French Budget Racer

February 28, 2016

0Points

Article By: Jack Shit

Photos By: Bart Mitchell

Originally Published In The April 2013 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

Somewhere near Brest, a small group of French friends built a drag race bike based on a Harley Evo Sportster even though they had little money to spend. Why? They wanted to race with a Harley on the drag strip just for the hell of it! The team responsible for building this neat little drag race bike exists of: Yvon, a former owner of the custom shop, On the Road; Marco, painter by profession; and Franky and Jean, both hobby bike builders and diehard chopper freaks. These guys all own cool choppers and like working on their bikes together. One day however, after a few red wines, they decided to build a racer. They needed a new, simple project to help them get through the cold winter months in their part of the country, and they wanted to do a couple of races in the summer with it just for fun. Franky, who is part of a family where almost all the brothers and even the sons and wives are riding hand built choppers, bought a wrecked Sportster and immediately started working on it.

The rest of the team helped him when they were not wrenching on their own scoots. Because of the fact that only old parts were being used, the men decided that instead of cleaning it up, they would give it a ratty appearance, as if the bike was found under a pile of junk. Not so very difficult to achieve since most parts already looked like rubbish anyway. For instance, the frontend is a special vintage telescope that Franky had lying around in his garage. It looks pretty shabby with those old worn rubbers and all, but it still worked perfectly. The forks already had the ancient clip-on bars mounted. The rusty front wheel even h a d t w o drum brakes! Have you ever seen that before? The hardtail frame the men chose to use is probably an old Paughco. Since money was really tight, more speed had to be gained by making the bike as light as possible. Dumping the stock frame for a Paughco hardtail was a good start. The gas tank was chopped for the same reason and that is also why Franky and his friends kept the rear fender as short as possible. Foot controls are lightweight aluminium ones, just like the oilbag . The only thing done to the Sporty motor was the fitting of a bigger carb. In this case it was a big ol´ SU carb somebody found on his shelf and then they went with Buell cams. That was basically it; less is more!

With the bike on its wheels, it was time for some paint. Team member Marco volunteered for that job. Normally the man does flake and candy work but this time it would be different. The paint had to compliment the rest of the bike so it had to look old. I think Marco succeeded well. The paint looks as if somebody laid it on some forty years ago. I also like the lettering; the words ‘Rocket Toys’ and ‘100 Percent Out of Control’ are appropriate and sound really good considering a French dude has made them up. The shabby look of the bike was completed by choosing an empty Coca Cola can as a breather, as well as using some worn and torn exhaust wrap on the pipes.

“We started this project only for fun,” said Franky, speaking French while Yvon translated. “We wanted to show everybody that it does not have to cost a fortune to get maximum joy out of a bike. In our point of view, there are too many bikes these days that are not being used for plain old pleasure and that is a crying shame. People treat their bikes as if they are made of paper. Trash those damn things! That’s what we say! It is not only the racing we like, the building process was damn cool too. I especially liked the fact that everything had to be as cheap and as easy to do as possible.” The Frenchmen are now racing at official events in a special class in France. There are not many competitors yet. Franky and the boys hope to inspire others with their little project. Franky told me, “We would like to see more people on the strip with a cheap thrills’ bike like ours. We like to race, but winning is not even our priority. You Americans with all your drag racing experience might just laugh at our little 883, but I can tell ya, it is a blast to race! Of course it ain’t the fastest bike on the track, but we don’t take the whole deal too seriously; it’s like we said, it’s all about the fun!”