Priceless

September 3, 2017

Article And Photos By: Chris Callen

Originally Published In The December 2016 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

It didn’t seem that long ago that we had paid a visit to Kyle Shorey at his new digs in Roanoke Texas. Inside an old airplane hangar he set up his new facility and hung a sign to announce a new direction for his company, leaving Shade Tree Fabrication behind. Now doing business as Speed Foundry of Texas, Kyle has been killing it with builds for the Hot Bike Tour and Artistry In Iron just to name a few. More importantly to this story the build you are looking at right here. You see, what makes this an incredible bike is the fact that at first glance you might want to label it as a survivor restoration. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what I did. I mean Kyle builds some nice shit but this bike has old school soul man, like straight outta the seventies. It had to be a resurrection from a treasure hunt. That was not the case and in fact it gave me a whole new appreciation for the level Shorey has achieved in his craft. The story behind the build just made it all that much better and added to the name Priceless, because giving your time to those you care about in life is indeed, priceless.

The Triumph you see here started out with much less of a greater purpose than what it turned into. It was a few years back while Kyle was traveling to Columbus and his truck broke down in Nashville. He was holed up in his buddy Curtis’s house waiting for the dealership to fix his truck when he and Curtis got to talking about what was going to happen to this old Triumph he had in the corner. Kyle had already decided the bike was coming with him. It was just an old ass 70’s chopper with a raked neck and an old girder. The base was a ‘72 650 Triumph but it was a mess, it couldn’t even be ridden down the road in the condition it was in. After three days of room and board at Curtis’s place, the dealer came back with a $2200 bill that Kyle couldn’t pay, he was in a bad spot and without a second thought Curtis paid the bill and sent him on his way. Now, Kyle paid him back as soon as he got back home but the fact that he helped him out the way he did put the Triumph in a position of honor for Kyle.

He called Curtis up and told him that if he bought the parts, whatever he wanted the bike to be, Kyle would do all the work for nothing, just to thank him for his kindness. As it turned out, the only real input that Curtis had for Kyle was the headlights. The bike had some of those old Aris triangle shaped headlights and Curtis wanted to use those if possible. So, this became the story of how Kyle would design a motorcycle around a pair of old headlights. But he really stuck with the old style and gave everything an updated and correct touch. Everything on this bike is stainless and hand made by Kyle at Speed Foundry. The fuel tank itself is a work of art, two pieces with a stainless blade dividing the top and bottom halves. From front to back everything is perfectly simple. Nice lite accents in brass here and there. An almost unnoticeable oil tank that hugs the down tube, some killer exhaust work, nothing seems out of place, which looking back on the real bikes of the seventies was almost never achieved.

The whole bike came down to CMT doing a special at the Buffalo Chip and they wanted to make a build off part of their show. Rod Woodruff, the owner of the Chip, called Kyle and offered him a spot on the roster. The deal was that the builders would have eight hours to assemble their final builds in front of a live crowd at the Chip and the crowd would vote for the winner. Shorey figured this to be a good deal for the PR he’d get from it so he was in. When all the bikes were finished and he kicked the Triumph to life the crowd went crazy. They loved his bike but in the end each builder only got like 4 seconds air time on CMT, none the less, he had built a killer bike for a great friend, and Curtis was thrilled. Since the bike has been finished they’ve had it all over the place. Curtis rides the hell out of it, no really, he rides this thing so much that it blows Kyle’s mind. When he designed the gas tank he figured that the little 650 motor wouldn’t need much fuel. Of course, between the dual Amal Carbs and Curtis’s propensity to haul ass down the road on it, the Triumph could have easily used a set of fat bob tanks. But I digress, the two of them made the trip to the Giddy Up with this bike and weren’t invited to show. They mentioned what they had brought to the promoters and were welcomed in with it. Up close and in person this bike is really that good. A perfect example of a chopper born out of a situation where one man helped another, and that’s even better.