Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/118161
Our entry into the morass that is L.A. comes past dusk, the worst possible time to be driving into an unfamiliar city. We struggle to keep with the flow of a six-lane freeway – its surface rough and strewn with detritus ("Jeez Louise, is that a couch?") – and strain to read exit signs before they smear past. An ominous shroud of smog cloaks the city, the Sausage Creature lurks in the shadows. But we arrive just fine and on time to meet Mark's parents, on their way home to Europe. His father had been a "ton-up" boy, one of the café racers who roared around London's ring roads, a blur of black leather on a Norton. His mother also rode; their honeymoon was a Now in his late forties, he also moved from the systematic production of his signature Zero-style bikes – characterized by a rigid gooseneck frame, pre-'84 Harley engine, springer forks and spoked wheels – to one-offs he doesn't even sketch before building. Kimura's Zero bikes have been featured in the likes of 2008's Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man, but his latest creations are more likely to appear in a Terry Gilliam film or Jeunet & Caro's The City of Lost Children – even more probably in a museum of modern art or Chelsea gallery. He named his first company "Zero" to signify the beginning. Now, 17 years later, he has progressed to a whole are set, movies such as The World's Fastest Indian are filmed and that iconic motorcycle the Triumph Bonneville derives its name. As much as building bikes, Kimura loves to ride. He recently completed the U.S. motorcycle gumball race, a coast-to-coast challenge on pre-1916 bikes – in Kimura's case, a 1915 Indian. It's sitting there next to us, not much more than an old-style bicycle frame with an engine strapped to it. Nothing is cushioning the metal of its single-saddle seat except wellworn leather. My ass hurts just looking at it. Except for two days spent repairing the bike after it broke down midway, Kimura raced it cross-country for 16 days straight. motorcycle tour through Yugoslavia. And though those riding days are long gone, we can tell by the spark in their eyes they wouldn't mind a go on the Beemer. Early the next morning finds us back on the freeways, working like a rally-car team. Mark yelling navigation in my ear, we head for a suburb with a Japanese-sounding name. CHABOTT ENGINEERING OWNER AND sole builder Shinya Kimura (far left), with author and work in progress — and (middle) testing a client commission based on a '47 Harley engine. Ian Barry and his second bike (far right), the award-winning Kestrel — a 1970 Triumph Bonneville reimagined and painstakingly implemented. He leads us out on a backyard test track, mounted on his latest project. Why he has chosen this non-descript locale to open a workshop becomes suddenly clear when, barely five minutes in, we're hauling up a mountain road off a lush reservoir valley in Angeles National Forest. Kimura's riding a recent commission based on a 1947 HarleyDavidson design: swept-forward, restrained, ape-hanger-style handle bars, balloon tires and what looks like a miniature diving helmet housing the front light, secured by brass rivets to the top of the gas tank. The rear light is a bulbous brushed-steel-and-brass unit fronted by a red Cyclops-eye. With its sinuous brace arms, the bike is somehow reminiscent of the killer bots in the Matrix. A jockey shifter located under the rider's left thigh necessitates a little hitch over to one side to switch gears. Meanwhile, Mark and I ride two-up on the latest in computerized German engineering to hit the hardtop, swaddled in ballistic nylon, plastic body armour and boots. Kimura wears a thin leather racing jacket over blue Dickies and low-cut Chuck Taylors. We're side by side, but travelling in two different movies. Continued on page 48 I n Azusa we prowl past a languid strip of car-parts dealers and nondescript garages, interspersed with the odd tattoo parlour and, this we know for sure, at least one design studio: Shinya Kimura's Chabott Engineering. We spot bikes in various states of completeness or deconstruction spilling out from a doorway and figure we've found it. And once sun-blinded eyes adjust to the dimness within, there's definitely the sense that this is not your regular garage. In the back and up some stairs is a loft appointed with antique furniture and design books, a gallery of black-and-white photos and a few of Kimura's masterpieces. One of the world's more distinctive bike builders, Kimura left the motorcycle company he helped found in Japan, Zero Engineering, to establish himself in 2006 in L.A. 40 W E S T W O R L D p36-41_Calif.Cycle.indd 40 >> other plane. Producing just two or three bikes a year, he works like a sculptor, taking inspiration from materials at hand to "grow" each bike organically and produce designs at once retro and futuristic, reverent and iconoclastic: sophisticated steam-punk. Parts are welded from sheet metal, hammered out with a mallet, then ground down. Salvaged materials – burnished with age and use – and his custom parts blend harmoniously. The bikes embody a wabi-sabi aesthetic, rough but elegant. They're built to be ridden but something makes me reluctant to touch them. Not because the surfaces and lines are so austere, but because they're works of art – to handle them seems disrespectful. Kimaru's buyers have no such compunction, of course; the bikes are as much about function as form. He has raced them at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah where speed records FA L L 2 0 1 1 8/17/11 12:22:38 PM