Aaron Miller’s Honda CB350

Aaron Miller’s Honda CB350

Las Vegas, the Desert City that never sleeps, where you win big or lose big. The destination of a thousand tales of excess and debauchery. As a day tripper it’s difficult to fathom that people actually come from there, a pop up mirage in a desert of open space. But they do. Aaron Jay Miller does, born and raised, and judging by the skills and passion this guy has, it can be a melting pot of creativity and purpose as well as decadence and demise.Aaron is an artist and fabricator that builds props and sets for Theatre and Television, he currently works in the Vegas prop and fabrication shop of the legendary Cirque Du Soleil. If you have ever had the pleasure of seeing one of this troupe’s death defying, wondrous shows, you will know that precision, beauty and execution are essential in every aspect of their world. Luckily for us, Aaron has now begun to turn his craftsman hands to creating motorcycles. With the skill-set he has picked-up through his profession, it was inevitable that when he decided to create a motorcycle with the tools he had in his garage, something very special would emerge.The starting point was a 72′ Honda cb350 found on craigslist in Utah. Aaron teamed up with buddy Phil, and they took on the trip to collect the bike and it’s re-assembly together, dividing the workload to conquer the build. Aaron approached bike building from the same perspective he uses to create custom art pieces, viewing the bike as art on wheels. With the end goal of a brat style scrambler they set to work. Buy the ticket, take the ridePhil began stripping down the bike, removing superfluous parts and cleaning out the carb, whilst Aaron set to work on the tank. After repairing a dent, stripping the paint and polishing it up Aaron decided the bare metal finish on the tank was just too cool to hide with paintwork. This decision infused the rest of the build, “the idea came up to build a bunch of custom parts out of steel for the bike and just do a brushed steel look for the whole bike.” The first of these steel fabrications were new fork shroud headlight brackets to replace the old tired chrome versions. These, of course, do not simply grip the original fibreglass headlight, Aaron made a new stepped, steel headlight shell and fitted a contrasting black peak to the lamp dropping a hint of steampunk into the brat look. Next up were the trick handlebars that were fabricated to incorporate a hidden mounting system that utilise the riser bolt holes. The cockpit is completed with a crescent steel moon dashboard incorporating simple clocks and warning lights. Chunky foot pegs were then turned and wrapped with skateboard deck tape to keep boots/Vans from the desert floorThe stance of the bike was altered by dropping the forks 1.5 inches through the trees to generate a more parallel profile, emphasised by the matching sizes of the front and rear Kenda trials tires that frequently draw curious questions. Aaron further carved and cleaned the looks by lopping-off the rear framework and rebuilding it with 1 inch tubing to his desired proportions. Then life began to get in the way, (I guess Vegas can be a distracting town) “I got tied up with other projects and the bike sat for a bit, then I saw a flyer for the deus bike build off in LA and decided to finish it up and bring it to the event.” Work kicked on again in earnest.Aaron built all new battery and electrical mounts then covered them with an aluminum seat pan. Next Aaron mined his group of talented friends and hired Cirque du Soleil colleague, Antonio, from the prop and puppet department to construct the leatherwork for the seat to his own specifications. Predictably Antonio’s work and craftsmanship yielded stunning results as well. (The seat has just enough room for a showgirl on the back, but with no pegs she would have to wrap those legs around you for the blast up the strip… Sorry, I deviate….) With only a day left before the Deus build off, Aaron fabricated a steel tail light and a natty license plate holder before hitting the road to L.A. at midnight. Awesome.Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karachimotoindex/550653718338128

Redmax Harley XR1200 Tracker

Redmax Harley XR1200 Tracker.

