Custom Superduke

Anyone seen this before?

yep, there's been a couple of threads on here linking that already. Nevermind!

Thats not a good look.....

That thing looks like a BEAST! Love it!

That thing was at the international motorcycle show last year. That picture actually does it a favor, it is truly horrific looking in person. I remember just standing there and asking why?

Looks like shit...looks unfinished...and looks unfunctional..

I met the builder on a ride once. He's a fan of the SD, but I don't share his vision.

This has come up a few times and a couple of the forum members have done a great job reworking their 990s but I saw this last year and have just revisited it. It's by Spirit of the Seventies . I very nearly love it but not enough to send my bike back home to England to get it done. Question for you guys is whether any of you can recommend a custom shop here in the US who could take on a project like this?

If I had a choice to send me bike anywhere to get some custom work done. I would send it to Roland Sands.

ear bleeding deafening! but damned cool looking!
Spirit are literally on my parents doorstep. Shame I don't live there anymore.
Stopped by the Roland Sands place on my last trip to LA. They do some fantastic work.

Not a fan Roland Sand's stuff. All flash and noise. And by "noise", I don't mean the good kind. Some of his crew's work is more appealing than others.

His customs are not only ALL deafeningly loud, but not technically road legal for several reasons beyond the obvious matter of always wanting to run open (or nearly so) pipes. By rider accounts, not always the most rideable stuff.

I work on the assumption that an SD-owner (regardless the bike's form) is interested in retaining the bikes better riding qualities - as in unwilling to forgo this for aesthetics alone. If so, RSD may not be the shop for you ...

Upsides with RSD, are that his corner of the shop (http://www.performancemachine.com/ - not the "retail" place in Los Alamitos) is no stranger to KTM, and they'd probably be willing to do it. Don't be shocked if the price tag is in the six-figures.

This guy is more a Triumph and H-D customizer, his ethic is more down to earth, and very parallel to that rendering: http://www.mulemotorcycles.net Heavy emphasis on function - and in most cases improvements on function.

"...... After the Great Storm of 1987, all but one of the 1902 trees were uprooted. The six felled trees were replaced, but after vandalism and more replanting, there are now – rather confusingly – nine oaks on the site. ........."

I'm closer to SoS than Sevenoaks - send me your SDR and I'll look after it for you.

Southend on Sea? Hah, I have cousins there. Many a fond memory getting up to no good.
OK, sending the SDR over tomorrow for your care and attention

Just about to swop out my engine so I'll put the old one into yours - a more authentic spirit of the seventies..........

I asked them that. They would be willing as long as the first project gets the green light.
I would be up for the same - as long as there's some sense of a muffler

On the subject of those pipes, I cut up a header to equal length and fitted a set of emgo 1 3/4" to 1 1/2" shorties to hear what I could hear. Ear splitting , maybe closer to ear bleeding loud it was...
You would have a headache inside five minutes riding a lc8 with those pipes.

I don't think I could give up my SDR's look for that. It is nice though

Bass wtf did you do to your sig? That wall of text looks horrendous!

I gotta let all you bro's know about my boss-ass mods son.

You just fooked up our fledgling bromance bro, that shit annoys me.

Good reply, consider our bromance on probation for now.

never mind the exhaust, I'm curious about the oil tank, especially how it looks on the left side

Happy to meet/liase with SoS if it helps.

Subject to costs my bike could be available to experiment on / build as the first one. I need it as is for the crash fest though.

at least you guys got a response from them - when I asked last year my email was forwarded and that was it.
still interested though....in the tank and seat.....

A photographer I work with approached them to freshen up his old kwaka, he was quoted about £10k. Custom work doesn't come cheap.

Well 10k is way outside anything I would spend on mine. On the other hand ideas are free and I do like that look. Seat / tank is the key. I wonder......

Met with Tim, co-owner of SoS, at their workshop - several one-off specials in progress including a partially stripped down SD, for which the image on their website is the concept and, again, intended to be a one-off but which has stalled due to owner illness.

Main business is such one-offs but will consider kits if sufficient demand and if the process starts with a committed, including finance, start up project that they assemble themselves - latter needed in order to iron out any issues particularly considering our friends in the US attitude to litigation, etc...........This could be the current SD project if it restarts but the owner is looking for a unique bike, as per the image which is a lot more than just a seat and tank unit - so it could be that it become the necessary 'seed' project but not likely in the immediate short term.

They, not suprisingly, contract out most of the fabrication work and primarily design, engineer and assemble the bikes - bottom line is that those who are seriously interested need to meet with/talk to Tim directly but I'm happy to liaise for those more distant than I am from them.

Thanks for that No. 47. I'll swing by there next time I'm home. Probably late may. Sounds like the cost of a kit is likely to be close to a custom job anyway, unless several people wanted the same thing. Maybe cost effective to simply find a local custom shop to quote a similar job.

Spirit guys are on my list of people to visit to talk about converting my SD. They are not far from me and Dutch keeps on telling me to go see them as he knows them well. They will be at the next London Bike-Shed show Dutch is putting on so maybe I'll catch up there.

I was also estimating that they would want about £7-£!0,000 for the build I wanted to create.

Any economies of scale for that? Specifically I want a new headlight arrangement, new tank, stubby tail.

I would be surprised if you couldn't do much the same for a lot less money. The only bits that interest me are the headlight, seat/tank/tail, belly pan and wheels.

I built a Hurricane Kwaker once and the main cost was the seat / tank / tail unit which was fabbed in GRP and painted. Finish was excellent and although it was a long time ago the cost was less than a grand painted.

Being honest I'm far too lazy / bogged down with other crap to get involved with a self driven custom build again. If a bolt on kit of the above parts were ever made available I would be tempted but my guess is it will remain an artists impression. It's the nicest artists impression of a custom SD that I have yet seen.

Thanks for asking the questions.

This guy has adobe a sweet job on an S4R Monster. Shortened tail section and underslung exhaust are two things I'm trying to figure out on my SD. Great pain job too.



Full article here:

So, I've begun a conversation with Clay Rathburn of Atom Bomb Customs in Virginia . He recently completed an awesome job on a 900ss (below), so I've decided to hand over my SDR to him. Plan is to spend a day with him designing new tank, tail, radiator shrouds, oil cooler and exhaust and to send the suspension off to someone like Racetech to set up for the new bike and me. Build will start next month and I'll start posting pictures as it happens.

Wow, congrats on getting it underway. I will be watching this thread with interest.

Wicked can't wait to see what you two come up with.

I like his Triumph dirt bike. I'm jealous of his skills...

If I were going to do anything like this,,I would contact my main man Ron,,,he can do anything,,,he loves his Commando's but he worked on every bike there is,,but a Superduke,,,would love to see that !
http://nortoncommando.com/