How much custom do we need? According to the official motorcycle guide, The Biker Codebook: Rules, Style and Ethics, which have I kept tucked neatly somewhere in my head, "Stock is merely a blank canvas for which to splatter chrome, paint and parts to one's personal satisfaction, or until you run completely out of money." The book doesn't mention, however, how much aggravation you should put up with before considering homicide. Let me explain. That would take too long, let me sum up:In our last episode, I related a harrowing tale of bike building woe and madness. I handed over a 2006 Honda Shadow Aero VT750 to a cabal of crazed customizers with the artistic intent of showing exactly what could be done with an inexpensive, mid-size metric. This was launched as a relatively mild project that would demonstrate one, what kind of fun you could have retooling a Honda; and two, create something that would be the envy of any custom shop.
We only had three months to get the bike through disassembly, fabrication, paint, reassembly (using Honda and bunch of aftermarket parts), and the usual tuning and tweaking. The brain trust of Seth Boldman (painter), Jason Wilson (fabricator), Pascal Cooper (seat maker), and a builder who wished to remain anonymous, collectively concluded this would be plenty of time to remodel the VT750.
The only player to meet or beat the deadline was Cooper, whose extraordinary, hand-tooled leatherwork stood out as among the best I've ever seen. He did the seat, side panels and retooled the Honda leather tool bag and heated handgrips. Wilson's tank, fender and rear strut fabrication was spot on, but well behind schedule. If Boldman blew out the paint job, we still had a slim shot at making the deadline and displaying the bike at the then upcoming Honda Hoot, held every June in sunny Knoxville, TN.
But dark clouds fell upon the project; nasty, stormy, deadly clouds. It all seemed like a bright idea at the time: strip her down, paint her up, add a bunch of cool and shiny bolt-ons from Cobra, Kuryakyn, Dakota Digital, Honda, Arlen Ness, and Thunder Manufacturing and presto chango, we would have one cool retro ride. What could go wrong?Everything. Wilson and Boldman, once buddies, were now hotly blaming each other for project delays. Both rolled out reasonable excuses, and some that weren't. The builder was losing interest, the Honda connections remained patient and I was feeling a slow groundswell of murderous thoughts that grew heavy in my head. Paint took a full year.
Meanwhile, most of the bike and crates of parts were shipped to the builder from Southern California to Northern California. He eventually tired of waiting for the sheet metal and dropped out. A second builder picked up the project, finally got the tank and fender after some death threats to the paint shop, but then got bogged down while waiting for some minor parts and eventually lost interest and dropped out. The deadline was dead, and the Honda was stuck in project bike hell.
For all intents and purposes, the Aero was now in unofficial storage, wires hanging limply about, metal rusting, the shell of a good idea gone bad. A dire sense of shame sank in. Apologies were sent to Honda and the good suppliers whom I had nothing to show for their generosity. The search was on for a third builder but I was deservedly pretty much out of Honda's good graces. I would have to find a shop, somehow get the bike there and finish the bike, as promised.
Then I remembered ace wrench, Mark Shoultz, the owner of Vicious Motorcycles in Flagstaff, AZ. Shoultz is not nationally known; in fact, he tends to fly under the radar and I think he prefers it that way. He does repair and maintenance work on just about every year, make and model of two-wheeled conveyance, but like any builder worth his Snap-Ons, he loves a mechanical challenge.