If you have any doubt that honesty, ethics, and persistence will lead you to success, then check out Mike Powers, the owner of Powers Custom Cycles in Burbank, California. Mike is a veteran of 25 years of hard work in the auto industry, from doing body work in a repair shop to building custom cars, he has graduated into building his own successful line of bikes. Now, while this story isn't especially new, what is cool about all this is that it hasn't gone to his head. Mike doesn't sell his bikes for sums equaling the Gross National Product of a small European nation. Instead, he makes bikes that encompass exceptional quality and detail, and sells them to, as he puts it, "Joe every guy" who has a family to support and who doesn't have a stack of cash to burn on a custom bike.
What makes the whole thing even more attractive is that Mike doesn't skimp on his designs either. Mike was in the first group of builders to design and produce a dedicated hardtail frame to fit around the 280 Metzeler tire, called the Lady Tamer 280. The result of this effort produced the Lady Tamer 280 frame and the bike that is shown on these pages.
Since Mike has a small operation, he teamed up with Santee to build his frames. The Lady Tamer 280 used in this project had its neck raked to 43 degrees and carried an extra 10 inches in the downtubes and 6 more in the backbone.
To get the project off the bench and onto the floor, Mike added American Suspension 6-degree triple-trees to give the bike a long look. He bolted 18-inch-over 63mm inverted forks, also made by American Suspension, into the triple-trees, then installed his own Bad Ass rim, a 21-incher with an 80/90 Avon on it, and in the rear, an 18x10-inch rim was covered in a mile-wide-looking 280 Metzeler. Powers' own rotors were bolted on, and stop-sign management came from a pair of GMA calipers, a two-piston unit up front and a four-piston out back.
To move the project along, Mike turned his attention to filling the hole in the frame with a driveline. He ordered a potent 110ci RevTech unit that was cracked open on arrival to allow the installation of a 0.620 cam. Mike bolted the motor to the framerails and installed a tranny he had filled with his own six-speed gearset and a Scorpion clutch. He tied it all together with a BDL 3-inch open beltdrive, and finished it off with a Mikuni carb and velocity stack, a Crane ignition, and a set of pipes he fabricated for the bike.
At this point Mike needed sheetmetal to cover the bike. First, he fabbed a teardrop tank with a pop-up gas cap that fit perfectly on the backbone. Then, a Sumax front fender was cut into a clean shape that tapered down low in the rear. Mike found an MGS rear fender with a radius that matched the Metzeler rear, so that too was trimmed, installed, and mated to a pair of external struts that flow from fender to frame. To finalize the sheetmetal mock-up, a Powers barrel-style oil tank/battery box was installed under the seat.
Mike looked at the mock-up and was satisfied with everything his gaze fell upon, so he tore it all apart and gave the frame, tank, and fenders to Spider at Excellent Autobody who applied a liberal dose of House of Kolor Tango Orange basecoat to everything. When the parts came back from the painter, Mike was thrilled with how they had turned out. He still wanted to add his own personal touch, so he added contrasting black scallops, brushed on a bit of pinstripe, and then very a patriotic graphic to the oil tank and other places on the bike. Then, he added many coats of clear, which were later buffed into a mirror-like gloss.