Modern Muscle, Vintage Soul
MODERN MUSCLE, VINTAGE SOUL
"SUPER EVOLUTION RESTORATION," OR MOTOGP TECHNOLOGY MEETS '80S SUPERBIKE AT ENGLAND'S RACEFIT
Gary Inman
RACEFIT
THERE IS A GENERATION of American motorcyclists growing up that thinks a "rad" Japanese custom bike is a Honda CB350 with its fenders taken off and the paint stripped from its gas tank. They are working within their resources and limited budgets, a good thing. Still, it's time for a lesson.
"Where did you get that steering damper?" asks Guy Martin. The world famous Isle of Man TT racer's tone is that of a recently divorced state trooper addressing a teenager behind the wheel of a Bentley.
Martin is inspecting Racefit's latest Kawasaki project bike, the orange-and-black monster pictured at right. He knows the Öhlins steering damper has a magnesium body, an ultra-short stroke and is not available to the general public no matter how nicely they ask or what color their credit card is.
Racefit's founders have been building high-performance specials a long time. They have the connections. They also have the patience to buy a rare part when it comes up at the right price and sit on it, foryears if required, until a suitable project appears. Jon Keeling, the sales half of Racefit, explains that the Swedish steering damper on this Kawasaki was bought from the fire sale of a defunct British-based MotoCP team some years ago.
Racefit (www.racefitulc.com) is a British exhaust company with a global cult following. They build bikes, like the one Martin is poring over, for fun and to help raise the profile of their operation.
The company's co-founders, Keeling and Phil Atkinson, and regular collaborator Mark Toon of component manufacturer RCD, are standing in Martin's chilly, northern England workplace, where the racer fixes 18-wheelers six days a week. They've all been aware of each other for roughly the same amount of time. Martin is a fan of the craftsmanship and attitude of Racefit and the exhaust makers feel the same way about the rogue racer. They're here to drop off the monster Zed for Martin to borrow for a few days. The bike in question is Racefit's latest flagship. The Kawasaki is the most recent addition to a line of hulking monsters with fine suspension, incredible brakes and detailing that makes 95 percent of other specials look tatty. Racefit will build to order but not on the cheap. These bikes are too intimidating to be favored by the new café racer crowd and too expensive for much of the rest of the public. They exist at the margins of motorcycling, old-school enforcers willing to take on anything. A vicious niche for riders with neck muscles like an elk's.
Forming the core of the latest build is an all-aluminum Spondon big-tube chassis that has been modified to Racefit's specification. The top shock mounts for the pair of WP Fusion shockshave been moved to lay the RSU's down farther, like on a 1980s' AMA racebike.
Racefit enjoys building bikes, but its bread and butter is manufacturing titanium exhaust systems and Ti and carbon silencers for bikes of all creeds. This bike's system, called the Legend, is a 21st-century version of the British Harris Works pipe Keeling and Atkinson grew up with. The featherweight system sets the tone for the rest of the bike. It's a lavish stew of the highest of high-quality modern components and early-8os' style. Keeling refers to it as a process of "super-evolution restoration." The complete system, including collets and spring hooks, is titanium. It weighs 6 pounds, is made to order and costs over $2000.
The engine this wondrous pipe is bolted to is from a donor 1975 ZiB, purchased in the U.S. by Toon years ago. It's been treated to a Wiseco 1015CC kit, Kent cams, stainless valves, adjustable cam sprockets, gas flow, Tsubaki cam chain, Barnett heavy-duty clutch, Mikuni TMR 32mm carbs...
More recently, RCD made the clever clutch actuator. It looks like something RSC (the forerunner of HRC) might have created in 1983, and that's exactly the feeling Racefit and RCD wanted to evoke. RCD also made the quarter-turn twin filler; the elaborate headlight/ oil cooler/steering damper mounting assembly; the yokes, with a 12mm drop, that look like a 21st-century version of a TZ cast tripleclamp; and, perhaps Keeling's favorite, a ridiculously over-engineered seat latch (RCD will make you one for $450).
