"This time I want a big fat, I mean the fattest, back tire. I want a long low stretched frame. And It's all gotta flow together." That's about all the direction I got from Ken Caminiti for his second Steed. We built his first Clydesdale Musclebike back in 1996. The year that Ken was playing for the San Diego Padres, which was the same year he was the National League MVP. This time I got the challenge from Ken to build the Best Bike I've ever built.

Ken was now playing for the Texas Rangers. He and Golden Glove All-Star catcher Ivan 'Pudge' Rodriguez had met at spring training and both decided that they wanted new Surgical-Steeds motorcycle built specially for them. They flew me out to an exhibition game in Los Angeles to have a face-to-face meeting to discuss the details of their machines. That day they beat the Angels and were in a great mood. "The sky's the limit. Go for it." That was music to my ears. How often do you get the chance to build the ultimate bike with a pro Baseball players signing bonus budget? It also presented a real dilemma. Two bikes, two deep pockets, and two big egos. How would I build two ultimate motorcycles without making them identical.

What you see here is what I invisioned as the Ultimate Cammy Steed. I started with the first Daytec 250 wide-tire Softail frame. This was one of the first that Phil Day designed for us with a triangulated swing arm, so it would look like a rigid frame. We stretched the chassis a full five inches forward and tossed in a dramatic forty-degree rake. That should handle the requirements of fat, long and low. I e-mailed Cammy on the road with a ton of scanned photos of billet wheel designs and he chose a Performance Machine design. With an 18" 250 Avon gripper on the rear and a 21" on the leading edge I almost had a rolling chassis.

About a month into the design process I was at the Laughlin River Run and ran across Roger Goldammers' show trailer rig. Rodger lives up in Canada, and when he gets snowed in during the winter his imagination runs wild. His version of "Cabin Fever" is what you see in his design on the triple trees. I had to have one of these for Cammy's rolling masterpiece.

Ken ended up with the first production of Roger's latest trees. Goldammer begins his tree-building process with a solid 125-pound block of billet aluminum. After almost 40 hours of machine time running a CAD/ CAM programmed mold-making milling machine, you wind up with the ultimate in engineering design and function. Capped off with special Perse Performance 41mm sculpted lower legs and the bike was beginning to take on a stunning profile.

My shop is located in Scottsdale, Arizona and this bike was going to find a home in Houston, Texas. That's about 1200 miles from my base of operation, so I wanted a very reliable drive train. Big is cool, but it's got to start every time. I enlisted the expertise of Nigel Patrick to build his first Dual-Plug heads (two spark plugs per cylinder) along with a compression release motors. He made a 113-inch Musclebike motor that cranked over with ease. Ken's bike has the first set of "round" billet cylinders that came out of Nigel's workshop too. I had them polish the motor to a mirror finish prior to assembly to match the Baker 6 speed Tranny that would deliver all that power to the ground. Tying the motor to the transmission is a Rivera / Primo 3-inch, open belt-drive with an Evolution Industries belt guard to protect the his high-buck pant-leg. Keith Terry supplied the 2.0 kw high torque starter. This beast cranks over effortlessly every time. What a relief to find the right combination of components that will deliver the goods constantly.

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