Champion Racer Roland Sands on Customizing Classic Bikes

A classic bike Sands customized for Mickey Rourke

September 18, 2012 10:00 AM Text Size: A . A . A

You've built bikes for celebrities such as Mickey Rourke, Shawn White, and Travis Pastrana. Who's been the most technically demanding?

Not as technically demanding but opinionated, Mickey really knew what he wanted as far as the finishes and colors and things like that?the details, the jewelry. On a technical side, he just kind of let me do what I needed to do. We know what it takes to build a bike that's going to work well, is fun to ride, and kind of sit a certain way people want, so they definitely trust us to do that.

What kind of jewelry did he want on his bike?

He had a dog that was a big part of his life for a long time, and the dog died. He wanted to commemorate the dog with the bike; his dog's name was Loki. So we ornamented the bike with details: Loki's birth and death, lettering L-O-K-I on the bike in a couple different places?we jeweled the pushrods tubs with L-O-K-I. There's also itty-bitty dogs engraved on it, like really small; you can barely see them, but they're there. And then the badges on the gas tank; he just wanted a lot of little details. He also wanted to trim everything so all the lines of the gas tank and the tail section, he really wanted us to create a trim for it. So we handmade these metal trim pieces, which were a pain but ended up looking really good in the end.

So you test drive all the bikes before you deliver them to the customer?

Oh, yeah. I just go out and first sit on the bike?make sure that the hand controls, foot control position feels really good. That's really important. When you jump on a bike you want everything to feel nice and be in a good position. You don't want the brake level pointed up in the air, the handlebars pointed in a weird direction. So it's really like sitting on the bike, making sure all of the controls feel good. Then, of course, going out and riding it: Making sure everything is tight, the throttle cables are tight, make sure everything works the way it's supposed to?turns the way it's supposed to, the brakes are bled, the chain is adjusted, making sure it's not making any weird noises. When you build a bike from the ground up there's a lot of things that can go wrong, so we try to put 60 to 70 miles on a bike at least.

Where is bike customization headed?

I think bike customization, I see it going more toward the everyman. Meaning bikes people can actually build. Now it's really all about finding a bike that really isn't cool and then making it cool, you know? Which I think is the most exciting thing about custom bike building right now. You see bikes all the time that you would find in a junkyard that people have actually put love and time and energy into and turned into something really cool?something that it was never intended to look like.

Is there a pet project you're particularly proud of?

Well, we've been doing a lot of stuff with sportsters and junk sportsters?taking crashed sportsters and resurrecting them. I really like doing that, because I like taking a bike out of the junkyard and turning it into something brand-new.

If I had a pet project right now, I would start building more old two-strokes. I'm kind of looking for an RD right now, like an RD 400. I'd like to do a Kawasaki Triple. I had a TD 250 motor that's out of a frame that I might build something out of. I just kind of like radical two-strokes because they don't really make sense anymore?they're just so out of place. It's really fun to just build something that makes everybody go, "What is that? That doesn't make any sense." People don't hear bikes that sound like two-strokes anymore, so it's cool to have that.

We did a CR 500 project. I just kind of got parts from a lot of different places, but it was a super simple bike?it was a CR 250 frame and we took a CR 500 motor. It was originally a Supermoto race bike that broke my arm pretty bad, so I took out my revenge and turned it into a cafe racer. It was fun to do that.

So your design aesthetic, which is like a cross between cruiser and sportbike?where do you draw that inspiration from?

It definitely comes from my racing background, and then growing up around custom bikes as well. It's just a product of my upbringing. I'm not one to really sacrifice function while building a custom bike. Because custom bikes seemed like they were always about big, long front ends, fat tires, and making them work [poorly]. I always was like, "Well, why do you want to make it work so badly? Why don't we just customize it and put the same level of effort and detail into something that's actually functional to ride?"

Is there a certain bike that you really love riding?that, if you could, you'd probably ride until the end of time?

Man, that's a big question. One of the most fun bikes I've built is a KTM 530, that I turned into a little road race bike. Like a cafe racer, but it was a motocross bike. It's one of the most fun bikes to ride, ever. It's really lightweight, and it has great horsepower. It's probably like a 230-pound bike and it makes maybe 55 hp, and you can just do anything you want on it. You can wheelie it, jump it, ride it down stairs?you know, just thrash it.

Enter to win a Bell Star Carbon RSD (Roland Sands Design) Limited Edition helmet.)

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/motorcycles/motorsports/champion-racer-roland-sands-on-customizing-classic-bikes-12798291?src=rss

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