The bike started life as an 81′ XS650. A farmer bought it for his hired help who then learned a valuable lesson on drinking and riding. for the next 30 years it sat in a barn under a cover. a friend of mine who hunts that land calls and says he just has seen an immaculate XS650 for $800 cash. Of course you don’t let that set around. Once to my shop, compression was checked, fresh gas was added, and BANG!! the old girl had gas in her veins and was ready to run.
The next logical step was to get rid of the tiny ass frame. The frame design came from a previous design I did for someone else, who probably still hasn’t completed the chop. I saw this as an opportunity to not only refine my design but to go to the next level and put holes through it. I have wanted to do this single rail design for a while, but was very concerned with structural integrity.
This time around I think I nailed it. The frame is composed of two single loops which start at the axle blocks and run a circuit right back to the other side. The holes are a big part of the srength, plus they look soooo cool. Single Back bone was the only choiceand drop seat a must.
Still wanting to be different I brought the back bone up to where the top of the tank would be and put the tank under it with hidden mounts, doing away with the unsightly top motor mounts. All total it took roughly 110 hours of milling, drilling, welding, grinding and smoothing to make the frame as it is now.
The tank was a BIGASS harley take off, that JOOn-r cut into a bunch of pieces and stuck back together. In the end he removed about 3 gallons of capacity from the donor and tunneled the top side to deliver the look I wanted. JOON-r is the man!!! With the tank in place we were ready to build the front end.
I wish that I could give the credit to someone else for the front end, but NO. I have been flirting with the idea of a homebuilt Jesse Rooke front end with my own twist, for quite sometime. there it is! The scratch build trees are all stainless and the bars run right through them, giving the rider desired control instead of floppy sloppy ride. The legs were the hardest to do because i don’t have any BIG shoes for my bender.
A 62″ radius is what i needed and the shoe is about $5000, so poor boys did what they do best: IMPROVISE!! I personally think the front end has a beautiful line and adds alot of class to the bike. Not to mention the superb ride and handling the bike has because of it. some credit should go to FOX racing shocks, which deliver the dampening of both the front end and the seat. The bars are stainless as well, and have Kung Fu grips.
Perfect riding position and comfort. The headlight was an old copper tea kettle which fit a sportster bulb perfect. The seat was scratch built from a junk leather couch and a bicycle seat pad, some stainless sheet metal, and VIOLA! The battery box was one of the more time consuming pieces we did. it sports a set of suicide doors, neat mounts and a tiny gel battery.
Thanks JOON-r!! the fender is an old Model A spare tire cover, with simple 3/4″ struts. I machined the foot pegs, hand shifter, and kill switch out of aliuminium. The chain tensioner was scratch built from some junk and a tractor supply 50 sprocket. The pipes are loud as hell!! Made from a Builtwell exhaust kit, they are a product of looking at old BSA and triumph choppers. I love them!! The foot controls were made by me as wellout of stainless.
The clutch is a cable foot clutch also with a custom machined alum. pedal. Aside from the parts we made, we used a Monster Craftsman kickstand, Crimescene hidden axle blocks, Of course the 23″ wheels and Avon Viper tires, and GPS for a speedo. The rest took us nearly 14 weeks to do. A shit load of man hours in those 14 weeks. But it was all worth it.
This bike would have never happened if it weren’t for the hard work put in by myself and JOON-r. JOON-r welded everything on this bike and even tried his hand at machining before it was done. Thank you to XS650chopper.com and the Horse magazine for inspiration. Thanks to all the haters who said “you can’t put all those holes in a bike!” “it will never work” GOTCHA!! Thats my story and I’m stickin to it. JOON-r is a god in my world!!
