Cafe Racer TV

This simple yet effective custom bagger really shows off what the RSD product line can do for your bagger. We threw on an ultra high performance radial mount Marzocchi fork coupled with huge dual discs and the entire line of RSD parts to create a comfortable streetglide that handles every bit as good as it looks. Clean, comfortable and fun to ride. What more can you ask for?

Here's a great video SweatPants Media put together on the build. Some great footage of Travis test-driving the new Dodge Dart as well. Stay tuned for shots of the finished bike.

X games is approaching quickly and there’s nothing better than a shinny new bike to mark the occasion for two of it’s brightest stars. Travis Pastrana and his lovely wife Lynzssss Pastrana will be pulling the cover off this machine sometime in the next week. We’ll have another update soon with completed pictures and some action shots. Until then, enjoy these detail shots of the amazing paint shot by Chris Wood at Airtrix and some perfectly paired purple parts anodized by Danco. 

After a tough weekend hanging out at Nascar and WRC in Charlotte with Travis Pastrana, we figured it was appropriate time for a highlight on the bike. We put the finishing touches on the bike for Travis’s wife Lyn-Z and shot some pictures today. The Tracker is being torn as we speak to send all of the bits out to Airtrix for paint, Olympic Powdercoating, anodizing, etc. We need to get her finished up in time for Café Racer TV to film the delivery of the bike at Atlanta Motor Speedway September 1. We have had a lot of fun building this bike and can’t wait to ride it! Here are some fun details on what we have been doing…
The hand-fabricated aluminum oil bag now hangs low off the left side of the machine, behind the primary, and we mounted a Ballistic Battery in a small box in front of the rear wheel, as low as possible, to further reduce the center of gravity. We dropped a ton of weight by removing the mega-heavy stock sub frame and shocks and got our new, light-weight, chromoly sub-frame all TIG’d in. We also machined up these prototype mid-mount foot controls which moved the pegs slightly up and back, plus they narrowed the bike up by about 3 whole inches. All this was done to help increase ground clearance, increase lean angle, eliminate the master cylinder linkage and drop almost 20 extra pounds of crap. Our obvious goal was to shed as much weight and be able to get as low as possible.
The fiberglass Storz Performance tracker tail section has been modified and shortened and the seat has been further trimmed to lower ride height. Gas tank was a prototype RSD Vintage tank we procured from our pile of tanks. We sunk the tunnel in real low and it fits extra nice on this machine. We dimple died the aluminum rock guard and it will be left in the raw, along with the oil bag. Steel chain/heal guard has been fabricated and mounted along with some new, stepped 1- π” Moto-style prototype handlebars. We modified a set of stock Sportster 48 triples to accommodate the wide 17 x 3.5” RSD Judge Black Ops wheels front and rear. We have wanted to use this 130/80-17 front and 140/80-17 rear Dunlop Trailmax TR91 tire combo for a while and it just felt right with this project. A little bit of machining to the 48 top triple also allowed us to use RSD Moto Risers, Café gauge mount and LED Indicator.

To top off this build, Zipper’s Performance has stepped up huge for their Maryland neighbors and is throwing their Super Hammer 1200 Engine Kit at this thing. 10.5:1 high compression piston, big valves, CNC ported heads and their Red Shift 567 Cams are claimed to pound out a solid 95 HP and and almost 86 lb./ft of torque. All this power is held together with polished 12 point stainless steel hardware from Diamond Engineering. We’ll be sucking air in through an RSD Velocity Stack and the scavenging will be handled through a hand-made Stainless Steel 2-into-1 exhaust that we whipped up from a pile of mandrel bent tubes that we stole from V&H. Pipe is basically finished, less the end cap which we are still trying to figure out exactly how we want it. Luckily Performance Machine hooked us up with brake calipers, including a 13” front disc conversion to help stop this little beast.  

We have been working hard on this bike for the Pastranas. Subframe, swingarm and rear shock fabrication can be considered complete. Progressive Suspension built us a custom, macho, single rear shock, to handle the job that used to get done by 2 units. Modified Sportster 48 triples have also been mounted and we are now just waiting to get our forks back from RaceTech. You can see that we have started building a skidplate, countershaft sprocket guard and billet mid-mount foot controls. They should all be buttoned up before our next post.
 
We dove head first into the rear swingarm and shock concept removing the standard dual shock unit in favor of a single shock. We then positioned it in front of the rear wheel in parallel with the back bone. Not only does this give us a pleasent line from front to back it also gives us a better working suspension while reducing weight and opening up the back of the bike. We've also removed the battery box and relocated it below the swingarm lowering the center of gravity. Removing the stock subframe also gave us a huge weight savings, so were really looking to improve the performance of this machine.
Café Racer TV came to visit us today as we embark on a new Sportster project with our buddy Travis Pastrana and his beautiful and very talented pro skater wife Lyn-Z. We journeyed to the junkyard to find a worthwhile donor bike and ended up with a 2006 Sportster Custom 1200. To say she has seen better days is a bit of an understatement. A napkin for an air-filter, rocks and dirt in every nook and cranny let us know that she was a dirty girl. She had spent some time in the desert, probably upside down. Lots of bondo on the gas tank, a black satin spray paint job that had recently caught fire and an exhaust with no bolts held on by hose clamps were some other obvious signs of abuse. It’s safe to say that we have our work cut out for us. We’re thinking street tracker.
by joe@rolandsands.com BigCommerce