If you’re after a cute little bobbed street tracker, you’d be hard pressed to find a better donor than the Kawasaki W800. Right out of the box it has a great stance, it?s relatively easy to hack around, and its punchy air-cooled motor is a work of art.
The W800 is also pretty compact. Weight-wise it’s in the same ballpark as the Triumph Street Twin?but a lot of that weight is comes from parts like bulky mufflers and massive chromed fenders. And those are usually the first things to get binned.

The odds are stacked even more in your favor if the guy working on your Kawasaki is ‘Max’ Ma Yicheng. Based in Taipei, Taiwan?like Rough Crafts?Max runs 2LOUD Custom and has a talent for metal shaping and finding a great line. His skills are on full display on this pretty-in-pink custom, built in the classic Japanese style and based on a 2016 model W800. It starts with the hand-made fuel tank, designed with a slimming effect, and a front neck tunnel that’s reminiscent of classic enduros. Since the W800 is fuel injected, Max had to install an external fuel pump to keep things flowing.

His handiwork extends to the side covers and rear fender too. He’s also shortened and re-looped the subframe with a neat little kick-up at the back. And there’s a quirky new saddle up top, refinished in leather and suede.
The frame’s been freed of its passenger peg brackets and de-tabbed, and Max has made subtle changes like drilling out the guss...