"Yeah, I'll ride it but only in trainers," says Martin. "I'm not wearing leathers. It's a trainers-and-jeans kind of bike." The Yamaha R6 battery, mounted under the Z1000 Mk II tail, turns the highercompression pistons over for a second before the engine ignites and gas starts flowing through the beautifully welded, purpleand copper-colored headers.
The bike, like its test rider, has "a suggestion of legality" about it. Martin inspects the one-off, flat clip-ons and notices the MotoGPspec front brake master cylinder and the shrinkwrap covering the ends of the neat lockwiring. He's impressed.
At idle, the bike isn't raucous. At 7000 rpm, it emits the sound of British summer evenings, a fifth-gear-sweeper howl. It's the noise of black visors covered in a hundred dead aphids, of local workingclass heroes.
NOTHING BUT THE FINEST
Atkinson, Racefit's technical director, had worked for a number of long-established players in the U.K. motorcycle landscape, including the R&D department of Micron, before he and Keeling started the company in 2004, initially working out of a suburban garage. Both partners had been building high-performance specials since their teens. They remain a close-knit and small company. Atkinson and his brother, Mo, do all Racefit's welding (and TIG like gods).
Racefit decided, from the outset, to only make exhausts from the highest quality materials: high-grade titanium and carbon fiber. Everything would be made in-house, in the U.K., and they'd compromise their vision for no one. That meant they'd make very light, but very loud, exhausts whether people liked it or not.
"We're passionate, enthusiastic, obsessive, successful and British," explains Keeling. "When we started the company, we purposely made the logo look a bit Japanese because the companies we looked up to were from there, but we're proud to be British."
When the bike is dropped off, the weather in Lincolnshire is seasonally predictable: It's pouring down. So Martin postpones his first ride for a day or two then delivers his verdict: "I think it's bloody great. It's a bit lively. I don't know what it's geared for, but I bet I was doing 120-130 on the way to work at quarter-to-six this morning. The headlight's good." It's a KC Daylighter, favored by Baja racers.
WHAT IS TITANIUM?
Named after the Titans of Creek mythology, Titanium was discovered in England by William Gregor in 1791. Highly corrosion resistant, Ti has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal. It is much lighterthan steel. And although it's heavier than 6061-T6 aluminium alloy, Titanium is 60 percent stronger.
"It's got that magnesium-bodied, GP-spec steering damper on it, and it needs it," he continues. "It's shaking its head. I think, at that speed, the weight's coming off the front and that's what's causing the problem. They said the geometry is the same as the original Z1000, but the 16-inch front Dymag will steepen it up.
"You can't ask it for wide throttle opening at lower revs and low speeds. It coughs and splutters, but that's just flatslide carbs. You've got to drop it down to second, get the thing revving. But it is dead usable. If it was your own bike, you'd just get used to it. I rode to work and back on it [last December], then me and my mate, Benny, had to spend all night cleaning it with toothbrushes and Jizer [degreaser]."
The sprucing-up session gave Martin the opportunity to inspect the details.
"The exhaust is the bollocks. I wanted one for my Martek [the turbo GSX-R1100 road bike he's building] before I rode this bike; now, I want one even more. I love the stopper for the back brake lever; the fuel filler has such a precision feel; the clutch actuator... If you have to put up with a heavy clutch to have an operating mechanism like that, then I don't mind. They haven't got it wrong, but if the fulcrum was a bit farther away then the clutch would be lighter.
It's a man's clutch for a man's bike."
Martin spends time talking to both Atkinson about welding and Toon about machining.
"The work on this bike has inspired me to buy a CNC mill,"
admits Martin. "Racefit haven't just fitted off-the-shelf rearsets,
they've made them for the bike. You can't say, 'That bit's come from here' or 'That bit's come from there.' They look like something Pedrosa would be supplied. It hasn't got any lame anodizing, just a proper racebike look. I'm well impressed."
As he makes another round of hot tea for the visitors, Martin
sums up his appreciation of the British specialist. "I like Racefit because they're not trying to be Akrapovic or Yoshimura. They're ploughing their own furrow. They might not be the biggest name, but those who know, know. They've got their own ideas of what things should look like and that's what they build. They're doing their own thing."
