Atomic
from Classic Steel
I am currently sitting at the counter in the showroom. My friend Luc
is sitting in front of me, unfortunately blocking my view of this great
recently completed bike. I confess that I would much prefer to be
working in my motorcycle shop than sitting around trying to write an
article, an article that will somehow succeed in giving you all an insight
into the magnitude of this project.
Hum! This bike. Finally I can just admire it! I really enjoy looking at it,
but then, doing so also makes me relive some of the pain that was
necessary for its design and implementation into this world. I really pushed hard! Man! The hours of design, testing, errors, and
headaches it caused me. Incredible! Sometimes you wake up in the morning with a new idea in mind and scrap the previous.
That’s not necessarily always a good thing. When machined parts don’t completely fit, don’t look as good as first thought or don’t
function correctly, you start over from scratch. That’s the deal when building a show bike!
Blade
Rat Shop Custom Bikes
Blade! Feared by his own species and
despised by the human race he pledged
to protect, so is this being’s destiny,
spawn of a child of darkness and a
human female. Belonging neither to light
nor to darkness, hated on one part and
hunted on the other he must use his
skills and instincts to survive in this world
that damned him at birth. His life being
what it is, he uses his powers spawned
from darkness to hunt and kill vampires.
Why wouldn’t this tortured soul use a
motorcycle as a weapon to wage his war
against vampires? Or so thought Fred
Vaillancourt from the Rat Shop, dedicated
comic books fan. After having given birth
to The Punisher and then The Spawn,
Fred comes back with The Blade.
It’s when a new client, Mr. Jean Poitras,
came to the Rat Shop that the project
took roots. Mr. Poitras had bought a
rolling chassis with a TP 121 diamond
cut engine and a 6-speed right side drive
transmission and wanted Fred to put it
together. After going over the project that
was bound to be pretty straight forward,
things kind of got out of hand. Why not a
Show Bike?
Patience
Kreater Custom Motorcycle
As I sit here at the bar having a few coronas
with George and thinking about the birth
of “Patience”, we both realized that the
unique thing about her is that she is a cross
breed between a sport bike and a traditional
bobber. I don’t know if that makes her a
“spobber” or a “bobbert”? Nevertheless,
she has proven her ability to perform as
her maiden voyage carried us through the
beautiful mountains of the Okanogan’s all
the way to Spokane Washington. Her first
public appearance was at the Spokane Bike Show. The local state troopers escorted her
onto the show grounds because for some
reason George just couldn’t keep her speed
under control.
Patience started out as a skeleton that was
acquired through Kreater West, by Jeff
Vander Zalm and then shipped to Toronto
for completion. It was comprised of a frame
and some Buell parts including a motor,
wheels, front end and brakes. At first this
project seemed to be a no brainer, but once ...
Jazz
After owning Cycle Boyz with my brother for almost
seven years now, and building bikes for customers
from one end of the spectrum to the other, I decided
it was time to build something for myself. I wanted
to build something I could keep, something with
absolutely no influence from the outside. Something
that would not to be swayed by saleability,
customer influence or time constraints. Only one
limiting factor: money, and that’s what it’s all about
anyway, isn’t it? Build what you can afford, keep it
as cheap as possible and enjoy it.
Ninety percent of our builds are complete ground up customs. I knew that
wasn’t what I wanted because new parts just don’t have any soul, not to me
anyway. As luck would have it, a piece of my past came home when a buddy
was overwhelmed by the need for speed and decided to buy my current
custom bike, as long as I would take my old 1981 Harley FXE on trade. Hell
yes! I bought this bike when I was 19 or 20 years old, back in 1996. It was a
good solid stock FX Shovelhead, and you could say it’s the one that is 90%
responsible for my current motorcycle addiction. This is the bike that taught me
the crude fundamentals of building and customization. From stretching fat bob...
