Street

Street

Would you like to win $250 towards Rizoma parts for your bike? Submit your ride to ssbmail@sorc.com or message us on our Facebook page with your name, high-res photos, bike details and preferred contact and you could be the next Rizoma Reader’s Ride of the Month winner!

In the Port of Amsterdam where the sailors all meet, theres a sailor who eats only fish heads and tails. Thats what Bowie sang in 1973, but he wasnt referencing Amsterdam, N.Y. in that Pin Ups album tune. On the streets of Amsterdam in upstate New York today however, youre more likely to see a long balls-out custom sportbike than a hungry fish-breath sailor as thats where youll find JS Custom Cycles (JSCC).

Nasty is an adequate description of the Yamaha you see here. Taking the Best R1 amateur category in the first round of the 2012 SSB Yamaha Custom Showdown was Myren Reynolds first indication that his daily rider was more special than he had first thought. Across the country, feature-worthy bikes sit garaged away from the public eye because their owners dont realize or think to share them with the masses.

Unless you are from Europe, you’ve probably never heard of the Harris Magnum 5. Harris Performance is a UK-based company that produces race-designed frame kits. And with a Honda Fireblade engine dropped in like seen here, you get an aggressive, hand-built café racer stemming from successful MotoGP roots. Very popular overseas, the Harris Magnum approach is the dream platform for many riders seeking a new custom build.

How hard can it be to race a motorcycle in a straight line? You line up, wait for the tree (starting lights) and on green give it full throttle—right? That is what some people think about drag racing, and they couldn’t be more wrong. People forget the intricacies; the little things that can give you an edge and allow for wide-open throttle with little slip and a ton of drive. This is what Eric Banks, owner of Game Over Built, delivered when he turned his 2008 Suzuki GSX-R1000 into a quarter-mile rocket ship. Straight from the showroom floor, the bike was relieved of its stock components. Bolt-on accessories, powdercoating and tuner secrets transformed the popular bike into his own. He needed to be different. Not only did his 1000 need to be fast, it also needed to stand out.

Would you like to win $250 towards Rizoma parts for your bike? Submit your ride to ssbmail@sorc.com or message us on our Facebook page with your name, high-res photos, bike details and preferred contact and you could be the next Rizoma Reader’s Ride of the Month winner!

Wunderlich, a German producer of BMW bike parts and S1000RR specialist, knows a thing or two about adding style and stank to one of the world’s craziest motorcycles. There is no dispute to how capable BMW’s production superbike is but we argue that nothing is perfect out of the box. Personalization is the only path to a truly dialed bike. Wunderlich agrees and transformed two S1000RRs into examples of what they think the perfect literbike represents. Drenched in branded bits designed to improve street comfort and performance turned these already badass machines into two very tasty symbols of power. Both have spent some time circulating the world as company marketing tools and now it’s time to break them down.

People say a 19-inch front can’t be done on a sportbike and if it could, it wouldn’t look good. They also say creating a carbon fiber wheel in this size is simply a bad idea. Those naysayers motivated Shannon Serig, owner of Serig Designs, to come up with a new take on carbon-style show wheels. Further fueling his fire was a former friend and business partner who did not have the same aftermarket vision. The difference of opinions ended the partnership and spurred Serig’s first project build to prove that his ideas are functional, clean and people would talk about them for years to come.

Back in time, before nonsense like catalytic converters, fat-free fries and the belief that fumes from carbon-based automotive fuels cause the skies to darken and your genitalia to shrink, the easiest way to go faster was to make the engine larger. Team Green became famous for pushing the envelope of power.

Jay Wong has been upgrading cars for most of his life, but he wanted to tackle a different sort of build: one on two wheels. His style has always been one of clean lines masking major power. His recent car build, a Subaru WRX STI, had plenty of go-fast parts, but you’d never tag it for anything special in a parking lot. Wong took this less-is-more style to the bike world with only two requirements: The bike needed unique flair and had to be an extension of his personality. Wong went shopping until a fully decked-out stock 2012 Triumph 675R captured his attention.

