![]() I am a scavenger and it tickles me to spend as little money on builds as possible. What was the design concept and what influenced the build?.What’s the make, model, and year of the donor bike?Īfter owning, racing, and building many Yamaha XS’s, I have become very fond of them and I enjoy seeing how many different forms they work in: flat tracker, road racer, hard tail, adventure, and now motocrosser.I won the 450 class at Pikes Peak in 2012 and used my winnings to open up my own service shop, where I do mostly performance metric work like engine building and suspension tuning. My life has been racing and wrenching on bikes for over 25 years now. Please tell us a bit about yourself, your history with motorcycles, and your workshop.I find myself jumping jumps on it that should not see flight from a street bike.”īelow, we get the full story from Travis on the details of the build, and more gorgeous shots from his friend and photographer Jon Wallace. ![]() ![]() It has no problem spinning the rear wheel with a crack of the wrist. It reminds me of riding a big wave runner for some reason. ![]() “It is a bit top heavy and just plain heavy. Travis says the “Excess 750” might be a tank on the track, but he makes it work against the production motocross bikes of the same era: Nicknamed the “Excess 750,” this massive XS650 motocrosser has a stock frame with an RM swing arm, YZ front end / rear wheel, DT400 tank, first-gen Öhlins remote reservoir shocks that Travis restored, and a very trick set of stainless straight pipes welded up by his buddy Gary Pasquale of MONA Creations. The rest of the bike is mostly stock parts frankenstiened together.” “The engine is pretty heavily breathed upon, as that is what I do for a living. Travis decided to give the veteran race motor quite the retirement - some golden years on a motocross track! When he built a fresh motor for his XS650 flat tracker not too long ago, the old engine - a heavily-massaged 775cc unit - needed a home. Travis still keeps his foot in a number of racing disciplines. She is my do-all and she makes me ‘Pink to Purple’ every time!” With just what most business owners consider pocket change, and the moral support of a good lady, Newbold’s Motorbike Shop was born.” –Travis, Meta Honda CRFX-framed CRF450R-engine Pikes Peak Special: “She ain’t no show pony. As with all good stories involving dirt bikes, of course there is a girl involved. I might add there was a rather special girl involved. “I decided to pack up my tools and my dog and move to the city, where I would use the money to open up my own motorcycle service shop. ![]() In 2012, Travis won the 450 class at Pike’s Peak on a “junkyard-poverty-built” CRF450 he pieced together on a shoestring, then used the winnings to open his shop: Travis grew up racing motocross, attended Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, and raced down in Baja before the legendary 156 turns of the “Race to the Clouds” beckoned him - America’s last true road race, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The man behind this beast is Travis Newbold of Newbold’s Motorbike Shop - a Colorado workshop focused on performance engine building and suspension tuning. We’ve seen XS650 flat trackers, scramblers, choppers, bobbers, road racers, dual-sport / adventure bikes, and now…a motocrosser! None other than “King Kenny” Roberts campaigned an XS650-powered tracker in Grand National dirt track competition, duking it out with Harley’s dominant XR750, and the XS has gone on to prove itself an exceptionally versatile machine. Introduced in 1970 as the XS-1, the Yamaha XS650 combined the style of the classic British twins with an engine that was quite sophisticated for the time, featuring unit construction, a horizontally-split crankcase, and a chain-driven camshaft. Pikes Peak winner builds a 775cc twin motocross machine! ![]()
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