Chromeless Cruiser
CHROMELESS CRUISER
American FLYERS
Canada’s Dark Star VTX
CLIFF RANDALL IS NOT one to miss an opportunity to toot his own horn. “No one in his right mind would have done this,” exclaims the Canadian corporate headhunter about his chromeless Honda VTX bagger. “It’s unbelievable!” Concept for the ominous-looking machine came to Randall three years ago.
“I was messing around in the garage with my wife’s Harley Fat Boy-the ‘Florida Special,’ as we call it. I said, ‘Unless 1 can learn to chrome rubber, there’s nothing more we can do here.”’ Noting how sportbikes were going from “rough
and tough to more ornate with polished, extended swingarms and flamed paint jobs,” he wondered if cruisers shouldn’t go the opposite direction, away from chrome to a tougher, painted look.
A few weeks later, at the rollout for the thennew VTX 1800, Randall had the same conversation with higher-ups at Honda Canada. “I thought the bike was stunning,” he said, “but styling-wise, it was out of balance. It needed two exhaust pipes-one on each side of the bike-and saddlebags.”
A year later, Honda Canada agreed to supply Randall with a bike. For the build-up, Randall resolved to use only Honda parts. “Everything’s been carved up-the Valkyrie saddlebags were sliced in half and their depth increased by 3 inches; rare-earth magnets hold the tops in place-but every piece is Honda tin,” he says. “We poundedin the gas tank, cut and chopped the fenders.
But again, it’s all Honda parts. It’s a friggin’ Honda Frankenstein!”
In typical Randall style, the engine got a complete makeover, too. Sweden’s MotoSpeed supplied the 2000cc big-bore kit. “It’s a monster,” Randall says. “It it doesn’t make 125 horsepower and close to 140 footpounds of torque at the rear wheel, I’ll eat my shirt.”
As for the lack of chrome, Randall’s biggest challenge was finding a suitable finish for the hardware. Paint wouldn’t work; when Randall put a wrench to it, the finish came right off. And unlike aluminum, steel can’t be anodized. So Randall found a shop in Buffalo that puts a military-spec finish on guns for the U.S. Army. “That cost me $6K,” he says. “But I said there wouldn’t be any chrome on this bike, and there isn’t-nothing.”
While Randall loves the finished product, he swears the best part was creating it in his garage. “You don’t need to be Jesse James to build a bike like this,” he says. Achieving final tune was fun, too. “I downloaded the fuel maps into my Palm Pilot and made changes on the go. How cool is that?”
Randall likes to think of his VTX bagger not as a custom, but as a concept. “This is the evolution of the cruiser,” he enthuses. “It’s what people want. Don’t be surprised if Honda decides to build it.
Matthew Miles
