Okay computer
More and more customisers are turning to computers for design and fabrication. Which is clearly a good thing…
Sean Pelletier’s dad had an old Suzuki GT380 cluttering up his garage so he gave the non-running two-stroke to his son. Six months later, the old GT has transformed into one of the most striking builds of 2020, with a new custom-made frame, suspension, tank, wheels, exhaust and fairing.
‘The design was an experiment,’ Sean tells Bike. ‘As I build more bikes I’m trying to learn how technology can work with the craft of motorcycle building. Ultimately my goal is to design a bike completely on a computer before starting to cut things up – this was a test case. ‘The actual design is a weakness for me, so I sent my friend Jeremy sketches and ideas and he did the industrial design and came up with several concepts,’ says Sean, who runs the Motoworks custom shop in New York, USA.
With the entire bike designed on the computer, Sean could check to see if components would fit perfectly and not interfere with each other when, for example, the forks dived. ‘Because we designed it all in CAD, no time was wasted reworking things once they were built. Doing the overall design and getting the geometry right wasn’t too difficult, but once you get into the detail, that’s harder. For example, how do you build a bearing for a rear suspension linkage and the structure around it so that it actually works and doesn’t get full of dirt? It’s the nitty gritty stuff that takes the time. When you’re building bikes, I feel like 90 percent takes 10 percent of the time, and that last 10 percent takes 90 percent of the time. But if you want someone to ride and enjoy the bike, that’s the stuff that counts.
‘The whole process from first design to painted bike was about six months. For the amount of customisation that took place that’s not bad, and I think I can get quicker because I made a few mistakes along the way.
‘It’s fun to ride and when you get into the powerband it really takes off. It also handles well and it’s agile. I haven’t weighed it yet, but it feels like a 300lb (140kg) bike.’