This is the story of the Dragon's Sled

PART II

Work on the rear fender cut and seat pan:

Now is time for the paint. It was used PPG Metal Silver as a base to paint the graphics with black. Here George Mendoza at work:

Next, the bike was painted with PPG's Candy Orange Glow paint:

Finally, the built of the dream:

While Chris built the modifications, we decided to enter the bike for the first Puerto Rico Bike Show event. Now the work was against the clock to finalize the bike for the show. Since now we were thinking bigger, a spectacular paint job needed to be done. PPG decided to sponsor the bike and donated the paint, a Kandy Apply Orange over Silver Metal base was selected. For the graphics, I decided to surprise my daughter Marirosa, a dragon lover, with a phantom dragon theme based on the movie “Reign of Fire”. My Nephew Victor de la Cruz, a sketch artist, made all the designs on paper and Chris hired George Mendoza, an airbrush artist to do the graphics.

 Long hours were invested in building this bike, but I really enjoyed every second. Several friends helped bolting on parts and I learned in the process a lot of what will going to be my dream bike. The build was finished on June 2005, the day before father’s day, and entered in the P.R. Bike Show contest. Once it entered the PPG tent, it grabbed the attention of all spectators. The next day, it came out with the Best of Show price and trophy.

These are pictures of the 2005 Puerto Rico Bike Show, where my bike won the Best of Show award:

A lot of things were learned in the process. The bike was built for a show and won, but I wanted the bike to run in the streets, not only a bike to trail for a show. The air suspension was too bouncy, pipes and kick stand were too low and touched floor while leaning left or right, engine was not running smooth, and had a lot of problems with the Exile Sproctor that impede me to enjoy the ride. Also the long chain required the installation of two rollers that I wanted to cover.

 One of the first modifications I did was to replace the air shocks with Progressive ones and move higher the kickstand. This job was done by Sammy from Professional Motorcycle Services. For proper engine tune-up, I hired the services of Marcos Sandoval from MAS Custom Creations. He put the bike on a dyno machine and jetted the carburetor, fixed an intake leak and adjusted the ignition. The results were noticeable and bike was running smooth.

While there, Marcos recommended doing some changes to make the bike fully rideable. Getting rid of the Sproctor was a high priority for me since while driving in a high way, the friction melted the caliper seals and the brake fluid ignited creating a small fire. Following Marcos’ advice, I purchased the Profab Pro-Tranz Transmission/Brake system. That helped clean the rear of the bike and allowed me to put the RC Components Gladiator rear sprocket. Several more changes were in schedule that required re-painting some parts and in some cases re-painting the Dragon graphics, so we used the services of Armando Medina, the bike painter from MAS Custom Creations to do the job. Among the changes, I wanted to create a custom chain cover not to hide the chain, but to cover the rollers with the same graphic design as the seat. Some other cosmetic changes: hiding the clutch/brake lines, creating a handlebar plate cover, custom pipes with custom heat shields and modifications to front fender with the same cut as the rear one that required a completely re-paint of graphics.

 The final work was astonishing. The bike runs very well with a great custom look at the same time. The new pipes don’t touch the ground and the performance is awesome. Riding the bike around the town, or riding along the beach is a blast. Puerto Rico is an island that has a lot of back roads, especially through the mountains and they are very curvy ones. Riding this bike in such scenario is very easy. People think that such a long bike with a rear 300 tire is difficult to manage and control. Making sharp turns is like riding on rails and in high way speeds, I may loose the handlebars at 80 mph without a wobble. Finally the Pro-Tranz brakes very well, better than previous setup.

 If you want a bike to ride around town, the mountains or long trips, this Big Bear Chopper model is perfect. The decision of building a custom bike based on a proven model was right on the money and I’m very happy for it. The best advice I may give to people that want to do the same, is to pay attention to the details, specially watch the leaning angles and avoid anything that may touch ground and spoil your ride in the curvy roads. Also hire a professional to finally tune the engine and avoid scarifying the safety for the looks.