When a tough 90s Ducati 900 SS with upgraded suspension appeared on Market at a value too good to disregard, Matt Coulter of Sticky’s Velocity Store jumped within the van. He factored that, with a minor tidy, the Ducati would make the right each day runner, with the potential to drag double responsibility as a monitor hack. Not a snowball’s probability in hell.
It’s a story as outdated as time. A serial builder purchases a brand new machine, with a faint promise to themselves to maintain it inventory. However as soon as your eyes get better from the lightning-bolt assault you see earlier than you, and you’ll see past the peacocking paint job, you’ll discover that this Ducati 900 SS is a major leap past “a minor tidy.”
Matt takes up the story; “I used to be approached by Hitchcox, who construct customized exhausts. They requested if I used to be engaged on any attention-grabbing tasks that they might collaborate on to advertise their ‘Design Your Personal’ exhaust program. I wasn’t, however, I did have concepts brewing for that 900 SS”.
The concept that stored combating its method to the floor? A composite body; half metal, half aluminum. By means of committing to the venture, Matt fired up the grinder and lower the unsuspecting Ducati in two. Hitchcox was on board, and the all too imminent deadline of the 2024 Bike Shed Moto Present was set.
The entrance part of the body was despatched to Powder Worx for a swift masking of satin black, whereas the rear was discarded. The lowered Ducati was then transported to Steelheart Engineering in Kent, the place Matt and his frequent collaborator, Lee Mitchell, set about constructing the aluminum portion of the half-and-half body.
“Lee is an absolute legend in motorbike constructing who relishes difficult engineering options,” describes Matt. “We’ve got a like-minded method to creating one thing distinctive in addition to purposeful, he’s an actual pleasure to work with.”
After a lot forwards and backwards on the design, the CNC machine was fired as much as create the flowery body plates, earlier than Lee began work on the tubular subframe. At this level, with the venture clearly in a giddy freefall, Matt couldn’t assist however activity Lee with creating an excellent, twin-tube swingarm.
With the body and arm full, the title Arfa was bestowed upon the bike; ‘arfa this, ‘arfa that. Then it was on the street as soon as extra, to Hitchcox’s HQ close to Silverstone. There, Hitchcox founder Tom and his crew pulled no punches within the design and fabrication of the titanium, twin under-seat exit, full system.
Routed by the body of the bike, rigorously navigating the shock whereas giving ample area to the under-seat electrics, the 1 mm wall-thickness titanium tubing is a murals. At its finish lie twin 2” silencers, with customized titanium billet finish element taper rings, and outrageous titanium louver cores.
On accumulating the Ducati from Hitchcox, Matt, no stranger to unique elements, was left gobsmacked. “From entrance to again, it was excellent, with flawless bends and welds throughout. Photos won’t ever do it justice—it needs to be seen within the flesh to be absolutely appreciated.”
Again at his Essex workshop, Matt set about assembling a curated collection of elements to finish the venture. A prime fairing for a Suzuki RG500 MK2 was equipped by King Carbon to enhance a cut-down Yamaha TZ tail unit that Matt had rescued from a race bike scrapheap.
Ducati 916 forks had been secured from Market, and a dusty set of Dymag wheels from a Yamaha R1 street racer had been retrieved from a shelf, the place they’d been ready patiently for simply such a venture. Michelin’s new Energy GP2 monitor tires had been ordered to finish the wheelset, whereas Hel Efficiency equipped brake calipers, axial to radial bracketry, levers, grasp cylinders, and hoses, to create a package deal that may flip corners as quick as heads.
And so, onto that delicate, oh so understated, livery.
Pal and co-conspirator, Alex at AK Customized Paintworks, was roped in to assist understand Matt’s extrovert paint plan. The preliminary concept was to create a colour gradient from entrance to rear in graffiti paint, topped off with heavy coats of lacquer. However after a number of makes an attempt, Matt wasn’t happy that the fact of the gradient matched the imaginative and prescient of his thoughts’s eye…
“We messed about with the concept of lightning bolts and metallic black,” he says. And when their eyes had recovered from the appreciable hours spent masking and de-masking an inordinate quantity of zig-zagging bolts, the pair may lastly stand again and see what they’d created.
“There have been no disappointments! Splats and dots of imperfect graffiti fade, offset by the sharp, exact strains of masked-off metallic black, buried in a number of coats of deep gloss lacquer.” One final cease was made to Picture Worx in Essex (Matt’s day-to-day enterprise) for a number of little stickers earlier than the bike was prepared to indicate.
The ultimate piece of the puzzle was the seat, upholstered by Baz at B.M.Okay Artistic, and fitted after the bike was wheeled onto its plinth on the Bike Shed Present. Regardless that the bike had departed removed from its Italian heritage, inspiration for the seat got here from Ducati’s homeland.
“I had seen a number of outdated Ferraris with punched leather-based bands working throughout the seats,” explains Matt. “Baz, as all the time, enjoys a problem and was all around the probability to copy what I’d seen on a small bike seat. I believe it’s secure to say he nailed it.”
Within the firm of 270 customized machines on the Present, Arfa’s extraordinary paint scheme stopped all of their tracks. Nevertheless it was what lay beneath that neon eyeful that stored them rooted to the spot. It’s a ‘bitsa’ of the perfect variety, born from the loopy yearning for a composite body, and realized by the extremely expert community of craftsmen and fabricators Matt has rallied to the Sticky’s Velocity Store banner.
The final phrases go to Matt; “Large due to everybody who helped deliver this complete factor collectively in such a brief time frame. Displaying simply what will be finished when nice minds and pushed individuals put their ardour right into a venture!”
Sticky’s Velocity Store Instagram | Photographs by Thomas Kettlety
