Lanky Artist

Let’s go back one year. It’s summer in Costa Rica, it’s hot and humid and I’m in a bus that has no airco. I crawl to one of the few open seats and sit down to conclude there is very little leg room. Even the locals struggle to find a comfortable position and at 6’3 I’m almost a good foot taller than the average population here. I place my legs to the side in the pathway and spend the next 8 hours in a spinal twist, reminiscing about the time I had my own vehicle and more specifically, my own motorcycle.
I missed the freedom of getting from door to door without schedules, transfers, carrying backpacks and waiting at bus terminals. I also remembered how having a motorcycle had become a part of me, how it not only brought me the joy of riding, but also made me part of a community of like-minded people and how good that felt. Upon arrival at my next destination, while pushing myself and my backpack through a crowd of people to get to my next bus, I had made my decision: once I return to Europe I want to keep traveling, but I want to do this with a motorcycle again.

Once I got back to the Netherlands, it was the beginning of fall, giving me plenty of time to buy a bike and even to turn it into something special before the weather would allow me to hit the road in comfort.
All the tools I could possibly need were at my disposal at my dads barn. Over the years I had gained interest and mild knowledge of mechanics due to mopeds, previous motorcycles and a high maintenance camper van, so I had enough confidence to turn this motorcycle into my first actual custom bike project, including a front to back paint job. This bike was going to serve both as a mode of transportation for my next travels as well as a mobile showcase of my artwork.

First, I needed to find the bike. The internet is full of affordable, yet relatively reliable motorcycles, but I had to take a few factors into account: the bike needed to be big enough, frame wise and engine wise, not only to accommodate for me and my limbs, but also to haul a few months worth of luggage while still being able to reach highway speeds. I had a few other requirements, like shaft-drive, highway bars and a sissy bar, along with some limits regarding the age and mileage of the bike.
The Suzuki Intruder caught my eye, because there were a few reasonable option available in my area and also because of that elegant little panel in front of the tank, which served to me as an extra piece of canvas. I picked up the best option I could find, an Intruder 700 from 1986, and rode it home in the pouring rain. Regardless, I felt like a queen on her throne, this was the beginning of new adventures.

The next 8 months I spend on and off working on the motorcycle, to turn it into an eye catching, yet practical mode of transportation. This is a list of the parts I’ve modified along with an explanation of how I did it, why I did it and what I learned in the process.

Undo previous modifications
The first step was probably the easiest; removing some unnecessary, and in my opinion, tasteless accessoires the previous owners had installed. This included tribal flame heat shields and stickers, additional headlights and a jaguar ornament which was decorating the front fender like a forged crown jewel.

Painting
One of the main reasons why I chose to have a custom bike in the first place was to showcase my artwork. Getting noticed is a vital part of my job and what better way to do this than on a painted motorcycle. Before I even started on the project, I took into account that the paint job would likely be temporary, since I’m still developing as a painter, I would probably need to start over within a year so the bike would remain an accurate display of my skills. The Intruder turned out to be a perfect bike for custom painting, since it offers plenty of canvas space and all the panels and fenders are of the same material.
Since the original paint was still in relatively good condition, I only removed the stickers and did some sanding, followed by a Motip filler where needed and a Motip primer. After creating some mockups in Photoshop I had decided on a design with a face, a skull, orange flowers and goldfish, with a mint-turquoise base. For this base, I used Montana Black’s color ‘Hope’, of course this paint is not automotive quality, but rather meant for quick application on concrete and the sides of trains. Since I decided to keep the paint job low budget considering the temporary aspect of it, at less than 4 euro per can, Montana Black got the job done. The actual paint job itself was, unlike most figurative custom bike art, done with regular acrylic paint from Royal Talens and brushes, this was the most important and most time consuming aspect of the project. After this, I had the ambitious plan to coat at least the tank in two component varnish (2K clear coat by Motip) to serve as a protector from scratches and mostly, gasoline, since a previous paint job I had done on a moped had proven to fade out around the tank lid quickly. To prevent possible interaction between the base coat with the acrylic paint and the harsh 2K varnish I started out coating with regular clear coat. From what the internet told me, layering 1K and 2K paints is not recommended unless you use the same brand which I did. The 1K layer looked fine, but unfortunately, the 2K varnish I applied after turned out quite disastrous. Since it wasn’t fully transparent, the underlying white of the paint job started to appear yellow. Weirdly, but luckily enough only the white elements were affected and the orange and ‘Hope’ color still looked similar to the unvarnished parts. On top of this, the 2K varnish took forever to harden at room temperature, therefor I don’t recommend using this unless you have some type of suitable oven at your disposal or if you can easily wait 3 weeks for the varnish to harden sufficiently, which I had to do. After the 2K varnished dried, I fixed the white elements of the painting (mostly the skull and the eyes) with the simplest method I could think of: I painted white acrylic paint over the 2K varnish and coated the whole tank in one more layer of 1K along with all the panels and fenders.
The overall experience of painting a motorcycle with amateur tools, without a spray booth to protect from dust and no use of temperature control was... very informative. I’ve used rather unorthodox methods, but I’m quite happy with the final result taken into account that durability was not required. Unless you would get on eye level with the artwork and know the story behind each layer, you would hardly be able to tell how messy the job was done. Though if you would get close enough, you will notice some scratches, irregularities in the color and texture, dust specs, finger prints and some damage acquired during the reassembling of the bike. And if you would get even closer you can still hear my cries of frustration echoing in the varnish.

