Speedway-Inspired Orange Sporty & Roxanna
“I come from a racing background so I wanted it to look like a speedway kind of style bike, with the tank underneath the frame, bigger front wheel,” said Smally.
I USED to race dirt bikes when I was younger; my dad was always into Harleys and building bikes so I guess I’ve been into the bike scene all my life. When I was about 18, we decided to make my first chopper. It was a black Softail with a 250 rear-end; a full custom built right from the ground up. It was built in the shed at home but Dad did most of the work. I sold that on and bought myself a Night Rod Special, which I still have today, but we’ve also built a few bikes for mates since then.
I got to the point where I wanted to build myself another custom bike and it was decided that it had to be something a bit different, something that no-one else had seen, and as we had a Sporty motor lying around at home, it would be a Sportster.
I come from a racing background so I wanted it to look like a speedway kind of style bike, with the tank underneath the frame, bigger front wheel — which is 23-inch — and Pro Taper motocross handlebars that are upside down.
We started with the frame but it wasn’t the frame we wanted, so we chopped and changed it using bits and pieces of it to build our own frame. It’s a rigid with a 40-degree rake, five-inch stretch, 200-inch rear-end; and a 1200 cc, 1990 model Sportster motor. We had to change it to suit the whole offset because the Sporty isn’t meant to have a 200 rear-end and we made all the engine mounts to suit the frame; it was a massive engineering job.
We wanted a drop-seat because we wanted to sit real low to the ground. The seat is from America. I normally get my seats made locally but I just happened to stumble across this seat online and thought it suited the character of the bike. It’s alligator skin and it’s got valve springs underneath which is the only suspension it’s got.
The wheels are Mammoth fat spoke wheels; 18-inch and 23-inch. It’s pretty heavy with the stainless steel spokes, probably not something I’d have as an everyday ride.
The front-end is a DNA springer, two-inch-under.
The paint is called Racing Orange; it’s a Genuine Harley-Davidson colour but it needed to be sprayed with a silver base coat to get the depth in the colour. We normally spray the bikes ourselves but I gave this one to someone else because we were too busy getting ready for a show at the time.
The front brake is a PM four-spot caliper; the rear is a Wilwood four-spot caliper; both front and rear discs are Wilwood.
The exhaust is home-made. The whole system is stainless steel. We taped up the end tip, polished it, and then got the rest powder-coated. That is heat-proof powder-coat and it’s only just come out. I read about it on the internet and jumped on board straight away. I’ve ridden it a few times and haven’t had any dramas; it held the heat real well. There is a fair bit of preparation with powder-coating: you sand blast it, dump it in a solvent to clean and prepare the metal, hang it up, hook up a negative charge to the metal — so when you spray the powder, it draws itself to the metal surface — you put it in the oven and bake it.
The carby is pretty interesting. It’s a PSI Big-Air carby that’s been C&C machined out of aluminium. It’s from the States. They’re a bit fiddly to get tuned but once you get them going, they’re great, that’s for sure.
We got a fair bit of mods done to the top-end of the engine: had the squish-band altered, barrels shortened for high compression, port and polished the heads, put Crane adjustable push-rods on it, Andrew’s V6 cams, ran a big carby and a Crane High Four ignition.
The bloke who did all the machine work to the engine is Cow from LA Cycles. I’d like to thank him as well as my mate Pete Sneil who did all the powder-coating on the exhaust and frame. The rest of the powder-coating, paint, engine parts, all the foot pedals and the battery box were done by my dad. I couldn’t have done this without him; he put a lot of effort and time into it; a big thanks to him.
I have this bug to build things. I got it from my dad. He’s the kind of person who won’t sit still for two seconds, and the second you finish building something, he is on to me again to hurry up and bring him something else because, “We gotta start building now,” he would say. We only finished this off three weeks ago, won two shows, and now he is already saying, “Hurry up, get rid of it, we’ve got to get something going again.” He is just one of those people who likes a challenge. He won’t do something that’s easy and he wants to do things himself. He has his own oven now and has started doing all his own powder-coating. He has his own nickel-plating tanks too. It’s a fairly small garage; you wouldn’t believe how jammed packed it is in there. He’s got a big old lath stuck in there somewhere. He just works with the stuff he’s got and it’s pretty old. If one day he ever got a big enough shed and all new gear, it would be interesting to see the stuff he’d make out of there.
Roxanna
I DROVE down to Sydney today for the shoot from the Central Coast where I live with my dog and two fighting fish. I’m a scuba diving chick. I have mostly been diving overseas where it’s warmer but occasionally I dive at Botany and Terrigal Haven. I like to dance occasionally too, if the price is right.
I’m currently working in a seafood shop but I’m soon to be an accountant. I actually have a Commerce and Law Degree, but given my history, I don’t really want to be a lawyer. You have to pass an ethics tribunal where they ask a lot of questions about what you’ve been up to. Maybe I could tell them I don’t have any moral issues because I don’t have any morals.
I’ve been modelling for a few years now and I’ve shot for Picture magazine before. I’ve also done waitressing, modelling, and I’m a bit of a nudist which helps. I walk around the house nude a lot and we don’t have any curtains—lucky neighbours!
Photos by Wall 2 Wall
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