Monster Mod #3: BoomTube it Baby… And Chop that Tail too!
Bada...Boom... The BoomTubes get Installed
Amazing how the desire to wrench myself versus the desire to get things done quickly took an unexpected turn yesterday… After waking up WAY to early — like 3 AM early — So early the dog looked at me in fact, shook his head as if to say ‘really?’ and then went back to sleep — I ended up rolling into LA with plenty of time to spare. As in all day - and the old man, MotorMilt, came up with a brilliant idea.
With less than twenty-four hours before the next great personal moto-adventure begins, he suggested that I swing by Alex White’s Motorcycle Performance Services on La Brea and see if I could get a quick oil change and once over the Monster. Since I was planning on doing that after the great ‘09 moto-adventure wrapped up, I figured why not.
And since a box of parts was already in the back of the truck, because in my perfect world fantasy, I’d install the new bits with the old man post-trip, I couldn’t help myself. Alex had a hole in his shop schedule and the bike was there and ready… So the latest, next step, in the Monster mod project got a bit of a jump start…
Pulling the box of assorted bits out of the truck, I watched as Alex’s face lit up — Apparently I’m not the only one inflicted with the moto-lust disease… He smirked and smiled and then dived right in… “What’dda we got here?” he asked… Well, let’s see…
Moments later, Alex and his crew went to town… Bits and pieces started flying around… And at 5:10 in the afternoon the results of their labor rolled into the driveway…
Because it was a one-day affair a few things got a touch rushed and in some respects this is just a first generation version of these elements — after speaking with Alex afterward, I think it’s clear we’ve got a bit more work collectively ahead of us. For starters the Tail Chop isn’t quite perfect yet - it’s installed, safe and legal, but it’s not quite as eye-catching as either of us would like. Purely a function of time. Post trip that’ll be at the top of the list to sort out. No doubt a black powered coat is in store for the mount. Also the remnants of the homologation fender are probably on their way out — at the moment I’m thinking some sort of custom mount for the taillight is in order. I’m just not real keen on the dreaded ‘black tray’… though I suppose it’d make a fine place to place a beer 
Also the Power Commander settings for the BoomTubes aren’t quite perfect yet - I’ll be playing with them on the upcoming adventure and surely there will be a bit more tweaking post-trip as well…
In addition, as you’ll notice from the picts that Alex sourced up some nifty expandable soft FirstGear saddlebags — this will be my first trip of any kind with something other than a factory installed hard mounted set of saddlebags. I have some doubts about them, but of course plenty of folks tour this way, so I suppose it’s bound to work. Just not quite what I’m used to using… As with so many other parts of life, ultimately I guess we’ll see… There’s nothing quite like giving something a go on a long voyage…
All in all, I couldn’t be more pleased at the moment. Great adventure coming down the pike, awesome bike that’s getting progressively more awesome each day and a slowly evolving road map for where it’s headed…
This should be quite an adventure — the riding and the rebuilding 
Another shot of the new BoomTube exhaust
Tail Chop-Suey
Tail Chop-Suey 2
The new Rear Sprocket & Chain
The new Rear Sprocket & Chain Pict 2
Monster Mod #1: Boomshackalacka… Here Come The BoomTubes
Some Custom BoomTubes by Mark Savory @ MotoCreations
Over the past couple of weeks a barrage of parts have made their way into the garage and while on one level it’s somewhat insane to already be planning the destruction of a perfectly good motorcycle only so you can recreate it in your own vision, I’m also fairly certain that somewhere in the basic genetic structure of a Monster lies a series of base pairs that if analyzed would blueprint the need for modification. It seems like something that is intrinsically part of the bike’s soul. Something it doesn’t need, but rather asks for… Rather loudly…
Hunting these parts down has been both an absolute joy and an odyssey in and of itself to say the least. It is amazing how one small picture in a tiny quadrant of the internet can launch your mind in fifteen different directions all at once and lead to several hours of web surfing all in the name of a part that nobody seems to stock stateside. Page after page you struggle to find what you’re looking for. Hours of links later, you’re saying to yourself perhaps it’s not meant to be… But then, just for the shits and giggles of it, you click on that one last link… That one last remaining hope before you truly pack it in and give up… Of course at this point, you’re fully expecting to be let down once again… Only this time, you’re not… Instead you finally see it and this odd sense of web-surfing accomplishment takes hold, as you slightly smirk to yourself and think, ‘Ah ha, I finally found it!’.
Needless to say there’s a certain satisfaction in the picking and choosing of what you want to go on your bike. I know this might sound crazy, but it feels soooooo radically different than the knee-dragging need-for-speed aesthetic of a full-blown sportbike, where the parts you lust after are purely performance based. There’s something quite addictive about starring at a web-page and asking yourself whether or not this bit or that fits with your vision of your own bike and there’s something quite refreshing about equally caring about the looks and the functionality.
One might suggest that you could do the same with a full-blown sportbike but I think that’s a bit of a false assumption in many ways — At some point we all lose focus on the visuals and instead turn our attention to the ends that justify the means. After all, on the most basic level, all sportbike riders subscribe to one simple truth, we run our bikes at cathedrals of speed and we always want to go faster. We want to raise our skills and perfect the craft of performance riding. Amazingly it doesn’t really matter what level you ride at either, the desire for adding bits to increase personal speed exists in exactly the same manor in everyone from the first time track rider to the WERA or CSS vet, I simply think they show it in different ways and on different levels. Ultimately irregardless of whether you time your laps or just count them, in the end everyone wants the illusion that the bits they’re putting on their bikes are making them go faster.
