On a perfectly clear, and beautiful Friday in early September of 2012, only weeks after having ridden the bike from its former Chicago home, I skidded on some gravel in a corner and wrecked the bike. This page is dedicated to the bike's rebirth.

Over the next nearly 12 months, I painstakingly tore down the motorcycle to the bare metal, and rebuilt it anew. Each component became its own story, and great attention was paid to even the most minute details. The result is an aggressive revival:

The bike sits slightly lower in the front as the fork tubes protrude above the triple-tree where the clip-on handle bars attach. A single red and white racing stripe embellish the near black navy paint.

A single Acewell gauge serves all the instrumentation purposes. It is mounted to a triple-tree clamp I CNC machined from aluminum.

The spark plug wires are of a retro cloth covered design with exposed screw on connectors. Get your knee too close and you will know about it.

I assembled the exhaust from portions of mandrel bends, shaping it to follow the rear set. You will notice the hand knurled aluminum foot pegs just above the muffler.

The battery is held in a custom made battery box with a leather strap of the same make as the seat. I relocated the "on" switch to just under the front of the seat to further clean up the dash.

Trimmed to the essentials, this bike is little more than a motor and wheels. Two people can go wherever they want.

I maintained a lengthy forum post on the build during the customization process. The highlights include:

Fully from scratch, 4 into 1 exhaust system.
Custom machined triple-tree clamp, discussed below.
Subtly patriotic paint job by Classic Auto Body
Amazing leather seat and grips by Keith of Keith's Custom Seats.

Taking an aging and broken motorcycle and transforming it into the image I held in my mind was a truly awesome and rewarding experience. Something I hope to do again!

Custom Triple Tree Clamp for Yamaha XS1100 Special

Here are a few pictures of the build process for making a new version of a cleaned up custom triple tree clamp for the Yamaha XS1100 Special:

The idea was to clean up the existing clamp, support a single gauge dash, and allow for clip on handle bars, here is the result:

Machining Process

I think I would have done things differently were I do make another run of these parts, but I wanted to get as many out of the block of aluminum as possible.