Chappell Customs Yamaha Star Bolt Bobber

Chappell Customs Bolt Bobber

We've been posting here about Yamaha's rollout strategy for the new Bolt V-twin: They gave ten prominent custom bike shops a Bolt to see what the builders would make of it. This is the second in a series of posts about each bike that began with the Roland Sands Design street tracker. Today's post is about the Chappell Customs bike.

The Chappell Customs Star Bolt build, a bobber, is complete now. The monoshock rear end they've designed will be available as a kit. It will require some frame cuts, but is a bolt-on affair, so no welding is required. The shock was specifically designed for the Chappell Bolt by renowned SoCal motorcycle aftermarket suspension shop, Works Performance. The kit will also include the custom seat and subframe you see here. The chin spoiler will also be for sale soon.

Custom Monoshock Rear End

Check out the Chappell Customs blog for a series of posts about the build, including some videos of the shop action.

H/T to BikeEXIF blog.

Ten Bolt Customs at Star Motorcycles Facebook Page

Bolt Custom by Jesse Rooke of Rooke Customs

In an earlier post about the Roland Sands Bolt street tracker, we noted that as part of its rollout strategy for the new Star Bolt V-twin, Yamaha shipped new Bolts to a number of prominent custom bike shops to see what the builders would do with it. It was a total of ten shops, in fact. As part of our followup on that subject, here's a link where you can see all ten of the Bolt customs at Star's Facebook page.

Portland 2013 Mini Maker Faire Sept. 14-15

The Portland, OR Mini Maker Faire returns Sept. 14-15. It will be held in the North parking lot of the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry (OMSI) again this year, you can find a map and directions here.

One-day and two-day tickets are available for purchase online now, or at the gate. Admission prices are:

One-day: Adults $12, Youth (3-17) $8, Seniors (65+) $8.
Two-day: Adults $20, Youth $14, Seniors $14

OMSI members receive $3 off.

There will be ten food carts onsite this year. There will also be a beer and wine bar.

We attended last year. There was a good crowd of all ages and a lot of booths, and plenty of hands-on activities for people of all ages. There should be a great turnout again this year.

Retro Moto Blog

Bultaco 250 TSS Vintage Roadracer 

We like the Retro Moto Blog for its excellent photos of vintage and classic motorcycles: Roadracers (like the Bultaco 250 TSS here), street bikes, dirt bikes, motorcrossers, and more. You'll also find coverage of vintage motorcycle shows and racing events. Check it out.

Photo credit: Retro Moto Blog, Bultaco 250 TSS 

BIKEEXIF Custom Motorcycle Blog

If you love custom bikes of any kind --- cafe racers, bobbers, bratstyle, street trackers, choppers, classic, vintage --- or all of the above, you'll want to visit BikeEXIF.com on a regular basis. You'll find quality pictures and editorial content.

BikeEXIF is the creation of Chris Hunter of New Zealand. Chris was formerly the creative director for an advertising agency, so he knows how to design a quality website. In the video embedded below he discusses his vision for the site. Below that we have a link to his new book at Amazon, The Ride: New Custom Motorcycles and their Builders, which was published just this past week.

Seaweed & Gravel Blog and Vintage Bikes

1972 HD Sprint for Sale at Seaweed & Gravel

Seaweed & Gravel is a SoCal based company with an eclectic line of interesting products: vintage and custom bikes, vintage apparel and jewelry, surfboards, boots, bonsai trees, and other things. Check out their cool blog and current and past inventory of vintage and custom bikes.

Silodrome Gasoline Culture, a Cool Motorsports Blog

Check out Silodrome.com for all sorts of motorsports goodness.... motorcycles, cars, boats, art, clothing, films, gear... there's a special category for cafe racers, too.

The Bolt: A Sportster Killer from Yamaha?

Yamaha Star Bolt

Earlier today we did a post about the Roland Sands street tracker based on the new Yamaha Bolt. The 58ci  air-cooled V-twin is targeted right at the Harley-Davidson Sportster. So, we thought we'd followup here with a link to Cycle World magazine's Bolt vs. Sportster comparison test, which was published online just yesterday.

Back in March Cycle World published a "first look" at the Bolt and the Bolt R-Spec models here.

Roland Sands Yamaha Bolt Street Tracker

RSD Yamaha Bolt Street Tracker

The new Yamaha Bolt is a 58ci aircooled V-twin with bobber styling aimed right at the Harley-Davidson Sportster (see this recent Cycle World comparison test). As part of its rollout strategy, Yamaha shipped Bolts to a number of America's top custom bike shops to see what builders would do with it.

Among those prominent builders is pro roadracer turned custom bike designer and builder Roland Sands of Roland Sands Design (RSD) in Southern California. The street tracker you see here is his answer to Yamaha. Sands saw the Bolt as an natural conversion to the street tracker he'd been wanting to build for a while. He says that off the showroom floor the Bolt is lighter and better-handling than the Sportster.

Sands made surprisingly few changes from stock. There are the 19" Sun gold-anodized Sun wheels laced-up by Buchanan's Spoke & Rims of Azusa, CA and shod with Dunlop flattrack tires. A fiberglass seat assembly was designed and fabricated at RSD, as was a custom stainless steel exhaust system with carbon fiber tip. The stock handlebars and risers were replaced with RSD Step Moto bars and Nostalgia risers, finished in what RSD calls its "Black Ops" finish. The stock headlight was replaced with a Piaa projector-style headlight mounted on the left side of the engine.

This radical transformation of the Bolt's looks was accomplished with no welding or cutting. The only metal that was touched was some minor cleanup of the tank seams before painting.

Check out a couple of our previous posts featuring RSD, this one about the RSD Technics Sportster and this one about the RSD YouTube channel.

H/T to BikeEXIF, jump over and see their post about the RSD Bolt.

Analog Motorcycles CB550 with Sidecar, the "Family Truckster"

The "Family Truckster" is a very stylish 1978 Honda CB550 with sidecar rig from Analog Motorcycles. It belongs to Tony Prust, owner and founder of Analog. He calls it the Family Truckster because he's racked up a lot of road miles on it hauling his wife and daughter around... wife on the back, daughter in the sidecar.

Last year we featured another bike built by Prust, a well-executed 1978 Honda CB750 cafe racer called the Analog 01.