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Chris Flechtner 's Best of Show The 19th annual edition of Calendar Bike Building Championship of the 2010 LA Calendar Motorcycle Show Weekend again features many of the world's top Pro and Amateur street bike builders in attendance to compete in the Calendar Show Bike Building Championship with a bulging purse of $86,000 in cash and awards. Chris Flechtner / Speed Shop Design returned to the 2010 Show with an all new, completely unique and quite controversial design to take Best of Show. The bike named "Beezerker" features a mid '60s BSA A65 engine in a fully hand built chassis and bodywork with such original features as parallelogram front forks and a frame which houses the oil tank and the hidden exhaust pipes routed up through the rear of the frame to exit at the rear of the seat cowling. Just like Kenji Negai of Ken's Factory, Japan, who took 1st Place Pro Builder in 2008 and returned with an all new and even more exciting bike to take 2009 Best of Show, Chris also returned for blood the 2nd time around after taking 1st Pro Builder with his retro styled Speed Shop Special #6 last year. Chis is an experienced professional designer who has devoted the last 2 years to build two completely different custom bikes to premier at the LA Calendar Motorcycle Show.
Although Chris may have been an unknown builder on the national scene before his emergence at last year's Calendar Show, he explains, "I've made more than a dozen custom bikes as well as modified and restored numerous classic motorcycles. I have also built a number of ground up custom cars. Most recently I have been working part time at my day job as a furniture designer, now devoting most of my time with my own custom bike building company Speed Shop Design the past year to get it moving along faster. The "Beezerker" intentionally pushes the boundaries of design and blurs time to give you a bike you simply can not place in a particular era, it's meant to be timeless like all good design should be." Because "Beezerer" isn't powered by a the prerequisite American V-twin engine like most major bike show winners, the internet bogs were abuzz the next day questioning the validity of the Calendar Show's Best of Show winner. But then the LA Calendar Show has never been know for its conventionality having awarded its top trophy in the past to other then other unknown builders with unconventional builds, and now well-respected builders: Dreamcraft Studios, Jesse Rooke, Shiny Kimura, Roland Sands, Russell Mitchell and Kenji Negai. "Beezerker" was Chris' first attempt in working with aluminum which he used to build the bike's fuel tank and 1930's Metropolis style bodywork. He also built all the hand and foot controls from scratch, including the foot mechanically actuated rear sprocket brake. The bike's originality defies description, if not classification, and could have been entered in nearly every one of the Show's Calendar Bike Building Championship's 10 classes from Modern and Classic Twin, to Street Custom and Sportbike. For 2 years now Chris has entered the Pro Builder Class in the Calendar Bike Building Championship, winning first the Pro Builder Class, and now this time around Best of Show. Speed Shop Special #6 is featured in the just released 2011 Iron & Lace Calendar and in the FastDates.com Calendar Bike Garage.Beezerker was photographed by Jim Gianatsis on Monday after this year's Show to also appear on the FastDates.com website shortly, and in the next FastDates.com Calendars.
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