Show or Go? 12/1/2006
Custom built bikes are getting more and more popular these days. For this discussion custom built means few bikes by a shop or small factory. Customized means built by the thousands by the big guys and altered to suit the owner after it was completed. I am not knocking anybody’s product or methods, just giving the reader some questions to ask before you lay down the green.
The first issue is warranty support. Will the guys building your new bike stand behind the whole bike for a year or two? Sometimes the component warranties on the engine and transmission are all you get. Some small builders back up what they build as good as the bikes from Milwaukee. The time to ask about warranty is before you buy not when it breaks down.
The next thing is Insurance. Some insurance companies won’t write a policy on a one off custom, call and ask. Other companies do what’s call negotiated value insurance. The higher the value you put on the policy the more it costs. These questions on insurance lead us to the next hoop to jump through.
Financing on a factory built bike is no big deal. On a custom the story changes. Banks get nervous with things that don’t have a published value, like a “Blue Book” price. Getting a loan may be a hassle and require some creative thinking. This will cost you more on the interest rate and other charges, if you can do it at all.
Where do you get parts for this beautiful custom down the road? Those one off parts that are so cool are not on the shelf anywhere. On a factory ride the worst case is the dreaded “over night red freight”. With a custom you may have to get somebody to make the part that you need, this is not fast or cheap.
As a tuner and electrical guy the next thing is wires inside the frame. This is cool on a trailer queen that will sit on a turn table at the show. A road bike will have electrical problems. Not if ,when this happens that wire inside the frame can’t be seen or worked on without pulling the whole harness out of the frame. The cost to repair one burnt wire is almost as high as rewiring the bike. As vibration, heat, and time wear the wires inside the frame the damage can’t be seen so I have no way to know how long before trouble hits. The same questions apply to cables or hoses run inside handle bars or frame tubes.
While we are on the subject of frames, using the frame as an oil tank will work if the tubes are cleaned completely before use. A few custom builders have had problems with engine damage due to frames not being clean enough to be oil tanks. Leaks in welds of frame tubes used as an oil tank are very tough to fix. The oil will contaminate the repair weld and make it hard to get the leak stopped. If ridden long enough or hard enough any bike frame will start to crack. The repair will be costly if you have oil in the tubes. What about an engine failure or high mileage overhaul? Cleaning the gunk out of that small tube is going to be hard. On a more common style oil tank, clean out isn’t as bad. Some times a new oil tank is cheaper or better than cleaning the old one completely.
The last thing on the frame list is chrome. Sure does look cool to chrome those structural parts. The bad side is hydrogen embroilment of the steel. A chrome part is never as strong or crack resistant as the unplated part. How well did they get the acid used in the plating process out of the inside of the tubes? On a bike frame you may never know. The frame and swing arm need to be strong and crack resistant to have a long life on the street or race track. A chrome part from the factory should have had engineers look at the loss of strength and sign off that it will be ok. Is your chrome frame or swing arm strong enough?
The goal of this article has been to get you thinking about the questions to ask before you build or buy a bike. Beautiful stuff can hold up well on the road. Well built road bikes or race bikes also don’t need to be ugly. The main thing is to pay attention to details and use quality in both the parts and the people building the bike. In the motorcycle business it is always cheaper to do something right than to do it over.
See you on the road,
Vaughn Doerner - vaughn@precisionvtwins.com
877.429.0399