Competition is a good thing-without it, many great accomplishments would never be realized. Dating back to the beginning of time, humans have been competing against one another in wide-ranging endeavors, in everything from ruling a country to winning the affections of a woman. Other examples include the space race, landing on the moon, setting land-speed records, and the physical achievements of athletes who try to be the best of all time.
Back in 2005, Mike Pruss, owner of South Florida Choppers (SFC), a shop specializing in custom builds and located in West Palm Beach, FL, found himself losing at a bike show to a motorcycle complete with a friction drive. Now, don't get the wrong idea-the winning bike was an impressive specimen. The only problem, according to Mike, was the fact that the winning bike was unable to depart the show under its own power. As far as Mike was concerned, that was just plain B.S., and we tend to agree, but as unhappy as he was with the way things unfolded at the show, it was just what he needed as motivation for the next show he would enter.
Mike figured a bike with a friction drive just might be what could place him at the top of the heap at the next show, but that was just the beginning of his plan. This bike needed to be over-the-top in every respect, not just one novel engineering feat-no, that just wouldn't cut it. The bike had to have smooth, flowing lines, like none he had built before. It needed to stop the judges in their tracks as they pondered just how Mike packed all that slick engineering into such a spartan package.
With a few ideas in mind, Mike loaded up the bike and made the long trip back to the shop. The drive home had his head spinning as he brainstormed. By the time he reached the shop and dropped off the trailer, he had a laundry list of different features he thought he and the guys could incorporate into one killer motorcycle.
The next morning he rounded up his right-hand man Keith and one of his main guys, Jim, and ran some of his ideas by the two of them. They really liked the overall plan to build a custom bike, pulling out all the stops in an attempt to put this one way over the top. In addition to the friction drive, they planned on modifying a Martin Brothers Trend Kill rigid frame, transforming it into a head-turning, single-sided swingarm style (yeah, yeah, we know-it's a rigid and doesn't have a swingarm, but you get the idea). To give the chassis the strength it would need to deal with the stresses of the combined friction drive and single-sided design, the crew got busy, filling the rear of the frame with some serious plating to act as stiffening members. Other than removing the seat post and the usual relieving the frame of all unwanted brackets and tabs, the remainder of frame looked pretty much the way it did when SFC received it.
The next big project the boys tackled was the wheels. Mike had ordered up a set of wheels from the German wheel manufacturer, Speed Point. They arrived at the shop as raw castings. Before securing them in the CNC mill, a program needed to be written before any chips could fly. When all was said and done, a 21x3.25 and a huge 18x10.5 with a 10-inch offset built into it were screaming for a dunk in Melimar's chrome tank.
Mike had his eye on a frontend made by Tricky Air, and this would be the perfect bike to showcase it. For those not familiar with Tricky Air's frontends, they're very slick. They operate like a traditional Springer frontend, but with one major difference. Instead of using springs and a standard shock absorber, cushioning and dampening are controlled by a pair of air springs, similar to the way a set of air shocks controls the ride on the back of a Softail. This also allows for raising the bike off its framerails while it's parked. Mike ordered up a frontend complete with 3-degree trees, giving him the trail figure he was looking for. After mocking it up on the bike, Mike decided to rework the rocker assembly to change up the look just a bit.