PART 1
:text & pictures by Mark Meisner
I
’m staring outside trough a small window, looking at a rough and white landscape. Here and there are small grey roads and some green bits, but most of all white. People around me a playing with their smartphones, talking to each other or reading a magazine, but I can only look out to look at the stunning landscape. “PING!!”, “This is your captain speaking, in a few moments we start our descent procedure to Trondheim Airport, the weather is ….” … and these last words don’t sound good. Snow, hail and rain. If you think about it, it exactly what you would expect when you’re traveling to Norway. Snow, hail and rain, that’s going to be
the weather in where I have to photograph a bike the next couple of days. The weather is typical Scandinavian, but the owner of the bike told us some good news and it should get a lot better the next couple of days, so let’s get the rental-car and head north. We’re off to meet Roel Scheffers, a Dutch guy who traded the flat busy landscape of the Netherlands for the rough, cold, quiet and oh so beautiful Norway. Somewhat 350km above Trondheim, he builds his extraordinarily customs between the snow, moose and way too expensive beer.
Roel started this Yamaha GTS around 4 years ago, after he let the seller at the door with tears in his eyes. As honest Roel is, he promised he would take the bike apart and put the flex in it the minute it got at his new home. And that’s what he did, after the ride home a burnout trashed the rear tire, because he didn’t need it anyway and the flex was getting in
to play to deflower the bike. Eventually, the rebuild took a lot more time than planned, a wife, a kid, a custom CX500, moving to Norway and another kid threw some delay in the creative mind of Roel, but after that he started working on the GTS again but now somewhat 2000km away from his elderly house.
R
oel started this Yamaha GTS around 4 years ago, after he let the seller at the door with tears in his eyes. As honest Roel is, he promised he would take the bike apart and put the flex in it the minute it got at his new home. And that’s what he did, after the ride home a burnout trashed the rear tire, because he didn’t need it anyway and the flex was getting in to play to deflower the bike. Eventually, the rebuild took a lot more time than planned, a wife, a kid, a custom CX500, moving to Norway and another kid threw some delay in the creative mind of Roel, but after that he started working on the GTS again but now somewhat 2000km away from his elderly house.
#10 The Yamaha is Roel’s tenth bike. “#09 was a BMW K100, which was a fun bike. Changing the complete look of the bike, with the use of the stock fairing and there is a #11 also driving around somewhere in Europe. It was a quick build with my little nephew, a Honda CX500 with some radical changes in the stance and look of the bike”. ”The Yamaha GTS is number 10, so a big #10 can be seen on the side of the engine.” The gas tank and seat had some former siblings, two to be exact but Roel knew exactly what he wanted to do with the lower part of the bike. The single sided front suspension (RADD) was going to have a similar brother on the back, a swing arm of the famous VFR750 would take care of that. This isn’t just possible to do, and the goal was to build the bike as low as possible so there was no room left for the stock place of the rearshock. So a Buell pull-shock was chosen and now lives close to the ground underneath the engine, doing his thing with a self-designed link-system. “There was some room left, so I placed it there. It’s out of sight and the space beneath the seat is now much cleaner”.
The spec-list is endless, so I won’t mention the small things like the shortened wire loom, small battery pack and electronics in de seat, the self-made internal gas handle and the changed foodpegs. I won’t talk about the altered HD headlight with mini-grill and the R6 rear shock that now works his thing at the front.
Frontwheelproblems. This isn’t the first GTS that had been customized, and it certainly won’t be the last, but the biggest challenge with the bike is the front wheel. This bike begs for a single sided swing arm at the back, but two different wheels aren’t going to cut it. In order to fix this problem the right way, a NSR150SP and a VFR750 wheel had to be scarified to work together as a new front wheel. “The hardest part is that the centre of the hub is outside the rim, way off from the centre of the rim. I had to mill both edges of the rims and by aligning and re-welding the rim-edges properly without bending the rim, it should fit”. “After some milling on the inside of the hub and some changes on the RADD-steering column everything fits snug and the way I wished”. I must say, it sound quite easy, but I definitely know this wasn’t a simple task for Roel.
Taking a break after a ride shooting pictures from the trunk.
Waking up in the morning was a little difficult, but o so beautifull.
