Kruz Co are Oli & Brice from Belgium. We sat back and admired one of their builds here in the shed before, a neat little XS400, and now they’re back with its much bigger, much badder brother, this XJ1200 cafe racer.
Oli, aka ‘The Admiral’ grew up alongside a father who ruled the roads in a Ford Escort GT rally car. The petrol head gene was passed down, and as soon as he was old enough Oli started tinkering with a 50cc two wheeler.
Bathed in the skate/punk culture of the early 90s, Oli’s influences are numerous and diverse and can be seen in the aesthetics of all of Kruz Co’s builds. Brice also picked up the bug from his dad who restored and rode a beautiful Guzzi 1000S. When he was 15, his father offered him a bike that had been run over by a tractor and told him to ‘get on with it’. So using bits and bobs from old race bikes, he ‘got on with it’ and has been ‘getting on with it’ ever since.
The XJ was built for a customer who has been riding motorcycles for a long time, but, not being particularly mechanically minded himself, he approached Kruz Co to build his dream bike. His first idea was to go for something with a full body kit based on endurance bikes from the 70′s. But after countless sketches and studies, they decided together to go for the stripped back cafe racer look, keeping the original tank and working on the rear sub frame.
To make sure the project crossed the finishing line, Oli and The Admiral had to find clever solutions to stay within the budget. To that end, the son of the owner did the paint job, an aftermarket Ducati 900ss seat was sourced, and the rear light came from a camper van. Though Brice adds that it was actually the perfect light for the bike, describing it as ‘a big tomato’, which is presumably a good thing. The other big challenge was keeping the bike street legal. French laws are pretty tough, so the guys had to be careful with annoying stuff like rear number plate positioning, indicators and noise. Not that any of these things have compromised the look as far as we’re concerned.
KC#003 took three months from start to finish. The guys are the first to admit that this is not the most ambitious or original build ever, but they are proud of the end result which they say has a ‘balanced ride’ and ‘a good vibe’. They also have a very happy customer who is finally cruising French country roads on the bike of his dreams. That sounds like a job well done to us. Nice one guys, keep up the good work and let us know what’s coming next.
See more from Kruz Co here on The Bike Shed
