The driving force behind designing and building bikes, for me, usually comes from something I’ve seen and want to put my own spin on. Recently, I saw a particular bike that caught my eye at the Yokohama Bike Show in Japan. I was really impressed with what I saw at the show and I wanted to build something of similar quality. 

 

 

 

This prompted us to create a bike made from aluminum and steel…hence the name, Fifty/Fifty (50/50). Aluminum is an unforgiving material. It doesn’t allow the builder to hide any flaws by covering them up with Bondo and Paint.  It’s a pure material with no bells and whistles to hide under.

 

 

 

 

This project gave me another opportunity to work with my buddy from Bean Town, “Tigman.” From the get-go, it was clear that this was going to be a difficult build. Despite the hardships, the bike is coming together with some hard labor and luck. It didn’t take long for my partner in crime, Roger K, to assist me in the build and bring in the “cool factor” and technical aspects to what I was assembling. Even though many times, this meant tearing down and re-fabricating what I had already put together. Roger’s input and help was greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

Roger always stresses to me that the bike needs to be functional, not just sick looking. Everything else on the bike is financially based purchases such as the Motor and Trans and Primary. And in most cases, money dictates choice, which means that I don’t have a lot of money to purchase what I want, but rather compromise with what I could afford. I figured we could make up the difference by fabricating some cool parts for the bike.

 

The Devil is in the Details as they say.  The next phase is that the bike will be heading to Kustom Fab for the “Icing on the Cake…”