Twinshock Twins: Two Yamaha flat trackers built to run
Alex Winkler wears many hats. By day he?s an industrial mechanic?but by night, he puts those skills to work in his home garage, restoring and rebuilding vintage bikes. When the weekend rolls around, Alex wheels his creations out of the garage and goes racing.
While we can all appreciate a no-expense-spared showroom build, there?s something special about home-made customs that are built to be ridden. Alex lives and breathes this philosophy. Both of the bikes you see here?a 1978 Yamaha SR500 and a 1980 Yamaha XS650?also happen to be his personal flat track racers.
Based in Stuttgart, Germany, Alex has been building his own bikes for the last 10 years as Twinshock Motorcycles. The SR500 was actually one of the first motorcycles he ever put a wrench to. He originally picked the bike up for around $900 on eBay, with a view to building a café racer out of it. It was in rough shape and barely running, so Alex started by rebuilding the engine, bumping the displacement up to 620 cc in the process.
He tackled the cylinder head work himself as well, which included porting, polishing, and machining to accommodate larger valves. Megacycle performance cams were installed for good measure.
Alex also added a full hand-made exhaust system, from the manifold to the silencer. A fresh Mikuni TM40 flatslide pumper carb was added, and the stock airbox was swapped for a less restrictive pod filter, to keep things running smoothly.
By the time the engine went back together, the little caf...
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