Busy bike shops are a bit like hurricanes when it comes to time, which flows through them like 100-mph winds. Whenever you hit the eye of the storm, that's when you can start making a motorcycle for yourself.
Shane Fraser has a serious grasp of this concept. He's the production manager for Phantom Choppers in Wasila, Alaska, and this is the bike he and Director of Operations Jay Shearer came up with when he finally hit a calm spot and went forward with making his personal bike.
It started when Shane got tired of watching other folks' rides roll out of the shop and wanted one for himself. So he went to Jay to check out which designs were on the drawing board, and between them they came up with this scoot, which they named "Throwback 200." While they were at it, they decided to make it the prototype for a new Phantom production custom.
It's definitely a bobber, but with a racing look to it. Shane had to have something he could ride hard and put away wet, and that's what he got. They cut and welded a hardtail frame raked 35 degrees and stretched 2 inches in the back. To this he added TC Wheels' Deja Vu wheels, which have a look reminiscent of the old Vaders from the '70s. Between the mellow frame geometry and Avon 200 back tire, he put together a pretty rider-friendly platform for his chop.
However, "rider-friendly" is a politically correct way of saying "prone to hooliganism," and knowing that, it's not exactly a shock that Shane went a bit big on the powerplant with a 107-inch El Bruto. Phantom added its signature to the motor with the company's own air cleaner and a set of pipes with end caps that, in an interesting twist, multitask as brackets to the frame.
The tanks and back fender are Phantom's own animals as well, but here they ran into some internal controversy. Originally Shane planned on mounting the gas tank atop the backbone in '70s bobber fashion, but at the last minute he decided to drop it low on the bone for a more streamlined look. Opinions flew back and forth among the guys at the shop; normally the customer would just get what he wanted, but since Throwback was also a production prototype, it wasn't just up to Shane. However, being the number-two guy in the company has its perks, and in the end the matter was dropped (pun intended).
The low tank and short stance are throwbacks to '60s Euro racers, but Fraser added in a set of apes in American chopper tradition. From there it was on to the paint booth for red metalflake, white, skulls, and an interesting twist. After taking a hard look at where Throwback stood, Shane and Jay were pretty stoked with it but found something lacking: You can't have a race bike without a number. They wracked their brains for ideas: shoe sizes, mothers' birthdays, a full range of ideas. Jay thought it should be something a little more universal, like, say, maybe a police code. He looked through the code list and found the perfect fit: 311-Loud and Obscene. Which, not so coincidentally, describes Shane pretty well. It took 10 weeks to bring Throwback 200 to fruition, and it was none too soon; the storm had kicked up again, and Fraser was back to making sure customers got their bikes. At least now he had his own badass ride to smile about after work.