Soul Ride

MAXWELL HAZAN

“The tires, wheels and headlight are the only pieces that were purchased. Every other part was made by hand.”

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DUCATI 848

BY APOGEE MOTORWORKS

LE CAFFAGE

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INTERVIEW:

MAX FROM HAZAN MOTORCYCLES Maxwell Hazan. If there’s one shining star on the custom bike scene that’s currently at their apex, it’s him.

Winner of the Pipeburn 2013 Bike of the Year Award. Ex-New Yorker and nouveau Californian.

THE MUSKET

BY HAZAN MOTORWORKS

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If there’s one thing that the motorcycle world knows, it’s that you can always expect a surprise from Hazan Motorworks, and the latest offering, ‘The Musket’ is no different. Images have been bouncing around the interwebs over the last months or so and the response has been a resounding jaw drop.

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LE CAFFAGE DUCATI 848

BY APOGEE MOTORWORKS Based on a 2009 Ducati 848, it has a muscular, aggressive, yet classically minimalist appearance that a ‘classic’ café racer could never hope to achieve.

What’s more it’s bristling with modern refinement and technology.

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

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FLYING BRICK BMW K100RS

BY ANTON GAMMERSHMIDT This raw and brutal BMW K100 was built, very aptly, by a master blacksmith and metalworker.

Faced with a long Russian winter, Anton Gammershmidt decided to enliven his evenings and weekends and build himself a bike.

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BSA A50

BY HAZAN MOTORWORKS This stark and beautiful BSA A50, the first build to come out of Max’s new LA shop, was completed in just five weeks. The design is the simplest form of a motorcycle, with the shapely BSA motor being the center of attention.

Attracted to the lines of the cases, Max selected a 1966 A50 engine to use as the foundation of the build.

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INTERVIEW

MAXWELL

HA Max Hazan is one of a handful of builders who operate at the intersection of motorcycles and art.

It’s a rarefied field: the best-known protagonist is probably Ian Barry of Falcon Motorcycles. But Barry now has some serious competition.

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

AZAN

MOTORWORKS

Maxwell Hazan. If there’s one shining star on the custom bike scene that’s currently at their apex, it’s him.

Winner of the Pipeburn 2013 Bike of the Year Award. Ex-New Yorker and nouveau Californian. And, as Scott discovered on his recent sojourn to the Bear State, an incredibly nice guy to boot. We were lucky enough to be able to speak to Max via Skype recently and we are proud to present this extended interview with him. We hope you like it.

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INTERVIEW

HAZAN A BREATH OF FRESH AIR IN THE QUEST FOR CRAFTSMANSHIP. Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

“My name’s Maxwell Hazan. I build custom motorcycles. I started thinking I’d build and sell six or seven a year.

Then I kind of fell into making these really unique, one-of-a-kind art pieces.

It started off really well—I built a bike, it got an amazing response. You featured it on your site and made it Bike of the Year­—it was literally the first custom that I built. I kind of fell into this unique bike build thing and it’s going really well.”

Where are you right now?

“Right now I’m in the guest bedroom of our new place in Venice, California.

I moved out here with my girlfriend Sarah. We met in New York at a friend’s going away party about a year ago.

She decided she was going to move to California for work and I decided to come. Our place here is about 30

minutes away from the workshop and the beach is close by. It’s kind of a hipster neighbourhood like Brooklyn, but it’s far enough away from things to get some peace and quiet.

What’s your background?

“I think you are kind of born with a handy gene. I got it from my dad; he built everything. When I was a little kid, it started off with Legos. I used to put them into the microwave to heat them up so I could make them into shapes that they didn’t come in. I ruined everything. Then I built model airplanes and some hydroplane boats… and then I stopped and went into working 9 to 5.

I had a ‘real’ job doing interior design and contracting in the city.

Then I started doing bikes for fun on the side. Then I had lunch with my Dad one day and he looked at me and said, ‘why don’t you just build bikes

full-time?’ And I did. So far I’ve taken a big pay cut, but my two most recent bikes are for sale now in Switzerland.

Once those sell, maybe I’ll be back to where I was so far as earning a living goes. It was something I took a chance on because I wanted to enjoy what I was doing so I could just apply that creative gene.”

What was your first bike?

“I’ve had dirt bikes since I was three years old, but that went away in high school when I started driving. The first bike I bought to ride on the road was a Buell S1 Lightning. I wanted something unique and I wanted a muscle bike.

I liked it because it was slim—before Harley took over. It was mostly metal with some fibreglass bodywork.

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

N “It started off with Legos. I used to put them into the microwave to heat them up so I could make them onto shapes that they didn’t come in.”

