2007 Kawasaki ZX-6R - FLIP And Fix Six

Back in the day, pulling power wheelies down the interstate on a Honda CBR900RR was all it took to be king of the streets. As the variety of freestyle riding tricks progressed and the bikes became susceptible to more crashes, the next "cool guy" look was to have hundreds of uncut zip ties fanning off the fairings like a peacock in heat. But when the stunts moved from the streets to the parking lots, the bikes began to suffer multiple low-speed drops in a single session. To save money on repairs, the front and upper fairings were removed and the bikes were wrongfully called streetfighters. For some strange reason, the more beat up the bike, the more "tough" status was earned by displaying battle wounds earned in practice. But there has always been a major problem-the bikes were as ugly as a day-shift stripper with the lights on.

Factory Kawasaki rider Kane Friesen has built a career on not only looking professional, but also on riding bikes no one would dare imitate. Friesen's motorcycles have varied as much as his hairstyles and his 2007 ZX-6R stunt bike is meant to further separate the gap between being a pro and the average Joe.

In early 2007, Friesen was given a set of matching ZX-6s from Team Green to use in the upcoming stunt season. During a practice session in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, Friesen thought he would try a flying dismount endo, otherwise known as a flipped stoppie. The crash resulted in a destroyed bike complete with a cracked frame.

With a wadded bike and the Kawasaki Dealer Convention coming to his hometown, Friesen decided to rebuild his bike into the world's best-looking stunt bike. He explained: "After I crashed the bike, my goal was to rebuild a once-destroyed crunchy piece into the nicest, most custom, most expensive performance-oriented stunt bike in the world. What a perfect time to deliver and unveil the bike with all the dealers in town and be able to show Kawasaki my idea of a really nice custom stunt bike."

To get things started, the bike was painted pink...very pink! In a single night, Buddha Paint in Garden Grove, California, laid down its most controversial paint job so far with a leopard-print pattern over a House of Kolor Pure Pink Pearl base with a Red Ice Pearl on top. When Buddha's Long Le was asked why he chose to go with such an unusual color scheme he commented, "That's the only way I could make pink look cool!"

Chrome parts on a stunt bike are nothing new, but when Friesen approached Jon Reed of Sport Chrome with the idea of fully chroming a stunter, Reed had only one answer, "Fuck it, why not?"

Rather than chroming a few odds and ends, Sport Chrome upped the ante with a full bling swing that included a chromed frame, swingarm, cage, sub-cage and all the components that go along with it.

It's not all glam without the bam, though. Underneath the lipstick outer layer lie some pretty expensive bits and pieces. Look closely at those pink hoops and you'll find a set of Marchesini wheels that are more commonly found on exotic racebikes than daily stunt rides. To ensure they didn't go unnoticed, Friesen had them painted in the same eye-popping pink as the body.

Wayne Rodgers, High Performance Director for Marchesini, had this to say about the unusual color choice: "Obviously, image is a huge part of the stunt-bike scene and I can understand that. What's nice is that professional riders are seeing the advantages of using real technical products."

Braking comes courtesy of Ferodo's full floating rotors and a Brembo master cylinder to help raise the rear wheel with little effort-and it's all been chromed of course. But why chrome? Out of all the custom bikes that've come through its doors, Sport Chrome said it's never chromed Brembo components. "Most performance-oriented parts don't get chrome. I wanted to be the first to do it," explained Friesen.