With the Monster it feels different. There’s no pressure to go fast. No need to press the ‘metal’ so to speak. No desire to be the quickest up the mountain. I’ve got other rides built for that purpose. Instead, with the Monster, I feel this strange yet wicked sense of visual adventure. A desire to craft and create a unique personality for the bike and one that echoes both the machine’s soul and mine. Don’t get me wrong, I want the bike to be peppy and go well, but I also want it to be something that’s been created, if not by me, certainly because of me. Something that speaks to my ideals. My desires. My dreams.
Of course every custom project needs a beginning and even though the idea of picking up a Monster has been festering inside for quite awhile, the inspirational launching pad for exactly what kind of Monster it’s going to turn out to be was missing…
But not anymore…
Over the years while shooting different motor-oil based documentaries I’ve had the good fortune to meet quite a few auto industry designers and regardless of whether they’re penning supercars, daily drivers or motorcycles, I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re all remarkably similar in one respect — If you ask them where their inspiration for one of their designs originally came from it’s rarely a big object but rather something very small and particular. A pen, a watch, a toaster, a woman, the eyes of an animal. As a group, almost to a T, they all seem to gravitate towards a specific bit or two of an object that most of us would find quite ordinary and yet they see something magical in it and take that hint of a tread of a thought and build an their vision from it. At first this sort of mindset struck me as a bit odd, but I guess as happens in life sometimes, the more you hang around something you don’t quite understand, the more you begin to get it. And so with the Monster I’ve found myself searching for that one bit that can become the genesis of a well thought out idea. That one particular element that leads to unified vision.
And I found it… In a set of MotoCreations’ BoomTubes…
The second I laid eyes on a set of the Boomtubes I knew I had found my Monster’s inspiration.
The S2R just had to have them. It was that simple. While Termi’s excite me like everyone else, here, with the BoomTubes, was something unusual, super trick and yet also nicely understated. If James Dean rode a Monster, this would be the exhaust system he’d put on. In addition ordering up a set of BoomTubes offered an awesome solution to the most glaring eye-sore on the entire bike, the garish 1 into 2 catalytic converter abomination. (Every time I look at it I shutter. It’s the least Italian looking part of an entirely Italian bike).
Avid Monster fans of course will already know the name MotoCreations - For the past six years Mark Savory and his crew have been knocking out one of a kind custom Ducati bikes, their work has been featured in a number of moto-mags and if you’ve been a Ducati Monster Challenge event, there’ a good chance you’ve even seen their work in person. They’ve especially garnered quite a bit of recognition for their DesmoDevil custom Ducati-Chopper. It’s a love it or hate it kind of bike, but one that is extremely unique no matter how you cut it. (You can read the full backstory on the DesmoDevil here).
The success of the DesmoDevil, along with the rest of their custom business, has lead to Mark and his crew at MotoCreations going into the custom parts business. I say custom and not production because while they are selling their wares to Monster owners around the world, these are unique bits that you’re not going to find on your local Ducati dealership’s website any time soon (At least I don’t think so) and they’re built to order, so if for instance you want a particular tweak done here or there based on your personal taste, for a few extra bucks they’re willing to craft it anyway you want.
In the case of my set of BoomTubes, I was a bit worried about how loud they’d be — I’m all for nice sounding bikes, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve also got a neighborhood full of folks who don’t take kindly to Sunday morning moto-madness wake up calls. A few emails later, Mark worked up a nice set of custom baffles and we were on our way. Problem solved.
Now I’ve just got to find some time to get’em on the bike
MotoCreations Newest Beast
Seems that Mark Savory from MotoCreations has been hard at work on a new custom Monster. As some of you might recall, Mark made some noise last year during the Ducati Monster Challenge with his chopped monster. (See previous posts, “American Chopper meets Italian Muscle” and “LBMC Show: Mark Savorys MotoCreations Ride” for more BG)
According to a post on the Speedzilla Forum, this new custom was inspired by the old vintage boardtrack racer section of the Barber Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, Alabama.
“I wanted to capture the “essence” of the boardtrack racer but with three design criteria — 1) it must be more “art deco” in design; 2) it must be easily identifed as a “custom bike”; and 3) it must utilize a Ducati engine (old single cylinder racing engine).”
According to the post, Mark’s annoucing the bike ahead of schedule because, “a journalist stuck his head in my shop when I wasn’t there and took pictures last week — my latest project in baremetal will be gracing a UK magazine without my authorization here soon. So I wanted to post pictures of MY PROJECT before he does…”
You can read the whole announcement, here and as always, mad props to Mark for thinking up yet another one-of-a-kind retro wonder… Pretty frigg’n cool IMHO.
LBMC Show : Mark Savory’s MotoCreations Ride
I realized today that I completely forgot to mention that while we were at the CycleWorld International Motorcycle Show in Long Beach, we got to check out Mark Savory’s MotoCreations Chopped Monster in person. It was part of the Ducati Monster Challenge - for whatever reason religated to the back of the arena. I’m still a bit unclear as to whether or not the bike was competiting or merely there to showcase what someone can do to a Monster. Of course Mark’s creation is not really a Monster. As I recall it has parts from several different Ducati models and his newest creation according to his website has a 996 motor in it…
Anyway, back to the bike… I don’t have the cash nor am I sure the bike suits my kind of riding, but it’s really quite cool to see in person. You’ve got to hand it to Mark and his crew, when you are up close, near the bike, it seems like some sort of very weird derivative of a bike you know and it’s vaguely familure but not at all what you’re expecting. It’s really easy to see why it’s getting so much attention. I was a bit surprised at how small it seemed - but then the entire Monster line seems smaller to me than I realized. Perhaps I’ve just gotten used to the size of the superbikes, but there’s not a lot of bike on these guys… Perhaps the most impressive part of Mark’s Chopped Monster was the raked out front forks, custom frame and really unique looking handlebars. Just very cool…