I was in college and I scrounged up $4,000, but I needed $5,000. I went behind my Dad’s back and I talked to my Mom and my Grandmother because I knew they were push-overs. I got it and had it for a while, but I ended up blowing the engine up; I put a big nitrous tank on it and it exploded. I loved that bike. It was cool and so loud.”

Eventually I just decided to go with the bikes and I got rid of all of the woodworking equipment.

Why did you start the shop?

“Actually, I rented a small, windowless shop in Brooklyn just near my house to store some stuff—I wanted a place to do some cabinetry work. It was a forgotten area then; it almost had tumbleweeds rolling down the block.

Of course, now it’s the trendiest corner ever. I put a curtain up so I could keep the sawdust away from one corner of the shop where I could keep a few bikes and some metalworking stuff.

Max with Pipeburn trophy in his new studio.

Then a spot came up in the same building that was three times the size of the old place. It had a window but the rent was expensive, so I said to a friend ‘let’s split it’. He raced supermoto bikes and he had them all in his apartment. Then a year later I moved out here to California. It stung, because we put so much money into the old place. It was fully set up, but I guess it had to end sometime because the building was filling up with offices.

I literally couldn’t swing a hammer at anything. People would ask, ‘did you pound out that tank?’ and my response was always ‘No. I can’t pound on anything. I used a metal shrinker and an English wheel!”

What’s next for Hazan Motorcycles?

“Definitely a brand. When I started, I had this elaborate business plan with how many bikes I was going to build, the profits and the overheads… but it transitioned into something completely different. And better, too. So now I’m kind of leaving an open mind as to what the future holds. I’d like to continue doing the unique bikes in addition to something else. I might build smaller bikes or I might work in collaboration with some other brands—­as long as I’m happy.

I’m motivated to make something that’s feasible and profitable, but I also want to stay true to making these unique bikes they way I make them. I think that’s where people see something unique. That’s the secret right now.”

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CLOSE-UP

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

PHOTOS BY SINUHE XAVIER

THE

MUSKET

BY HAZAN MOTORWORKS

And what Max pleases in 2015 is to take two Royal Enfield 500cc engines, enlist the help of a certain Mr Aniket Vardhan to magic them into a single 1000cc V-twin, and then construct a bike around it that just might be the best-looking custom bike we’ve ever seen.

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With our excitement rendering us barely able to speak, we began by proposing marriage to the guy. After his twelfth refusal, we cottoned on and asked Max about the bike. “The Musket is a project that I have wanted to build for years; even before I built motorcycles for a living, I used to drool over this hand-made gem of an engine.

It’s essentially where the build started. It’s a work of art that was handcarved from a block of wood, hand-cast at a foundry and then hand-machined, all by the amazing Aniket Vardhan to make this, the 1000cc Musket V-twin engine.”

Thinking back, Max felt there was a certain amount of fate to the build. “I was approached by an open-minded client at exactly the same time that Aniket had just finished development on his latest engine and was ready to part with it. I went through four different sets of tires before settling on the huge BF Goodrich Silvertown car tires you see here.

The engine is truly massive, making the big frame absolutely necessary. This in turn dwarfed standard motorcycle tires and, well, you get the drift.”

Of course if nothing is pre-made, you can create every part exactly how you imagine it – especially if that imagination is one of the motorcycling world’s most vivid. Following the engine’s lead, the shape of the tank, the angles in the frame, the pipes and everything else was mocked up, tweaked, scrapped and redone until their lines, shape and position were perfection incarnate.

As always, Max started by mounting the engine on his workbench and secured the wheels fore and aft.

He then sketched the bike’s initial shape out on a giant sheet of paper and hung it up behind.

Designing the bike at full-scale allows Max to see how each part fits exactly with the next and how the bike’s final proportions will appear. It also gives him something real to measure off of when he’s rough-cutting the raw material.proportions will appear. It also gives him something real to measure off of when he’s rough-cutting the raw material.

“I tend to gravitate toward the minimal side of things, so I don’t like cables and wires. But if they have to be there, then I try to make them interesting to look at. I also wanted to make the handlebars completely clean, so I ran an internal throttle cable through the 7/8” bars and went with a hand shift and clutch to clean up the lower controls.

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

“I wanted it to be finished like a Steinway Piano; just make sure you hang on when you twist the throttle.”

If the world’s most beautiful music was rendered in metal, it would look like this.

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DUCATI 848

BY APOGEE MOTORWORKS

LE CAFFAGE Gustavo Pena of Apogee Motoworks is another one of those builders who throw the rulebook out of the window, freely experimenting with new shapes and styles. The LA-based cinematographer builds extraordinary Ducatis that look like nothing else on earth. This is his latest creation, “Le Caffage”—a 2009-spec Ducati 848 worthy of a starring role in Tron.

