The best way to push styles and trends in new directions is to push the style-meisters and trendsetters out of their comfort zone and force them to take on new challenges. It doesn't matter if you're talking about musicians, movie-makers or middle managers, it's all too easy to fall into a comfortable routine, get lazy and keep doing the same-old familiar thing over and over again. The producers of the upcoming Metric Revolution TV custom sportbike build-off (www.metrictv.com) are well aware of this reality, so they made it a point when distributing bikes to the builders to purposefully give them ones that they weren't used to working with to push them out of their comfort zones and provide maximum challenge. That's why McCoy Motorsports, who have probably built every possible version of custom Yamaha R1, were graced with a Suzuki Hayabusa to build on, while Custom Sportbike Concepts, a shop that has done as many trick Hayabusas as anyone else in the nation, got the keys to the R1 that the McCoys so desperately wanted to receive.
When it came time for the Metric TV producers to select a bike for Carlos Navarro and his Chrome Effects team in Santa Ana, California, they had a good one up their sleeve-a 2006 Triumph Speed Triple streetfighter. The streetfighter style took hold in Europe in the early '90s with punk kids stripping down crash-damaged sportbikes to terrorize urban neighborhoods. A true streetfighter looks like something that emerged from a dumpster, often held together with lots of duct tape, safety wire and Krylon. The bikes that Navarro turns out at Chrome Effects couldn't be more different, steeped in the West Coast custom style with loads of chrome, big tires and outrageous paint. What in the world would a bling-king like Navarro do with a streetfighter-style bike? The Metric TV crew couldn't wait to see.
Navarro is neck-deep in the West Coast custom sportbike culture and has built bikes for wheelmaker Lexani and many other high-profile customers-and he wasn't turned off by the Speed Triple challenge in the least. He took one look at the bug-eyed beastie and decided then and there that he would mash up the West Coast DUB-look with the U.K. streetfighter style. For cars and bikes both, the West Coast style is built around big, bright wheels, so Navarro's first step was to create that wild rear wheel, clearly the most innovative component on this motorcycle. The Speed Triple comes stock with a single-sided swingarm, and Navarro decided to make the most of this arrangement and create a one-off wheel that would visually dominate all that open space on the right-rear of the bike. Working in tandem with custom wheel maestro Paul Deneen, the pair took a wheel center and welded it to the Triumph hub and an 18x10-inch rim that carries a 240-width Metzeler rear tire. The rim center actually extends the rim's bead on the right side, completely covering the sidewall of the tire and blending seamlessly with the profile to make the rear wheel/tire combo resemble something like a baseball cut in half when viewed from behind. Eye-catching and innovative. The front wheel, in the traditional 17-inch size, is also by Deneen with a matching gothic spoke pattern, finished with a pair of custom-engraved brake rotors (and matching levers) by CTS Moto.
The rear wheel isn't the only wild, one-off component on Navarro's ride-you've no doubt already noticed that the Speed Triple's minimalist stock bodywork has been completely replaced with a hand-laid carbon fiber body built by Dale Brewster at Head Trip Helmets in Fullerton, California. Unlike the long-and-low super streeters that Navarro usually builds, this 'fighter maintains the traditional high-bar/tall-tail look that is signature to streetfighters, thanks to the jacked-up piece that Brewster cooked up. First, the stock subframe was replaced by a reinforced fiberglass skeleton that Brewster made and then covered with a carbon-fiber tailsection originally intended for a 2004 Honda CBR600RR. The tail was grafted to a custom scooped fuel tank, formed using the stock tank as a guide and, to add a splash of color to the tank, red carbon weave was laid over select panels and realistic flames were airbrushed on by Renee Schrder of RS Customs from Riverside, California. Five layers of clear make the naked carbon really shine, and the too-trick invisible taillight (a strip of LEDs mounted behind the trailing edge of the tail that shine through the naked carbon fiber to serve as a brake light) was created by Radiantz Lighting Solutions warps the custom body up.
With its dual bug-eye headlamps, the stock Speed Triple has one of the most distinctive faces of any bike on the market, but, of course, Navarro wanted to make this one his own, so he junked the factory spots and replaced them with this radical three-bulb array that looks like something from an IKEA catalog, made from wheel hubs holding HID bulbs. Deneen built the headlight unit, as well as the matching upper triple, heel guards and grips. The unique exhaust canister is from Bruce Fabrication, with a red-anodized end cap that matches the translucent powdercoated engine cases done by G&A Powder Coating. Ample chrome plating-including the frame, front end and various other pieces-was done in-house by Chrome Effects, of course.
Building these bikes under the 180-day deadline that the Metric TV producers enforced made these builds more like sprints for all nine of the build-off participants, but Navarro takes the cake, putting this bike together literally in just seven days! Though Brewster spent some 110 hours over the course of three weeks crafting the bodywork, Navarro handled all the rest of the build-including working with Deneen to fabricate the crazy rear wheel-in just seven days, finishing the bike just hours before the opening of the build-off bike reveal this past September in Las Vegas!
Not only did he put it together with quickness, we think he nailed the concept too, staying true to the essence of a hard-core streetfighter but working plenty of the West Coast style into the mix too. Way to go to Navarro and Metric TV for not being afraid to twist it up with this Triumph.