Best Time - 8.469 @ 158 MPH

What do you think of when you hear the name James Bond? Smoothness, commanding presence, and the ability to leave any party with a boom, right? That is what David “Nasty Q” Hunter had in mind when he decided to build his 2006 GSX-R1000. He wanted to create a road weapon that would be stunning to look at without any single part of the build drawing more attention than another. After buying the bike, Nasty Q immediately took it to Judd’s Custom Creation in Hinesville, Georgia with a cache of ideas that included the use of bullets as accessories. Its sights set on turning this Gixxer into a custom ride that would be proudly brandished in parking lots across Atlanta, the shop immediately got to work.

Mixing it up with Miles Hanshaw’s 2001 GSX-R1000 will most certainly establish some boundaries for respect as this is one highly modded Oceanside, CA warrior. Tagged for being “irreverent” on the street, a passing glance over Miles’ ride explains why the name of his shop is MishMash Murdercycles. “MishMash was a nickname I was given because I take parts from all the different manufacturers and put them all into one bike,” said Miles.

To car guys, “bomba” is an old school lowrider term of endearment for a pre-50s American bomb (car), but here the word takes on its musical connotation with a ‘Busa dedicated to the sweet sound of salsa. While salsa did not originate in Puerto Rico, there certainly is no lack of love for the rhythmic beat of congas in the valley of Patillas, the small town where Rover Andino and his 2005 Hayabusa currently reside. With musical notes representing the melody and airbrushed likenesses of salsa greats Hector Lavoe, Ray Barreto, Tite Curet, Martin Santiago and Tito Puente, this Suzuki is set for a high-speed dance with the stars.

I will be taking my talents to South Beach. Have you heard that one before? In this case, we’re not talking about LeBron James but bike builder George Hatziyianis. George relocated from his native NYC to Cape Coral, Florida in 2003 and shortly after opened FAT300 Custom Cycles. Open for business, the shop’s first project was a wide body ‘Busa with a 300mm rear. Fast forward to 2006 and a new king of speed was on the block. The ZX-14 hit and FAT300 jumped at the opportunity to create another hot showpiece.

If you could do anything you wanted to your bike, what would you do? This was the question Alex Monroe asked himself after he paid off his R1, so he went to his brother Matt of Platinum Motorcycles to help him with the answer. Residing in Austin, Texas, a city covered by desert sun almost year round, the bike had to remain a daily rider yet roll out show caliber.

In a market saturated with chrome, wide tire kits and wild paint, it’s getting harder and harder for builders to come up something new that no one has seen before. Because the motorcycle world is so small and inclusive, builders like Jace Hudson are finding inspiration through outside genres.

If it weren’t for Sam Morris’ previous work featured in SSB, no one would believe that this barely legal kid could finish an all original, Italian wide-tire custom in just under a month with nothing more than a Red Bull high and his family to keep him going. Luckily, his college professors gave him a break on his homework so he could pull off this last minute project just in time for Daytona Bike Week.

Finding the fastest way down the strip is a matter of riding with the right company.

Sick bike…but what is it?” While you might immediately recognize the distinctive lines of this bike as a Triumph Daytona 675, believe it or not, the aforementioned phrase is often the first thing Chad Fowler hears when onlookers see his trick triple at shows across the country. When Fowler approached his best friend Jonathon Martin, owner of Myrtle West, with the idea of building something different, little did he know that the shop would create a bike so atypical that many aren’t even sure what they’re looking at.

Before Sidney Cooper attended his first Myrtle Beach Bike Week, he was happy with just rocking a Roaring Toyz 240 Wide Tire Kit on his 2006 Suzuki Hayabusa. But in the show circuit that’s like being content with a tricycle at a mountain bike race. Once he saw how tricked out other bikes were, he realized he had to come back next time flaunting more bling. “It was a maturing thing,” he said, “I realized I needed to redo this thing, to go full custom with it.”

Until bike builder Peter Ojanpera entered the scene, it was nearly impossible to find a low, wide and stretched custom sportbike in Scandinavia. But then Peter created the USAF Kawasaki ZX-10R custom. The Kawasaki is only his sequel build and already racking up accolades, claiming a third place finish in one of Sweden’s largest exhibitions along with a first place at the Scandinavian Custom Show.

Justin’s Semien’s 2005 Yamaha R1 is the true definition of a project bike. Literally built from the ground up, Justin managed to turn spare parts into a completely capable and virile machine. Brought to life from the skeletal remains of a motor, wheels and swingarm, this bike is a fetching showpiece.