Well, this build has been quite the journey. It started out simple; I just wanted a bike to ride. Yet, 5 years later, hundreds of hours spend giving my attention to her (on and off the seat), and tons of money tossed at her, I have yet to feel like she is complete. Don't get my wrong, she works just fine the way she is, but there always seem to be a tweak in her I can't get out. The "if it's not one thing, it's another," sort of feeling. I guess it could be because I don't know how to turn a wrench for the life of me (a standing joke my best buddy claims is the reason for my misfortune). Thus her name stands as Desdemona, deriving from the Greek word dysdaimon, meaning "ill-starred." Also, she reminds me of Desdemona in Shakespeare's play, Othello. Never really believed in luck because I never felt lucky per say, but after 5 years of this build, I'm starting to believe in it…or at least the opposite of luck...

The year was 2006 and I had just sold my 2004 F4i after about 10,000 miles I put on it. This was my F41. Nothing special, just a power commander with a yosh trioval:

 

I wanted the blue and yellow 06 as bad as I've wanted anything in my life. I was in college, had some extra money from working full time while I was going to school full time on my job's dime. The bike was just such a sexy color combo and the design was so well done, it just had to be mine. I bought my 04 F4i brand new from the dealer and really bent over for it, even as a left over, so I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again so I decided to wait off from buying the 1000rr brand new.

I waited until the season was just about over and I found a guy on evilbay selling a blue and yellow for $8000 with a hotbodies undertail exhaust, power commander, seat cowl, sliders, stands, and tons of other small stuff and get this, it only 800 miles on it!! Believe that? Well, it's true. It was exactly what I was looking for. I lived in Milwaukee at the time and he was up in Buffalo, NY. He offered to meet half way (Cleveland, OH) to make the sale so I pulled the trigger. I got to Cleveland and it all checked out. Title was clean, bike was literally off the damn showroom floor with tons of mods on it, and I was in shock.

"Why the hell are you selling it with only 800 miles on it?," I asked…well, I asked it before when I spoke to him on the phone when we were discussing it prior to the meet up, but I had to ask again. He was a wealthy 45 year old with an extremely good business he owned helping back some very impulsive buys. He stated he did some work (he installed in-ground pools) for a owner of a bike shop who offered up a trade, a bike for an installed pool. So he got the bike for basically the cost of paychecks for his employees as well as materials. Probably didn't cost him $8000, but who knows how big the pool he installed was…


In any case, I rode the bike around, checked it out thoroughly, vin checked out on NICB, so I pulled the trigger. Paid the guy $8k cash, he signed the title, we strapped her down to my trailer, and I was off to drive back home. I get about 50 miles west of Cleveland and my transmission slips on my SUV. This is the start of where my bike gets her name. I pull off the road and while I'm not a religious man, I pull the -I'm-sort-of-religious-regiment- and say "God, if you just get me home, I swear I'll come to church." As I come to a complete stop, a puff of white smoke barrels out my hood and I slam my head on the wheel. "ARG"

So what do I do? I'm 500+ miles from home towing a trailer with a $8k+ bike on the back with no locks for it (because I figured I wouldn't be stopping for the night). I do the "I hope it was just a fluke" idea and try to start the SUV back up. Get her into gear and get her moving. 30mph. 40mph. 55mph. Ok, lets just take her easy, save on some gas, and keep her at 55mph on the turnpike. SLIPPED AGAIN. Damn it. Pull off. No puff of smoke this time. Hmmm… Alright, let her relax, and lets try this again…I gotta get home damn it. Got her back up to 55mph and it does it again. I realize it's when I get her past 4K rmp, that's when she slips. Weird, but whatever, just gotta make sure not to go above 4k. Going thru the chicago loop, there was construction at the time down to one lane and concrete barriers on both sides. Somehow, just somehow I made it thru there without pissing off everyone behind me with a pull off (which would really just be a stop and stop everyone behind me…).

Somehow I make it home with just +2 hours of travel from my expected time home. Alright, time to get on craigslist and sell that piece of **** SUV. Now lets go get this bike on the road. So this was her when I got her home:

 

Sent the title off and got it back in my name no problem. The bike was the perfect deal. I was patiently waiting for the next season and I was buying up parts in a hurry. BMC Filters, Atech intake, Ohlins front and rear, brembo cnc front and rear with rear relocator, black 07 swingarm, stm slipper, 520 conversion, marchesini mag wheels, the list goes on.

So spring was arrivingI had the bike in an underground storage facility with keyfob access and somehow someone figured out how to get in (that clearly was not suppose to be in there) and find the deadbolted room that it was in, break in, and two of his buddies helped him by using hooks to life the tires and carry it up and out into their van.

