CORB MOTORCYCLES #2 ‘BIELSA’

Post up a few Trackers and the floodgates open, so we’re very pleased to help showcase this SR250 street tracker as an alternative to the Dominators and XRs etc, and in contrast to the SRs that are usually more scrambler/cafe in style. The bike has been put together by Santi Garcia of Corb Motorcycles from Terrassa in Barcelona, Spain.

Santi’s first Corb MC build was a 125cc Vespa, so he considers this SR as his fist proper Motorcycle. He worked in collaboration with Bike Shed favourites, La Corona, as they built him a KZ400 that you can see on The Bike Shed and in the BikeEXIF coffee-table book, The Ride. This bike, “Bielsa”, is a demonstration of what Santi could achieve with a low-cost build, although it do doesn’t look like a machine with too many compromises.

The brief was to build a Dirt Tracker with ‘elegance’  that was as far away from the original donor as possible in it’s look and feel, and to be completely rideable, as this was to be the owner’s first bike. The bike has been graced with new wheels, wearing chunky Dunlop K460s. The rear shocks are upgraded items from Hagon. The subframe hasn’t been looped at the rear but it easily accommodates the new handmade custom seat with diamond-stitched upholstery. There are new lights front and back, with mini speedo, mini indicators and a mini oil temp gauge.

The exhaust is by Dime City Cycles and the engine breathes-in through new filters. The electrics have also been simplified and the wires kept out of sight, running inside the new tracker handlebars. The battery is left exposed. Other mods include custom fenders, front and back, a handmade license plate holder and a host of other brackets, plates and parts. The front number board is a nice touch, wrapped around the Bates style headlight and showing-off the same silk black and white race-striped colours as the tank.

Santi tells us that the bike is a blast to ride, while not exactly powerful she’s a great city bike with plenty of bark from the pipes and just as happy in the city or the country – and most importantly, the new owner loves it.

It’s a nice variation on both the tracker style and on the humble Yamaha SR250, so thanks to Santi for sharing with us at The Bike Shed. He’s now working on a Yamaha XT600, and we look forward to seeing it on our pages soon. See more from Corb Motorcycles on their Facebook page.

Tracker 48 for MotoUSA

Nothing beats a Street Tracker for attitude and fun. A dirt road in front of you?...cool, twisty pavement?...that's all good too. We built this 2010 Sportster 48 for MotoUSA President Don Becklin and used it as an experimental platform for our new Machine Ops Finish, Vintage Sportster gas tank, flat track tail, Mid Control and a new exhaust concept. She started life as a Sportster 48. The first mod was a new billet top triple that accepts any riser combo, eliminating the cast in riser. We then used our Pro Step Bar with a nice flat track style pull back and Vintage 4 bolt risers.

We threw a vintage twist at this machine with a prototype Sportster version of our classic Vintage Gas Tank which looks at home on a Flat Tracker. 14.5” progressive 970 series reservoir shocks, 19” Slam wheels and sticky flat track rubber achieve the classic Dirt Track stance we were going for. Since this bike will spend the majority of its life on the pavement, Jamie from Micah Racing hooked us up with a set of the new DOT approved, street legal, Mitas flat track tires. The Sporty Tracker was a test bed for our newest finish Machine Ops and this is one of the iterations of the original idea with a bit of tint to it.

The bike features a host of prototypes including the wild 2-into-1-into-2 Slant Carbon Works finish exhaust, mid controls, custom silicone oil lines by Samco, aluminum tail section, gas tank kit, billet triple clamp for standard risers and front frame guard. At the heart of it all still lies the basis of the Stock 48, but the owner wouldn’t be able to tell. In the end, he got what he asked for because we built what we wanted, which is what he wanted.. or something like that. Everybody wins. Check out the full write up from Byron Wilson at MotoUSA here!

One of the joys and major responsibilities of being a bike builder comes when someone trusts you to tear their pride and joy down to the frame and recreate the machine as something completely different. This task is made ever more interesting when the customer says, do what you want. This is magic to our ears. Inevitably there’s the question of a budget which reins the creative process in, but with somewhat free reign it allows us to experiment with styles. One of our favorite styles is the Streetracker. Both comfortable and fun to ride, the Streetracker comes in many forms. Keep track of this build as we plan to throw a classic vintage twist at this machine.

Posted In: RSD