Yamaha XS1100

One Speed's ‘Shokker’

 
All hail the dark(ness) lord - meet One Speed's latest little surprise

"Sensible." It's a word that has scuppered more good ideas than any blatant negativity or nay-sayers. It's also the difference between goodness and greatness. Doing everything by the book can only get you so far, but the sign of a true thinker is the way they ignore the "right way" and somehow find logic and magic in the unexpected, or the path less travelled. And in Ontario Canuck Trevor Daley's case the path was less travelled probably because he sprayed the ashphalt into the sky with a turbo-charged 1100cc engine the way a wood chipper dispatches trees. Meet the bike most likely responsible for the first piece of bitumen in outer space - One Speed's "Shokker."

More patina than Keith Richards - better looking, too

Here's Trevor. "The name says it all, "one speed." My personal background stems from years of racing and fabrication on open wheel and endurance prototype cars. That experience, working in a custom hot rod and Harley shop, combined with riding motocross bikes from the age of 3 and now competing in the Canadian Superbike championship series at the age of 26 has given me many years and many different genres that I have drawn inspiration from in developing my own personal style of bike building."

Looks like spaghetti, sounds like the devil gargling

"If I'm working on preparing a race bike or building a custom vintage, my approach is the same. #1 performance, #2 function and #3 style and the way I see it is if it's fast and rides well and appeals to my personal taste, it can't help but be bad ass to those who like the same styles as me... and even maybe for those who don't. I approach each bike build as if I were doing it for myself, and then add a personal touch for each individual customer."

“my goal was to be able to roll onto the throttle
in almost every gear and smoke the rear tire”

"In my experiences I have seen many builders approach bike builds differently, some strive very hard to be different, while others look to current and past builds for inspiration. This bike was my first "vintage" chop that I did and has seen a few different looks in the process. I purchased this bike from the original 1978 owner out of a barn full of chickens where it had sat since 1986; initially I got the bike running, moved some suspension pick-up points around to make the bike fun to ride, and removed all the clutter it came with from the dealer. It soon there after had a turbo charger on it from an Audi with a complete custom turbo setup I built. Again "one speed." My goal was to be able to roll into the throttle in almost every gear and smoke the rear tire - and it sure did."

"As my shop grew and i built other bikes, interest in the sale of this bike came up. A slightly more conservative power set-up was decided upon... no more turbo. So again I looked at this bike and though, "what would I do next if i were to continue to ride it?" The end result is what you now see.

FZR clip-ons, a CBR front brake master, Triumph 675 triple rear shocks along with electric no-lift GP shift were just a few things I did. This bike I named the "Shockker"... not to be confused with the popular hand gesture. It refers to how I changed from the convention rear mount shocks to a custom built dual shock, rocker system for the rear suspension. I cut the frame at the neck and rebuilt the back bone to fit a '78 XS-650 gas tank, built a custom seat supported by a titanium rear push rod I built for my last years race bike (Ducati 749r). Braided lines, Bridgestone tri-compound tires, tuned ignition and lots of time jetting the bike made it fast and fun to ride. One part on this bike that maybe over shadows the frame changes is the exhaust I built to replace the turbo setup."

"A good man died to get us this information" - a rare shot of the bike with the lights on

"It remains to be one of the craziest set of headers I've built and the reality is I didn't build them for looks at all. The largest difference from cylinder to cylinder in pipe length is 4mm - this is the reason behind the wild curves and routing of the pipes.

All said and done this bike is simple looking and the more you look, the more you see that jumps out. It feels much lighter than it once did with the original suspension setup and it keeps up with new age sport bikes as it shoots a flame a foot out the pipe on each upshift with the shift kill."

Trevor with the Shokker in a previous, more insane incarnation

If you like what you (just) see here, why not head over to One Speed's Facebook page and check out some of their other builds? You'll find some pretty interesting stuff both past and future... and trust us when we say that Trevor looks to have some more amazing bikes on the way. You'll see 'em here first.

photos by the obviously talented Brendan J Watts

via PipeBurn