Yup, they took my bike and I only put a few hundred miles on it. Arg. Got the guys on film, but didn't really matter. I figured the bike was probably half way across the world by the time the police got really involved. They informed me that the bike was probably gone for good and I should just claim insurance on it. I started the claim process and figured I'd never hear anything about the bike. State farm told me they could give me $7k for my bike with everything on it with 1500 miles on it. I told them I've been raped before, but never that badly. They then offered up $8k and I laughed at them. Then $8500.

They said they could only offer what a bike would cost with all those parts on it at a USED price. I said I understood, however, I told the estimator, fine…find a bike with just two parts of these five parts (akky, slipper, ohlins, brembo, bts) on it that my bike had AND one that had 600 miles. Then I'll take your offer. If you cannot find one within one week, you will take my offer (close to the cost of everything brand new plus my bike at $8500). I told them that I told my agent that it would be a race bike and I want it insured as one, not some stock *** bike.

While in the process of dealing with the ***-raping insurance company, I was checking ebay and craigslist for a new bike to buy while also keeping my eye out for anything suspicious (like a blue and yellow 1000rr within 200 miles of me with a few of my mods). Strangely, there was a 2007 1000rr with blue and yellow bodywork on ebay and the sellers location was in Milwaukee. "Strange," I thought to myself, "maybe it's mine on a new frame or something and they just parted out all my money parts," as it didn't have nearly any aftermarket parts on it.

So I contact the guy via email because he listed his email in the auction and ask if it was a fairing swap or a misprint. He response with, "fairing swap, you got the money, come buy it." Call him to get some more questions answered about it and he just says, "If you got the money, lets do this." I was like, "Ummmm, can I get a bit of history about the bike from you…" In the end, I definitely didn't buy from him. I didn't even go take a look at it because the guy sounded so shady. Sounded like he was going to make me bring $6k cash just to test drive it and then jack me for my money and ride off on the bike….so I decided to stay away from that one. I just got the feeling it was my bike tho.

Exactly one week from finding the bike on ebay, the Milwaukee Police Department calls me and lets me know they have recovered my bike. My heart skipped a beat. While I still had the idea in the back of my head that this guy on ebay was selling my bike, I was hoping they had found my bike with everything still on it.


Nope, this is what they find:

 

They took all the aftermarket parts off it, GLUED rear turn signals onto it, dropped it on one side, ****ed up the ignition, and swapped the frame with a clean frame (to sell the bike with a title).

Since they swapped the frame, I decided to take the insurance check. The bastards at state farm finally ended up giving me $9500 for it. More than what I paid for it, but I did put a few things on it, drove all that way to get it, got a new SUV because of it (probably not actually because I towed a little flatbed trailer, but I still swear it was because of the bike), etc… So state farm finally bent over and took my counter offers of $9500.

So while state farm was taking their sweet time to cut a check and get all the paperwork done, I managed to find another blue and yellow 06 in Boston with 533 miles on, rims chromed and painted pearl flash yellow, three stage candy phoenix blue painted lowers, akra pipe, pcIII, wanton flushes, and all sorts of other goodies…to boot, he was only asking $8k for it.

I talked with the owner on the phone and it seems like the same deal I got from the last 06 I got from the swimming pool guy. They owner was an impulse buyer and had tons of money to dump into it. So after I got the check from state farm, I bought a cheap one way ticket to Boston and checked out the bike. It was flawless. Guy was having a baby so he thought it would be best to get off two wheels. I drove it around and everything felt great so I pulled the trigger and paid the guy $8k cash. Here she was the day I bought her:

 

So I started my drive back home. Yup, Boston to Milwaukee. It was such a nice trip. I started on I-84 and headed thru conneticut and went west into NY to Warwick, NY, where friend of mine lived. I stopped by for a few days and then headed to the Finger Lakes Region between Syracuse and Rochester where another buddy of mine lived. I stopped by for a day and then headed on my way back home.

Bike performed perfectly considering it was doing a 1300 mile trip the day after I buy it from a random stranger off CL! Since it was the end of the season, I started to tear it down and add parts to it. Here are some pix of the tear down:

 

Did some minor ascetic mods to her:


smd led (white) mod



used my powdercoating machine to powdercoat the stock rearsets and passenger pegs

 

Started getting really into custom lighting:











alignment:


alignment counts!

 

laying in the series wiring and epoxying it down:




Laying down the LED's in their drilled holes:






Testing the look:

 

Bondo'd the audi-bar...wish I would have painted the front before I epoxied the led's in...now I have to tape off 3mm leds!:








Custom acrylic 7 point high output audi bar finished


custom kitt/running light mod (both kitt, and the solid running light leds, both wired to separate toggle switches):


cheap LED's versus Quality LED's:


cheapo led vs. quality LED:

 

made the cuts and tack welded for preperation to test fitment on bike:


all plastic welded...and looks like ****:


time for filler:


i hate sanding:


i give up:


needs more sanding:


put down some bondoglass for extra strength, then took the angle grinder with a green roloc:


added some topcoat to fill in the pits and it's time for paint:




painted: