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| Archives - Custom Motorcycles |
Custom Bike Review: Custom 2001 Yamaha Road Star - From RoadBike July 2005  Anything Is Possible By Sam Whitehead, Photos by Bob Feather and Jessica Prokup New York City. For the last few hundred years, characters from near and far have descended upon what’s arguably the world’s greatest metropolis in search of something. Like pilgrims to a sacrilegious Mecca, they flock to New York hoping to start a new life, reconnect with family, take in some culture, or simply experience the hard-edged vitality and raw majesty for which the city is famous. Some, of course, arrive with less lofty ambitions. “We said, man, the one thing we got to do when we’re in New York is go to Gray’s Papaya for hot dogs,” says Thug Life’s Carlos Rodriguez, in an accent that perfectly reflects his Cuban/south Florida roots. “We’d seen it in the movie Fools Rush In with Salma Hayek, but when we got there nobody could tell us where it was. Man, that sucked. I guess you shouldn’t ask a hot dog vendor where Gray’s Papaya is. Finally, a cop told us, so we got on our bikes and rode there. We each ate, like, five hot dogs. And everyone was freaking out over our bikes. Man, it was so cool.” As you can imagine, the gorgeous custom gracing these pages was one of the bikes causing the commotion as Carlos and his Thugs were inhaling their dogs, satisfied that they’d found their Holy Grail. The crew was no doubt also celebrating another triumph: a couple of their two-wheeled creations had just cleaned up at the Gotham Motorcycle Classic, RoadBike and American Iron Magazine’s annual classic and custom hoedown held on the decks and docks of the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum on Manhattan’s West Side. The bike you’re looking at took Best of Show, while Thug Life’s other entry snagged a first-place trophy. If ever there was a moment for the famous grilled 50-centers at Gray’s Papaya, this was definitely it.
“That’s when I bought my first cruiser,” remembers Carlos. “I immediately wanted to start changing things, but whenever I went to get parts I was always told, ‘No, that won’t work. It’s only for Harleys.’ I’d tell them to just sell me the part, and I’d make it work. Then I’d ride by the guy’s shop later and say, ‘Hey, look, this does work.’ The point is, anything is possible.” “Anything is Possible” seems to have long been Thug Life’s motto. After all, Carlos and crew have a number of firsts to their credit, including the fabrication and adaptation of several Harley-oriented aftermarket components for use on metric cruisers. In fact, a particular hub Carlos designed for metric use on Harley wheels even won the respect of none other than Arlen Ness. Ditto a set of triple trees. Not too shabby. So, when Luis Vega brought the Thugs his ’01 Road Star and asked if it were possible to transform his ride into “the most bad-ass Jap bike around,” you can imagine the response. Carlos’s only concern was cake. “I told him if he really wanted to go bad-ass, it’s not going to be cheap. It doesn’t matter if you have a Honda or a Harley, the parts still cost the same.” Without missing a beat, Luis opened his wallet and green-lighted the build. Kicking things off, Roger and Carlos stripped the Star down to its frame, then started whacking away. They were determined to make this bike like no other. Faced with the raw frame, they cut off the rear end, got a War Eagle swingarm and shaved it down, made new bushings, and so on. “Then we slipped it right in, and it was perfect,” Carlos says, with all the humility of a jacked-up rock star. The interesting part of this swingarm is that the bike is actually a rigid. “I make adjustable struts that go where the shocks would be. That way, if I build somebody a hardtail and they can’t hack it, I can always turn it back into a softtail by just adding shocks.” You see? Anything is possible. Next, they took off the original tank, stretched the frame forward 5", and raked it to 42 degrees. Then they got an Independent tank and stretched it, before molding the in-seat frame. Later came triple trees with a 6-degree rake. You don’t have to be Einstein to calculate that the bike now has a total of almost 50 degrees of rake. With that squared away, the Thugs ordered up front and rear brakes from their champion, Arlen Ness. They then went to work modifying the stoppers to fit. “We made a ton of little parts on the bike,” says Carlos, “like the spacers, the top motor mount…” The list goes on. With the machine finally together, and everything lining up just so, they took it apart and handed it to painters Joe Bruno for the base coat and Thug J.C. for the artwork. “Luis wanted something weird,” explains Carlos, “so we did one side of it with graphics and the other with almost nothing. It makes you do a double take.” At long last, the Star (if you can still call it that, and Carlos does) was ready for its close-up, and Luis couldn’t have been more thrilled. Truth told, Luis wasn’t the only one knocked out. “We unveiled it at a show in North Carolina, and people freaked,” states Carlos, again displaying that rock star humility. “No one could believe it was a Yamaha. I kept telling them it’s all Yamaha, it’s just that there’s lots of mods done to it.” Lots of mods? That’s unquestionably a wild understatement. But who cares? If this radical ride is anything to go by, the Thugs have once again lived up to their motto. By the way, if you want to catch the crew next time they’re in Manhattan, you might find them on another culinary quest, this time for the Original Ray’s Pizza joint. “We saw it in the movie Elf with Will Ferrell,” admits Carlos, “so we have to go.” For the record, I’ve lived in New York my entire life and haven’t found anyone yet who can say for sure which Ray’s is the original. But, hey, anything is possible. RB SOURCES ARLEN NESS ATLANTIC PLATING D&M CUSTOM CYCLE MIKUNI METZELER THUG LIFE CUSTOMS |
But enough about New York, hot dogs, and hard-won glory. It’s time for a little schooling on this bike and the Thug Life philosophy in general. The five Thugs — painter J.C. De L’Herbe, fabricating and design wizards Roger Suarez and Carlos R., and motor madmen David Fortich and Jeff McDonald — have, more or less, been a team since 1998. But Carlos started building bikes about 12 years ago.