Done To A Tee: Nigel Petrie?s immaculate R nineT chopper
Nigel Petrie is a bike builder who deserves way more attention than he gets. Despite his next-level fabrication skills and Born Free show invites, he tends to fly under the radar outside his native Australia. Which is a shame, because he doesn?t only build kickass bikes?he also builds incredible cars too, such as the Toyota Hilux ?Drift Ute.?
Motorcycles have fascinated Nigel since his childhood days, growing up on the outskirts of a tiny rural town, some 200 kilometers away from Melbourne. Being outside mainstream life maybe explains why there?s nothing conventional about his builds.
Nigel has already turned a KTM 350 SX-F into a salt flat racer, and he?s now turned a BMW R nineT into a slim, elegant chopper with a 21st century vibe.
A boxer-powered BMW is not the first platform one usually thinks of when building a chopper. And Nigel already has a vintage Harley in his garage. So how did this strange business start"
BMW Motorrad kicked things off in 2019 with a delivery to Nigel?s Engineered To Slide workshop, on the Deakin University campus in Geelong.
“I picked up a brand new R nineT Racer,? Nigel tells us. ?I unboxed it and tore it down?but only kept the engine, rear drive unit and rear brake. I was riding an R nineT Scrambler at the time and loved the way it rode. I also loved skinny choppers, and was always wondering if the two could ever be combined in a tasteful manner.”
“It was all a bit of a guessing game,? Nigel admits. ?Anything ...
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