?It?s been a while since a project made me nervous. But this one definitely did,? says John. ?Partly because ?Classifying? a modern sportbike is a rarity, and partly because the bike was shipped all the way from Hawaii.
?It?s not like the customer could just swing by and collect it if we weren?t coming up with any decent ideas!?

?Basically a 190 mph urban assault bike for blasting around Oahu,? says John.
Ron had a few simple but far-reaching requests, mostly for safety inspection reasons: he wanted to keep the existing tank, and not make any major frame or swing arm mods. He also wanted an under-seat exhaust. Otherwise, John could have his way.

?We used copious amounts of reflective heat shielding, and played with the air gap between the subframe and muffler to stop the seat from getting hot,? says John. ?I imagine in Hawaii, there?s no upside to a heated seat.? Since a GSX-R1000 has around 180 horsepower, the nature of this project was mostly cosmetic and ergonomic. But John took the bike to Redline Performance Motorsports in Yorktown, Virginia, anyway.

?We also did an inventory of all the stamped steel brackets that were never meant to see the light of day. Danik replaced them with some really elegant and strong pieces that fit the look much better.?
There?s also a neat stainless steel overflow reservoir for the coolant. To keep an eye on the level, John and Danik came up with a sight glass configuration that looks super trick.

Not surprisingly, several hands...