The Knockout 360 finished with Hellbillie coming down and throwing pinstriping on it (see previous KO 360 blog). Ian gave Ben license to do whatever he wanted, "as long as it looked awesome." Ben ran with it, accentuating the bike's waspish shape in gloss black against the flat black coat.
"When you trust that your artist is gonna turn up with something good, he does," Ian said.
The guys have put some miles on the KO. They decided to change out the sprockets, giving the bike a higher top speed so it doesn't buzz all over the place at 70 mph.
They also ran it on the Dyno at the Dyno Party. It has about 25 horsepower at the rear wheel and about 16 pounds of torque from 3,000 rpms to about 9,000 rpms--absolutely, perfectly flat.
One thing the guys test for is loudness. The KO is plenty loud.
Last Friday night, when Ian was in to tinker with some electrical stuff, he took the KO out toward the Cretins' clubhouse, where they were having a Max RPMs weekend and poker night. A train was in the way. So, instead, Ian took the 99 all the way downtown and rode back down 1st through Mariners traffic--just as a game let out.
"There were millions of people on the road," he said. "I went through a parking lot to get around them. The timing plate had been knocked a little bit, so the bike wasn't idling perfectly at the bottom and I had to keep blipping it to keep it alive--crank the throttle here and there just so it would go. It scared the crap out of people. They scattered like rats. It was great, and the bike did great. It's a lot of fun to ride. You could safety-wire this thing for road-racing if there was a class to handle it. It would do well, because it's quick and lightweight and has a heck of a motor under it. It's tuned really, really well."
So this bike is beautiful and fun. And obnoxious. That's pretty much the definition of a Twinline bike.
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