It's almost unbelievable how prevalent the biker lifestyle has become in modern pop culture, and how many programs are devoted to the cult of the chopper in today's television lineup. Who could have predicted five years ago that a bunch of grubby chopper builders would become the new frontier in our celebrity culture, and that the obscure and tedious task of constructing two-wheeled contraptions from scratch would become such compelling television for the millions of bored soccer moms and NASCAR dads who tune into American Chopper or the various biker build-off programs every night? Talk about the strange whims of our postmodern nation
Depending on whom you talk to, this televised takeover is either the best or the worst thing to ever happen to the chopper world. Hardcore purists despise the mainstreaming and sanitizing of these one-time outlaw machines. And if you talk to the builders who have been "fortunate" enough to be featured on these programs, you'll receive mixed signals, too-sure, they love the success and recognition such big-time exposure brings, but the insane demands of being a TV star soon become another full-time job and a huge distraction from their true love of building bikes.
One benefit of these biker build-off shows that is indisputable, however, is an incredibly positive effect on the quality and creativity of the custom motorcycles being built today. There is something uniquely motivating about the promise of exposing your creations on the TV screen before millions of eyeballs (and probably the morbid fear of embarrassment if you build a piece of junk) that has spurred the creation of some of the most incredible and innovative custom motorcycles ever seen, even birthing entirely new genres of custom bikes, all thanks to the TV camera's unblinking eye.
Well, guess what-it looks like the next stop for this television revolution is going to be the world of custom sportbikes, and from what we've seen so far, putting a TV camera in front of the nation's best custom sportbike constructors is going to have a similar bar-raising effect. We've been writing for a while now about how chopper culture is played out and past its prime, and how the custom sportbike culture, driven by a younger, hungrier and more aggressive enthusiast group, is going to be the next big revolution in the motorcycle world. Well, it seems like television producers have finally picked up on our message: enter Metric Revolution TV (www.metrictv.com), currently criss-crossing the nation, TV cameras in tow, filming nine of the nation's top custom sportbike builders as part of the world's first sportbike-based, televised build-off competition.
Super Streetbike is the exclusive sportbike media partner with Metric Revolution TV, and as such has the rights to feature all nine bikes completed for this build-off. At press time we've seen six of the nine completed bikes, and deeper into this issue you'll find the first two: the Suzuki Hayabusa built by McCoy Motorsports ("The Wild One," on page 40), and Pit Stop Motorsports' Kawasaki ZX-10R ("The Genesis," page 48). Peep these bikes and you'll see we're not exaggerating at all when we claim these are the wildest sportbikes we've ever featured in this magazine, especially the one from McCoy Motorsports. With a handmade frame, a twin-turbo-plus-nitrous motor, one-off custom bodywork, F1-level data logging technology, and countless other hand-fabricated and one-off pieces, we don't feel dramatic at all suggesting this might be the wildest custom motorcycle ever made-sportbike, chopper or otherwise.
And these two are just the beginning-every one of the Metric TV bikes is equally as impressive, and every one features some outrageously innovative modifications we've never seen done to a sportbike before. These nine bikes (a few more of which are previewed above) are finally going to bring these shops the respect they deserve, and will put these nine sportbike builders on equal footing with the master fabricators from the V-twin world. Let us be the first to say it's about time.
As cool as the custom sportbikes we've featured to date in this magazine have been, the vast majority have been-with too few exceptions-bolt-on beauties with lots of paint and chrome, but none of the innovation or fabrication that is the chopper builder's stock-in-trade. Not so anymore, though, with the Metric Revolution build-off bikes, at least. All of these are legitimate, high-concept works of art, not just nice-looking collections of parts.
We've been waiting a long time for this day to come, and we think it's worth noting that it took the promise of a TV program to raise the custom sportbike bar. Mike McCoy admits that being a part of the Metric Revolution program was what really motivated his team to go one step beyond. "Without the promise of the show, we would have never done it-maybe no one would have ever built a sportbike as wild as this," McCoy says. It's a funny thing, that mix of pride, vanity and sheer terror that a television camera is uniquely able to elicit, that can make human beings do the most amazing things.
A metric revolution, indeed.