PHOTOS BY GUSTAVO PENNA

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

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ustavo set out to design a bike that looks futuristic, but has elements of neo-classic style too. “As if Ducati produced a bike in 2050 paying homage to a bike from 2030,” he says.

The design elements are very deliberate, dominated by an oversized gas tank with vintage café proportions. Gustavo has also modified the trellis frame to edge it closer to traditional lines, flowing into an minimalist but comfortable saddle.

The twin exhausts­—handcrafted in stainless steel—mirror the voluptuous curves of the upper bodywork. But the most attention-grabbing aspect is the headlight, an aggressively lidded design that also houses the speedo and adds an air of menace to the machine.

“A normal round drum headlight from eBay would just not cut it!” says Gustavo. Guided by the volume and silhouette of the fuel tank, he’s shaped the carbon fiber headlight to accentuate the 848’s predatory stance—”Like that of a lion, a bull, or a shark.”

Gustavo also found inspiration from his Russian girlfriend: her cheekbones suggested the delicate lines and chiseled side profile of the headlight.

Eagle-eyed petrolheads will spot that the LED light unit itself is lifted from a BMW i8.

The 848 engine has been heavily upgraded with NCR parts, including titanium valves, a slipper clutch, and a full set of titanium bolts and fasteners.

The pistons are from Ferracci and the titanium connecting rods are from Pankl.

Rather than hide the typical superbike radiator, Gustavo has designed carbon fiber structural intakes with the help of a composite specialist from F1.

They neatly blend with the 848’s immense radiator and the imposing gas tank.

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The 848 engine has been heavily upgraded with NCR parts, including titanium valves, a slipper clutch, and a full set of titanium bolts and fasteners.

The pistons are from Ferracci and the titanium connecting rods are from Pankl.

South of the radiator is more carbon fiber, this time a belly pan that shrouds the oil cooler and lower part of the engine.

Then the entire front and rear suspension was disassembled. Every single aluminum part has been polished to a jewel-quality finish, and then sprayed with a 3M sealant to keep it maintenance free.

Many other parts have been powder coated and then treated to a ceramic coating on top—including the entire trellis frame, the swingarm, even rear sets and the forged Marchesini racing wheels. Both wheels are shrouded with custom carbon huggers.

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

Gustavo also found inspiration from his Russian girlfriend: her cheekbones suggested the delicate lines and chiseled side profile of the headlight. Eagleeyed petrolheads will spot that the LED light unit itself is lifted from a BMW i8.

And the name “Le Caffage”? It’s a neologism, a madeup word alluding to the café style, and came out of a conversation between Gustavo and a French friend.

If your appetite is whetted, you’ll be glad to know that a limited run of Apogee Ducatis has just started. The donor bikes are not only the Ducati 848, but also 1098s and Streetfighters. And each will have its own distinctive characteristics.

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BMW K100

BY ANTON GAMMERSHMIDT

FLYING BRICK

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

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The BMW K100 has long been a personal favourite of mine, I can’t help but love an underdog and a motorcycle fitted with an engine originally designed for a small Peugeot motor car certainly qualifies as an underdog.

Especially when it’s dropped into the market to compete directly with the Honda CB750 and other 4-cylinder superbikes pouring out of Japan in the late-70s and early-80s.

After being inspired by Robrock’s K100 he had seen on BikeEXIF Anton decided he wanted to have a crack at the K100 as well, so he did some research and settled on a bike he found 1600 kilometres away from Vladivostok.

The first thing he did was strip off the fairings, seat, instruments and foot pegs, he then sold the lot to a wrecker so there’d be no going back. Anton then set about the internet to find the parts he needed, a Dakota digital dash replaced the stock instrument cluster and when viewed as part of the finished bike, it fits the theme perfectly.

The finished bike has an impressive side profile, it looks almost like an official BMW concept motorcycle designed to invoke the spirit of the classic K100—an idea that BMW would be wise to wholeheartedly embrace.

Anton tells me that the bike handles remarkably well thanks to its new, more modern

SOUL RIDE / FALL 2015

PHOTOS BY ANTON GAMMERSHMIDT

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01 Fresh painted fuel tank, and engine covers give to this bike factory-new look.

02 Custom air-flow intake system, stainless steel. Long way from idea and sketches.

03 Custom seat. Combination of stainless and black steel.

Welded to the frame and continues fuel tank's shape.

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04 Fender's frame progress.

05 Bosh upgrated intake computer with K&N air-filter.

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