BRITANNY ELLIS’ CBR 1000 – LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

The only thing I know about Ten-Pin Bowling is that it’s a favorite pastime of both Homer Simpson and Fred Flintstone— apart from that, nada, zilch, nothing at all. Except that it seems to involve consuming huge amounts of beer, and by grossly overweight individuals dressed in loud shirts that look as if they’ve been ironed over a beach ball. And while I do know that bowling was an intrinsic part of the Cohen brother’s cult movie, ‘The Big Lebowski,’ a film I have enjoyed many times, I have to say that it has inspired me to roll a big ball at skittles … uh never!

Apparently the marbled paint finish on Brittany Ellis’ CBR1000 is called ‘Bowling Ball,’ (something else I didn’t know), as it closely resembles the finish on the balls bowled by Homer and Fred types at ten wooden pins in a bowling alley on Saturday nights, the machinery of which is almost universally made by AMF, (American Machine & Foundry), the same company who owned Harley-Davidson from 1969 to 1981. Honda however, were never owned by a company who made balls, they did make a few balls-ups though — like the CX Turbo, the oval piston NS750, the Hondamatic and other stuff that was about as much use as Haitian hurricane insurance. But not with the CBR1000, the full one liter successor to venerable 900 FireBlade, that still cuts like a knife.

Abe Pagan has been building top class custom sportbikes under the Syndicate Custom Sportbike banner for the past few years, and while Abe’s never been a high profile roller like Roaring Toyz, Abe has never-the-less turned out some show-winning bikes and has graduated from working in the garage behind his house to a workshop unit just up the road from the Prison Farm in Ocala, Florida. Abe is also willing to work within a tight budget and allow the bike’s owner to do some of the work to keep the costs reasonable, and this was the deal struck when Josh Ellis wanted to build a new bike for his wife, Brittany, to replace her current 600 ride.

While Abe had a specially designed set of billet wheels cut and fabricated a shorter than usual swingarm, (still way longer than a stock CBR1000RR – but not as long as his customers usually demand for a custom sportbike), complete with jackshaft to offse
the drive chain to the 10-inch wide wheel and huge 310 mm Vee Rubber Monster tire, Josh took the plastic away for painting. After the Bowling Ball custom paint was completed by Jeff at Paint Pros in Jacksonville, (better known as stunt rider ‘Ponis’), the bodywork was returned to Abe at SCS who then painted the black panels, gold leaf logos and pinstripes. Abe also laid on the gold lacquer finish over the polished aluminum frame, swingarm, wheels, forks etc. Quite a stunning look that compliments the gold leaf and pinstripes perfectly— and was serendipitous as the original plan was to have the frame, wheels et al chromed. But the frame proved to be too big for the chrome plater’s tank, so Abe tried some gold lacquer over the polished alloy and came up with the resultant translucent finish. The 2006 vintage CBR1000 motor needed a little work, so while the cylinder head was off it was decided to have the ports reshaped and polished and the valves seats recut. A set of performance cams with adjustable sprockets seemed like a good idea, as was the addition of a BMC race spec air filter and a Power Commander lll with a Dynojet multi-function street and race map. A Jardine RT1 exhaust system with a carbon fiber twin pipe underseat box was heat wrapped for a racy look and fitted with modified heat shields. Gold anodized Pro-Bolts and painted clutch and alternator covers completed the engine ensemble along with a Viper remote starter.

To get that low-down and dirty race-ready stance the front-end was pulled down with a Schnitz drag race strap to match the three-inch lowered rear suspension, Galfer brake discs were fitted all-round, the stock master cylinders were dressed with custom caps and dangerous looking Cycle Pirate levers—and the ‘dangerous’ look continued with spiked fasteners as sharp as your mother-in-law’s tongue on the fairing and front mudguard. And this being Florida, where there are almost as many alligators as there are illegal immigrants, a ‘gator skin seat was an obvious choice, however here in the Sunshine State it’s against the law to shoot alligators … fence jumpers though have to watch out.