This is going to be a good one for several reasons. Dave is one of the last of a breed, a Sinner member who wears a silver embossed Sinner's belt, black demins, black shades and a black racing jacket with a full faced helmet (white), like a sport bike rider. He's the essence of today's performance chopper builders. He loves the old classic shit, but wants to ride like a sport bike guy.

"I'm done with stuff that doesn't work," Dave said. "I like being able to really ride hard and get on it."

Dave lives in Long Beach, California on the edge of Los Angeles County, where splitting lanes is mandatory and the asphalt runs from the beaches to the mountains in every direction. He knows the lane splitting code of building motorcycles fast, narrow, light and agile.

"That's what you're supposed to do with a bike like this," Dave said. "I'm over bikes that you can't ride or that aren't built to be ridden."

Yeah, if you can't ride it 100 mph between semis parked on a downtown freeway just two feet apart, you ain't shit.

If you read the story in the Horse, Dave's spelled out how he got involved with this project through Brett Smith, the boss of S&S.

"I was caught off guard when Smith asked me if I wanted to build an X-Wedge for them to debut the motor in Japan the following year at Cool Breaker, said Dave" (Cool Breaker is a show in Japan.)

Okay, so he built this bike with the help of Ben Kudon at Rivera Primo, Tara from Brembo Brakes, James Simonelli, his tech helper from S&S, Westminster H-D, Akinori Skamoto, Jon Olson also from S&S, and Fab Kevin and Nelson Kanno who hooked him up with the X-Wedge Build. But there's more to Dave as I mentioned above. He finished the build incorporating a great deal of hand-cast components, which is his old school passion, along with building cool classic Harleys and Triumphs. He cast the tank, the oil tank with the X-Wedge logo, the air cleaner, you name it.

This bike became a mixture of elements from the past, combined with the latest technology from S&S. Every element had to be adjusted for the X-wedge engine and fuel injection system, yet Dave made the bike look light and minimalist.

"Well, the frame itself needs to be different than a normal H-D frame, the mounts are further apart and wider," Dave said. "If my memory serves, ha-ha, that's scary, the front mounts are 1.5 inches further forward from the sprocket shaft centerline and the rear is 1 inch further back, as well as being about 2 inches wider front and rear. Also, it uses 7/16-in. bolts instead of 3/8-in. As far as a top motor mount, the motor uses two 3/8-in. bolts that thread into the heads. You will need to make a top mount, even though S&S will probably make their own at some point."

Let's jump back to the old school casting element. He also made his wheels. "No one made a dished skinny 21-inch mag," Dave noted.

So he called Jeff Wright of Church of Choppers. "Do a Moto mag," Jeff said.

"I never rode BMX in the '80s," Dave said. "I skated and broke stuff, but never on a bicycle."

Dave cut the wheels from blanks and had the Moto design machined into them with Jeff's help. But the more I looked at the bike, the more I noticed cast parts like the pegs, brass badges, and license plate plaque. I know this shit is catching on and Dave's a source, so I asked him about the process.

On to Page 2...