There any many things in this world that you could class as overdue. Peace in the Middle East, for one. A decent Nicole Kidman film would also be nice. And Nickleback announcing that they are breaking up has been overdue for about twenty years now. But when it comes to us and bikes, there’s been a task on our list that’s been hanging around for ages – and that was to post a bike from one of our first ever sponsors. That company is Brisbane’s Rocker Classic Motorcycles, and this is us crossing that bad boy of our list.
Matt Jones, Rocker’s head quiff, ran us through the build. “The story starts with Nigel, the bike’s owner, calling us up one day and telling us that he wanted a K2 build. Twenty four hours later he turned up, complete with the donor bike and a deposit. If only all our builds were like that. We talked the job through with him and he had a decent idea of what he wanted; in particular he mentioned his love of the ‘Gulf’ color scheme. He also showed us some pictures of bikes he liked, including a few with GSX-R front ends. Naturally, we included that in the budget, too.”
“We’ve seen quite a few Gulf paint jobs around, so we put our heads together to think of a way to tick the box while also looking little different. Once we had that sorted, we rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in. First, the bike was stripped back to a bare frame and all the unnecessary tags, nuts and brackets were removed. Then we welded a nice new rear loop to the frame, and then powder-coated the whole she-bang gloss black.”
“Then the big job of the build was sorted; we sourced an ‘08 GSX-R 750 front end and got to thinking. With the help of a few trick custom bits and a beer or two, we got it to fit the CB frame and look pretty damn decent, too.”
“Next were the wheels. We ordered a set of custom spoked wheels that were hand-built in the USA. To match these, we installed new brakes all round with fresh pads, shoes and rotors to match. Everton Upholstery then hand-made the café racer seat you see here, and we made the rest including the chain guard, oil tank and front guard.”
“We added a lovely set of Gazi shocks to the rear and refreshed the standard Gixxer setup at the pointy end with the customer’s personal settings dialled in. Then to finish, we shortened a Delkevic 4 into 1 stainless steel system for the pipes, added some Tarozzi rearsets and crossed the finish line with some Posh billet indicators. Job done.”
“We’re chuffed to finally get a bike up on Pipeburn, and Nigel was stoked with the result, too. As a matter of fact, he has told us that he’s coming back for another go. This time he says he wants to start with a Trumpy. Bring it on, we say!”
[Photos from Fuel Photography]