Written by Andrew Jones
From the get go, it was clear to us that Johan Balsvik wasn’t your average custom bike builder. From his ?Here’s my Ducati Pantah thing? introductory email to describing his job as ?Swedish railway development,? we kind of suspected that the guy was a little out there. But little did we know… Here’s his latest custom bike – one that he describes as being inspired by ?Troy Bayliss, Paul Smart, 70s coffin choppers and Picasso.? Meet the wild ?Imola Homage? Ducati Pantah 500.

Johan Balsvik is a private builder, 56-year-old father of four, railway engineer and crayfish fan who has made and renovated pretty much everything he possibly could over the years: hot-rods, choppers, race bikes, wooden boats, street motorcycles and much, much more. However, he readily admits that he’s always relied on a kind of conservative thinking that ?determines? what things should look like before they are even built – but not any more.
The bike’s foundation stones consist of an ?81 Ducati Pantah 500 frame, an ?02 Ducati Monster 750 engine and electronics, and an ?06 Honda CBR1000RR FireBlade front and rear end. The end result of this wild mash-up would be a design that intentionally kept the Honda’s geometry in order for the chassis to move and behave properly. While Johan had clearly set out to do a little shock and awe-ing visually, he was determined that the bike’s handling shouldn’t do the same....