Written by Andrew Jones
We wear our hearts on our sleeves when it comes to Yamaha?s good ol? Virago Vee. We bloody well love ?em but boy, we’ve seen a damn heap of them. So needless to say that it takes something a little special for us to notice them nowadays. Enter Denver?s 485 Designs and their rather unique chain-driven XV920. And by ?unique?, we mean ?tough, stanced and with a technically sublime Ducati rear end.? Check it out…

?We?re located just south of Denver, Colorado,? says the shop’s Nick Mercer. ?We’re always staying busy doing something interesting with these old bikes. It is just me and my co-worker, who’s also named Nik.? Sounds confusing. ?The other builds consist of a couple more Viragos – one being a turbo build. We have also been working on marketing our products including exhausts, sub frames, powder coating and fabrication. We will be attending the 2019 Handbuilt show with this very bike.?
Nick 1 says that he feels most people would consider it a ?cafe? but he can?t ? or would prefer not to ? put a label on what style it is. ?Technically, it’s a Yamaha XV920R from 1982. But the build didn?t exactly start out as a complete bike. I acquired the motor off Craigslist about two years ago and had it shipped to the shop from Maine. I started gathering parts from there to build a complete bike.?
Pastels and power
The boys say that their inspiration for the build was to simply make a clean finished product. ?We see s...