When it comes to writing bike features, we always try to talk with owners to get the story behind the bike. We'll ask them about various parts, how the bike rides, and whether there's anything interesting about the bike or the build. Then we'll take everything they told us and try to write an entertaining story. Sometimes the stories come easy-and sometimes we'll bang our heads against the keyboards for 20 minutes just trying to think of the first sentence. Then there's that rare occasion where the owner tells the story so well that it practically writes itself. This is one of those occasions.
Russ Niedwick told us, "I have been reading HOT BIKE for the past 10 years and have always dreamed of building a one-off custom. Whenever it came down to making a decision on purchasing a bike or moving forward on a build, I could never pull the trigger. Then, one day last year, I received an unexpected call from an old friend I hadn't seen or heard from in more than three years.
"It turned out he was running his family's machine shop, machining frontends for a local shop in Huntington Beach, CA. I was excited to find out that he knew some guys in the industry, so he took me over to their digs and showed me around. It wasn't much, I must say, but one of the guys was really cool and offered to make me a frame on the spot if I was interested. And that's where it started. I sat down with one of the fabricators and told him what I was looking for. About two weeks later I had a beautiful rigid frame with an arched single downtube stretched 4 inches over stock, with another 6 inches added to the backbone and 42 degrees of rake in the neck. I didn't know what the hell to do with it or what to do next, but I had my frame and I was on my way...somewhere?
"I spent the next six months ordering all the coolest parts I had seen on the pages of HOT BIKE. I bought parts from all over the continent. They came as far away as Canada (a 6-inch-over Goldammer frontend); Viola, WI (a 124ci S&S motor); Haslett, MI (a Baker six-speed right-side-drive trans); and as close as my backyard in La Palma, CA, with PM Widowmaker wheels, Gatlin rotors, a six-piston front caliper, driveside rear caliper, and Contour hand controls. As the parts came in, I began accumulating a very expensive pile of components that I didn't really know how to assemble. The guys at the shop who built my frame kept telling me they were going to bring Wayne Kemp, a well-known builder from Kansas, to work for them and that he could help me with the mockup.
"A few long months later, Wayne walked into the shop, and we hooked up right away. We both seemed to be on the same page for the direction I wanted to go with this project. Wayne had just finished a bitchin' bike that was very similar to what I was doing, so things came together fairly easily until December 2004. We'd just finished all the fab work, and Wayne had built this killer gas tank that featured dished and contoured panels in the front. Then it gradually narrowed like an hourglass as it stretched down the backbone. Instead of running the oil tank under the seat pan the way it's done on most bikes, he hid it between the lower framerails. Then, to fill in under the seat where the oil pan would normally go, Wayne welded up one of his custom switch boxes to house a couple of switches and some of the electrical.