Choice Chopper

CHOICE CHOPPER

Long, lean and very clean

THERE IS NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, SUBTLE about Mike Maldonado's chopper. But then again, the hand-crafted custom was never intended to be discreet. 'I just wanted a real radical, outlaw-style bike," says the 36-year-old fabricator, "an in-your-face bike!"

That, it is. Measuring almost 10 unbelievable feet from stem to stem, the elegant-looking bike is endowed with some very untraditional traits. You can’t possibly miss, for example, the 54-inch-long steel inverted fork, the single-sided swingarm with integrated taillight or the offset,

100-spoke rear wheel plucked from a low-rider car.

Strange combination? Yes indeed, but there is a method to this implied madness. Or so says Maldonado: “A lot of people are building ’60s-style long bikes with Softail and rigid frames-real old-school stuff. I wanted the look of the ’60s and ’70s California chopper, but mated with new Japanese and European technology.” Nothing better demonstrates this concept than the futuristically fluid, molded steel frame that gracefully envelops the rubber-mounted 113-inch S&S-built engine. According to Maldonado, that 1853cc V-Twin makes a more-than-respectable 152 rear-wheel horsepower at 6500 rpm, with 123 foot-pounds of torque at 6500 rpm.

This machine is something of a departure from Maldonado’s first bike, dubbed “Rational Radical,” in the October, 1997, issue of Cycle World. “This bike is a chopper, where that first bike was more of a hot-rod,” Maldonado points out. “But they share some of the same styling cues, metalwork and smooth lines. If you put them side by side, you can tell the same person built them.” Getting down to the nitty-gritty, though, the only component the bikes truly share is the patent-pending rear brake, a setup that synthesizes the brake itself with the belt-drive pulley. Unique to this bike are the aforementioned swingarm, ultra-long fork and wire-spoke wheels. The chopper also is endowed with hidden dual shocks working through a single machined-from-billetaluminum linkage. And don’t forget the dual 42mm Mikuni carburetors or the mongo-wide 4-inch primary belt. Oh, and did we mention that the bike boasts a whopping 48 degrees of rake?

“It’s just a mind-blowing bike,” sums up Maldonado, who rides the chopper regularly around his San Clemente, California, home. “It actually handles pretty well, although it is more of a straight-line flyer. It’s just a motor and a frame, really.”

Pretty self-deprecating description for a bike that Maldonado says is worth about $70,000. “It’s a statement of fusing the new with the old. I wanted to build something I was proud of,” he says. “This is not an ego stroke, but there’s nothing else like it. I’m just trying to stay one step ahead of everybody else.”

With two well-received customs firmly planted under his bike-building belt, Maldonado is close to his goal of launching a custom motorcycle company. Plus, he already has a concept in mind for his next foray into fabrication, not that he’s giving away any hints just yet.

One step ahead of everybody else, Mr. Maldonado? Try several. —Wendy F. Black