The Harley flat tracker, as American as Twinkies, Mustangs and Mom’s apple pie. A Classic American icon. But this stunning example of the breed helms from England’s green Hampshire hills and the garages. Those images of hooked-up flat-track heroes spraying rooster tails sky high have been made metal by Steve Hillary and the Redmax crew.Having seen Steve race his classic 1977 Harley XR750 in anger in the brilliant UK Dirt Track series we can attest he is a complete authority on the species and the perfect man to create this beast. His shop stocks a vast selection of flat track and parts as well as offering the full bespoke build option, creating an array of different machines. This bike, cultivated from a cumbersome Harley 1200 Sportster for lucky customer Gordon, is a fine example of the stunning work Redmax produce.Steve takes up the story; “We’ve sold plenty of these Redmax C&J rep frames for Sportsters, but not done any builds with one, so when Gordon wanted one built and had a donor 1200 motor, we were stoked…..” So work began on the early four speed engine, which had a complete top end rebuild before it was dropped into the glorious C&J frame by way of custom engine plates. Aluminium XR tank and tail sections were fitted and various engine parts were polished and powder coated. The Anglo-American connection extended to Triumph Speed Triple yokes and forks that were shaved of their unused bracketry on the right leg. Refurbished Triumph calipers then had the lettering polished off and grip a single Speed Triple disc at the front and a Sportster disc at the back. Gordon specified a twin shock set up, so Redmax built up the box section swing arm and fitted it with adjustable Hagon shocks to maintain the old school aesthetic. Smooth Morad 18″ alloy rims were laced with heavy duty stainless spokes to Sportster hubs and shod with dirt track rubber. The sinuous high level stainless pipes were built in house, enamelled black and finished with hand-made alloy polished end caps that Glenn at Redmax made his mission to make perfect, enduring multiple headaches along the wayThe rectangular headlight was specified by Gordon, it apes the number board that would grace the race version of this bikes and has been blacked out, tying in with the pipes, Redmax inch bars, and billet yokes. Those burly tracker bars house hidden switchgear and run the wiring internally to maintain the super clean cockpit. The orange paint scheme was again the customers choice and despite eschewing the classic black Harley highlighting, sets the bike off in true Americana style. General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard springs to mind. The frame and swing arm were powder coated, and an alloy oil tank was incorporated to double the motors oil capacity. The belt drive was then ditched in favour of a chain and the bike was complete and ready for Steve to test ride“The day dawned nice and bright, letting the wet of the previous day dry away nicely. I remember warming the motor up and carefully planning a country test route whilst putting my gear on in anticipation…… the first two roads passed without incident following some eurobox out to the main road, but as soon as I hit second gear I knew something was wrong and a quick snick into third was disastrous. Obviously the gearbox was about to implode with hardly any drive in 2nd and 3rd, but a quick (hasty) flip into top proved handy as the noise disappeared and I completed my test route in top gear only, proving how well set up the motor and chassis were at least …. depressed totally I stomped back into the workshop, my only job left was to phone the customer and tell him how great it could be if only…… Anyway we all know the 4speeders are weak, and easily repaired, so that’s what we’ve done and here she is in all her glory – working as God intended a Harley Streetracker to!This is the dream Harley. Forget fully dressed Road Kings and Fat Boys, XR’s rule. Race heritage, purpose, dynamics and that Milwaukee rumble. Harley had a go at reviving a road ready XR themselves in recent time, but created a bike with so much visual and physical bulk that it lost the essence of the racer. It seems that if in fact you want the real deal, the American dream, you have to visit an Englishman in Hampshire and he will create you a masterpiece machine

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Zezen Motors ’92 CB750

Honda ’92 CB750

Zezen Motors is a small custom garage founded earlier this year by Daniel Rodriguez in a small town called Zumaia in the Basque country in northern Spain. Daniel has worked in metal all his professional life so when he decided to turn his attention to custom bike building he had plenty of useful skills to apply to his new part-time passion.Daniel decided to start with a Honda CB750, opting to go for a 1992 model rather than the usual 70s or 80s machine, with plans to build a rugged and practical tracker to suit the Basque countries hilly terrain and damp climate, “…inspired by North American trackers, but with a Japanese heart.”The newer CB750s have their age given away by the tank shape, which flows downwards at the back to meet the sidepanels, so the first thing to do was replace that with an older CB750 tank from 1975. The same bike donated the front fender, the rear is from a Sportster 883.The scrambler bars are Tomaselli while the lighting was all sourced from various internet shops, but the brackets for the lighting, speedo and rear rack were all fabricated in stainless steel by Daniel.The engine was completely rebuilt with the carbs running free-flowing, pod-style air filters, leaving just the paintwork to be sorted, which he opted to do in bold white with black hot-rod style racing stripes.As first custom builds go, this is a great start, and we look forward to seeing Daniel’s next builds as we know Zezen Motors already has a Sportster and a Honda Shadow 600 in the works. Thanks to Daniel and Iñaki for sharing with us at. See more from Zezen Motors on their Facebook page.https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karachimotoindex/550653718338128?ref=hl