Mirrors
The custom mirrors that came with the bike were part of the tribal flame aesthetics, but besides not matching my personal style, they were highly impractical, due to the odd shape and small size. I replaced them for slightly larger round mirrors which proved to be more practical.

Handlebars
My two previous bikes have both been choppers from the 80'ties too and this time I wanted to go for a more modern look by switching the original bendy handle bars for a straight one, this also increased the distance between the rider and the controls, so I could ride with my arms in a more natural straightened position.

Windshield
I don't have the illusion that my bike looks better with a windshield and this addition was merely a practical one. A windshield makes riding in wind, rain, insects and at high speeds a lot more comfortable, especially when you’re a lanky person like I am. The windshield I picked is a rather small one, but I’ve been amazed with how much of a difference it makes when positioned in the right angle. I’d recommend anyone to at least consider a detachable variant if you occasionally make long days on your bike.

Seats
As comfortable as the original seat might have been, it was one of the first things I wanted to customize. I wasn’t fond of the bulkiness, it basically looked like a couch, it would have needed refurbishing anyway due to loose stitching and I needed to get rid of the back rest of the passenger seat to free up sissy bar for luggage. I wanted to have a separate rear seat and and a bobber style front seat. I did some measurements and a digital mock up and the seat that matched the required shape and size best, turned out to be the budget option, costing less than 70 euro. In hindsight, I should have known that anything under 100 euro probably wasn’t going to be very useful on long trips and the seat became increasingly uncomfortable throughout my journey. Half way into Spain I managed to solve most of this discomfort with some Velcro and a 4 euro IKEA kitchen chair pillow. What I gained that day in comfort, I lost in cool points, because it really looked dumb, but it quite literally saved my ass when I had to ride almost 1000 km in one day to reach the other side of the country the week afer.
The seat installation required a lot of extra steps. I had to make a panel to go under the front seat to cover up wiring. I made a mold out of a pizza box and cut the panel out of sheet metal. It was a bit challenging since the area under the seat wasn’t fully symmetrical and I needed to leave room for the springs of the seat, but after an afternoon of bending, cutting and filing I was satisfied with the result. This also created, you guessed it, more canvas. Though I didn’t do any custom painting on this panel, I did coat it in ‘Hope’, to visually connect the tank, side panels and rear fender. For the rear seat I used a wooden base with a cut out for the igniter. I recycled foam from a different seat and upholstered it with artificial leather.

I’ve not been able to test this seat on long rides with a passenger yet, but considering it holds my luggage just fine and just by the feel of it, I can tell it’s probably a lot more comfortable than the front seat.

Tires
Often visually ignored by motorcycle owners: the tires. I didn’t want to waste such a large surface area on just black rubber, so I decided on white walls. Since my tires were still in reasonable conditions, I faked whitewalls with Plasti-Dip spray. After this procedure I have just one tip about spray-on white walls, which is, don’t do spray-on white walls. First of all, you have to clean the tire, really clean it like you mean it, because any dirt or stain that remains will eventually get soaked up by the white coating and blending in with its color. Then, you have to tape off your tire, which is a time consuming and frustrating task, since most tapes don’t tend to stick well to rubber. Once the tire has been prepped, which took me about 1,5 hour, on each side of both tires, the spraying can begin. You‘ll need several coats of spray, if you go too thin, you will create a speckled effect, too thick and you’ll get bubbles. After its all dry, you can take off the tape, but this ain’t no walk in the park either, since ripping off the tape will peel the white wall off along with it, so you have to cut around the tape into the stretchy Plasti-Dip coating, which is likely going to cause more frustration. In addition to this misery, despite my white wall appearing white after the job was done, over time, the white has turned into a pale ocher yellow. The only good thing I experienced about this technique that it turned out to be surprisingly durable, a variety of road and weather conditions and a few cleanups later, the not-so-white walls are still going strong.

Shortly before departure I made a last minute decision to replace the rear tire since it wouldn’t have lasted for the duration of my trip. I replaced it with a real white wall tire, which looked a lot neater than the home made version, but was equally hard to clean. At this point I’m rocking one tire that looks like a dirty sneaker and one that looks like the page of an old book. Turns out that build-not-bought isn’t always the best way to go.