A recent comment on my sport chopper post was interesting, Curt Winter mentioned he had built a few bikes, some based on the V-twin sportbike idea and he was pretty pleased with their performance. Curt sent in a few photos and I immediately asked for details, I liked what I saw.
Curt builds American sport bikes with a mixture of carefully selected parts, fabrication skills and an eye for what works. This latest build sports a 100 inch RevTech engine and 6 speed transmission, Pro-One wheels, inverted Ceriani forks, Progressive rear shock and 4 piston Brembo brakes. The frame is all Curt’s own work made from 1.5inch tubing with a 25 degree rake, it carries the oil in the frame in the neck gussets. The gas tank is handmade from .090 aluminum and carries just over 3.5 gallons. The tail section is GSX-R. He has about 5 months in the bike, you don’t whip something like this together in 10 days for TV.
Curt has been building bikes for quite a few years. One of his bikes, back in 1997, caught the eye of Thunder Press magazine when he was on the Redwood Run in northern California and they thought he should attend a Buell event the following weekend. He did, and won best sportbike at the show. Everyone, including Erik Buell, liked Curt’s bike a lot. Since that time, he has done some prototype work for Arlen Ness, working on his Y2K bike and also built the front half of the frame and mounted the W3 engine in Cory Ness’ chopper for the recent biker build off.
Curt works with his Dad in a fabrication business in Hayward, CA where his fab skills are put to good use. His plans are to produce more of these V-twin sport bikes and if this is any indication of the kind of work he does, Curt could do quite well.
As I mentioned before, there is a lot of fabrication and building talent out there and it would be nice to see it applied to something besides choppers. If we can develop the idea of the American Sportbike Build Off, Curt will be on our list.
see also:
Sportbiker build off
Custom sportbike frames
Chopper vs Sportbike build off
Sport Choppers
electricmotorcycles.net says
Very, very, nice Curt.
hoyt says
Curt, hopefully Speed Channel or Discovery will give you a call.
Your frame and swingarm look highly effective AND beautiful….showing the mechanical components & chassis engineering is a timeless design. Add in performance & it will get raves
thanks Curt and Kneeslider.
tom clasen says
Where I reach Curt Winter and his Father`s Fab shop-they look like just the people for a project I`m working on but cant seem to finish?
Andrew Shaw says
Hey nice bike! I’ve been thinking of making an american sport but I need to knwo if a v twin engine could be a stressed compnent in the frame. I think it would hold but I dont know.