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profile: roger goldammer Meet the motorcycle world's Mr. Sassy Chassis '' '' If you bang on a piece of metal for four hours and don't get what you want, some people give up. But you might get something good after six hours. H igh in the hills south of Kelowna, the world's greatest custom motorcycle builder is showing me around the 5,000-squarefoot home workshop where he spends most waking hours. With his athletic frame, shaven head, goatee, tattoos and piercing blue eyes, Roger Goldammer cuts an intimidating figure. But in conversation he reveals himself to be a soft-spoken and thoughtful character, uncomfortable with the trappings of celebrity. There are no framed photos of the designer on display and no sign of his three World Championship of Custom Bike Building trophies. One of them, he admits sheepishly, he used for a long time as a bolt bin. In fact, it is tough getting Goldammer to talk about himself. But when the topic turns to his bikes and the ideas that spawn them, we have liftoff. I ask about Goldmember, the sleek, aerodynamic masterpiece he constructed from scratch in 2007 and named after the skingobbling villain in the third Austin Powers film, and apparently the concept behind the machine was every bit as outrageous as the fictional character. It was a bid to bridge the chasm between two totally disparate realms: the largely ornamental world of custom Courtesy Roger Goldammer p22-25,44_Profile.indd 23 motorcycles and the high-performance world of racing. As he explains: "I wanted to create a bike pretty enough to win a beauty contest and powerful enough to set a land speed record." Some 2,500 hours in the making, the result was a low-slung rocket that combined elements of both retro and futuristic design – powered by an inter-cooled, nitrous-oxideinjected, 965cc, single-cylinder, Harleybased engine affixed with a supercharger. And in September 2007, Goldammer took his revolutionary creation to the Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway in Utah and set a new land speed record in its class, averaging 147.4 mph over two one-mile runs. After bringing the bike home, he then washed off the salt, added turn signals and lights and painted the bare metal yellow. A few months later in Sturgis, North Dakota, he claimed the $25,000 first prize at the World Championship of Custom Bike Building with the chopper, defeating 68 other designers from 13 countries by a record margin. It marked the third time he had won the coveted title, an unprecedented achievement. With such impressive credentials, one might expect Goldammer to be a major celebrity with a press agent, string of endorsement contracts and perhaps a reality DURING THE FIRST TIMED RUN aboard Goldmember at Utah's Bonneville Speedway, Goldammer felt extreme heat in his right boot when triggering the engine's nitrous-oxide fuel injection. But even with one foot on fire, he finished the mile-long course. As he says, "When you're close to setting a world record, you don't take your foot off for anything." WESTWORLD >> W I N T E R 2 0 1 1 23 10/25/11 11:56:35 AM

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