If it fits, it sits I believe this is the biggest motto used for the build of this bike. Every little place on the bike is filled with parts that had to go somewhere other than the normal place. The bike had to be as low as possible, 82cm high at the moment! Somewhat the inner leg-length of a regular guy and therefor a lot of problems regarding space had to be conquered. For instance, the original radiator has been relocated between the front suspension and the engine. You would say there is no room, but he managed to pull it off. Just like the oil cooler that had to change from form with a wooden mold and a press, it’s now bend and placed beneath the RADD suspension. If it sits, it fits, just like I said. Off course the engine isn’t stock either. The original 100HP engine does now make a living as a coffee table
and a FZR1000 engine with 35 more horses will make do as the new fitted engine that powers this bike trough the fine landscape. Gas and air can go in trough the carbs that had been tickled with a Dynojet-kit and (obviously) home-made velocity stacks. The exhaust fumes must leave trough the custom exhaust and changed IXIL-damper.
3rd time lucky The gas tank and the seat was a problem on his own, two former versions had to be ditched and the third was finally the look it had to be. A little bit influenced by the CafĂŠracer scene, but with own big twist. Completely made from aluminium, the double gas tank gives room for the burning and cooling liquids, the seat has got space in de rear for the elec-
tronics and the batterypack but like I mention before, I wouldn’t talk about that. The fairing looks very futuristic, but match the bike perfectly and the seating position is better than expected. The cockpit is empty, nothing to distract you during the ride, but you have to look underneath your left knee to see how fast you are driving. That’s kind of difficult, but all for the looks. On the right side of the frame there’s a self-made aluminium frame panel for the necessary buttons as the light/power switch and starter button. The seat is made by seat-hero Marcel Miller, who made it in the Netherlands and post it to the north of Europe. “Dad, can you bring a petrol pump with you?” This last thing is what Roel has to do a lot. “Norway is a big country, but parts and especially rare parts are very hard to find, not to get or very, very expensive”. “eBay is a big friend of mine, friends and family who come to visit get a list of parts they need to bring and if I’m in a hurry I order it somewhere online and let it mail to me.” He got a lot of machinery in his garage, but he can’t CNC parts, so a relative does that and sends it over. Only downside it can take up to 2 weeks to deliver, so rush is not an option. Roel’s handiness soon got word around town, were a lot of farmers live and encounter quit a lot of problems regarding lack of maintenance or sudden braking down of parts. “Milking machines, mowing machines, outboard engines, you name it and I try to fix it for them”. “I even got famous, a local newspaper had an interview with me with a huge cover and multiple pages”. He’s now a celebrity, he laughs! Everybody’s knows me now!
This was our headcourter for five days, waking up with a layer of snow is amazing, but not when you want to shoot a motorcycle. Luckely the roads were clean withing a couple of hours.
Turning angle of a small truck. Ok, the bike looks like a marvellous piece of work, but does it ride well? “Due to the low centre of gravity, it’s very stable on the road and it rolls very cleanly. The handlebar is wide enough for a good grip and the food pegs are placed more to the back for a more laydown seating position so your knees don’t sit in an uncomfortable angle”, “If you take a modern racebike, the seating position can get cramped after a while but with my GTS you can easily make a long roadtrip”, “As long as you know where the gas stations are, the 10liter gas tank doesn’t get you very far!”. “A somewhat higher front tire would make the quick side-to-side movement better and the steering lock kicks in very soon so you have the turning angle of a small truck, but luckily you don’t notice it during normal driving.”
#12 After a day of hiking and shooting the bike we happily turned back to the house were the cold (homebrewed) beers and fine meat was waiting on us to celibate life, traveling and custom bikes. The Netherlands was buried under a thick layer of clouds, rain and hail, but we had the time of our lives in the high cold north, with none of the bad weather the captain on the plain talked about. Roel already started on a next project, a Suzuki GT750 water-cooled, three cylinder two-stroke machine who will get the
whole Scheffersstyling from top to bottom. And I can tell you, the exhaust is going to be a very, very special one! And with that #12 in my mind, I’m already planning and making notes for the next trip to Sausvatn, Norway.
That was just some boring info, now the most important stuff of all, THE PICTURES!
End of part one .... In a couple of days part two will be published!