motorcycles and custom ones at that and that’s right up our alley. Now it may not be that magic 45-degree V-twin we all know and love that they’ve chosen to customize, but I’ll easily give them a pass and simply enjoy and respect what they’ve done when they finally got back home. From the work they’ve done here, I think they’d have no trouble successfully taking on a V-twin and I got a feeling that’s where they’re headed after getting a taste of building a radical custom even if it’s based on a Yamaha R6 sport bike.
It’s probably a bit of happenstance that this bike was chosen as custom fodder as Cookie already owned it. That sure gets a lot out of the way having a donor vehicle especially on a soldier’s pay. But customize it they did without regard to making the fastest sport bike, duded-up street hooligan or whatever tickles the average sport bike rider’s fantasy. They threw out the standard metric sportbike customization and made the R6 their own rad ride that owes styling favors to no one and definitely passes the “can’t find it in a parking lot” test.
Basically they stripped off all the OEM race bodywork including the fuel tank down to the bare frame and began from there. Apparently they had it in their head to ”build a wild custom chopper and board track sport bike” although I’m not sure I see either of those concepts in this particular build. To me, it’s an imaginative rethinking of a custom sport bike without having to be tied to what makes it go fast on a track or what everybody else is doing. It might not be as practical or as race oriented as a standard model, but it does evoke the “What is that all about?” question in my head. It couldn’t be more unusual to see a metric sportbike get this kind of styling treatment that’s strictly about style. Most custom metric sport bikes try to mimic their racer heroes’ bikes more than taking a trip on the wild side just to see what the wild side could be like.
The mechanical platform itself is still pretty standard and that’s okay. There’s not a lot that needs to be done as everything is of a pretty damn good standard to begin with as long as this is your bag. What they did try and do was re-invent everything else. Where the fuel tank once sat over an air box for the four carbs is now simply a flat-top bodywork piece showcasing the velocity stacks that flows around the aluminum frame underneath culminating in a curved flat side with mesh venting. The only instrument is sight, if you can actually call it an instrument, is the always lovely Cadillac wreath crest sitting in its own mesh hood. Not really sure why, but I do like the touch even if this bike is about as far away as you could get from a Caddy of any kind.
It does appear as though they cut out a section of the fairing and made it into a couple of pods on each side that remind me of the air scoops on the water-cooled Buell 1125R. Maybe that’s not exactly what they were going after, but that’s my first impression so I’m sticking with it. It does give a good place for a bit of nose art like on a B-17 and who doesn’t like a bit of well done nose art even if it’s a bit raunchy so to speak. Personally I don’t find it the tiniest bit raunchy, but I’m sure there are those of you who might. No matter how you might feel about that and I respect your feelings, it really adds a nice touch to me and brings a military aspect to the build. Hey, they get a pass cause they’re military and if you don’t agree with that, well, you’ll just have to guess what I’m thinking.
The fuel tank now proudly resides in the one-off tail section with a spinner gas cap sitting at the top. This is not one of those fabrications where the tank is completely hidden like the bike’s running on air or something and if you somehow missed the cap, you surely didn’t miss the clear tube fuel gauge running down the left side. All of the bodywork is extremely well crafted and you’d never mistake it for something else.
They did take a very unusual approach to the seat itself which is normally some super-thin, theoretically comfortable pad that really isn’t. That’s just an easy way out to me. Nope, there’s a single solo saddle with exposed rivets around the edge mounted high and by itself like you might see on a bobber. It’s a kinda daring move, but they pulled it off. The sculpted perch will definitely hold Cookie in place, both fore and aft, when he gets in a spirited mood. The reach to the flipped-over bars is still on the sporty side compared to the stock low clip-ons, but it’s actually pretty reasonable from the lowered seat. The bars give it a neat home-built look along with a bit of hooligan aggression.
I’d like to think that when it came time to paint it there was a lot of heated discussion going on and then a much younger Mick Jagger came on the radio to solve the problem belting out Paint It Black. Maybe that’s not the least bit true since I made it up, but I like the sound of it and I like the song too. Forcefully aggressive, just like this bike. Keeping it real, though, are the light gray flames quietly licking over the bodywork and the splatter/sploch gold #1 graphic with red pinstriping and the aforementioned nose art to add a splash of color to the mix. All of this adds up to a build that’s strangely interesting with a lot of neat fabricated touches.
Hopefully Izzy and Cookie are safely home now and planning their next build together. Maybe, just maybe it will be a Harley this time. You know, it could just depend on what Izzy’s riding and I wouldn’t be surprised to find him on a Motor Company product. Anybody named Izzy’s gotta ride a Harley.