A Peak Inside Goldammer Studios

Roger, with his bike, on the salt in 2006.

We’ve been scrambling on our own 2007 Bonneville project, but a note burnt brightly on my Panhead desk, “Call Roger Goldammer.” I’ve known Roger and respected his craftsmanship for years, but we experienced the salt together last year and again I was impressed with the level of his design, artistry, fabrication and machining abilities. “I’m in the fab business,” Roger said when I finally slowed down from my own projects and called his Canada number.

We’re all so fuckin’ busy nowadays, but there are select individuals in the industry who I enjoy talking with from time to time. Many times I hesitate calling because I know if they’re half as busy as we are, they have no time to shoot the shit. On the other hand I always enjoy speaking to artists and fabricators like Roger. I always come away with more knowledge and heightened inspiration.

Roger likes all motorcycles. He spends more time on dirt bikes than any other machines, but he has tremendous respect for sport bikes and loves building something so totally different it rocks the custom world. In addition he contains a drive to build bikes that perform, in addition to being mechanical jewels.

He has a bike poised for entrance into the World Championship of Bike Building in Sturgis this year, but these shots represent his efforts for 2008, The Goldmember. Roger requested that I keep much of this build away from the camera until the bike is tested on the salt this year. That’s right. Before this bike will ever be entered into a custom competition I will seek a record on the Bonneville salt flats.

“I would rather not release THOSE pics,” Roger said. “I will send some that you can… Ineed to keep shots with the bodyworkaway from the general public, as someone will copy it before I can get thebike totally finished…funny how it workssometimes. This is not just about going fast, this is sort of my ownpersonal challenge… to build a bikecapable of competing at the highest level (the World Championships ofCustom Bike Building), but it also has a realperformance element to it, something that can be raced. That’s getting further awayfrom the static display of artistic bikes that don’t handle well. Mine may not doeither one very well, but I need to try.”

We started to discuss his effort with a single rear cylinder mounted on the front with fuel injection and… “This is a very risky thing to build, but a fun engineering challenge,” Roger said, “a blown, electronic fuel injected, intercooled, single cylinder H-D-based-engine running nitrous. Might be a grenade, butWTF.”

It’s also running a supercharger. “I had to make the camshaft (out of two cams) and change push rod angles,” Roger said. “The engineis rotated back 15 degrees and moved closer to the trans.”

That’s just a touch of some elements involved in this masterpiece. Then he mentioned the wheels and hubs fashioned after café racers in the ‘50s. They have disc brakes inside. That caught my attention, and the fact that Roger built them in his shop.

”They started with 90 and 100 lbs., 12and 14-inch diameter billet aluminum chunks,manually turned to 18 lb. hubs,” Roger said.

I asked if he drilled the spoke holes?”Yes, spoke holes (40 and 60) I did here withmy rotary table,” Roger said. “lots of very late nights!Leo DiOrio helped out with the discs and calipers. The hard part was the outerplates, with the air ducting and brake mounting,brake line and bleeding provisions.”

”like I said before, there is more work in these hubs alone than many have in theirwhole bikes, but that’s what it takes totake a project to a certain level. It’s not really that hard to do, just takesa whole lot of determination and time.It’s not the sort of thing that you do, if you just want to make a bunch of money.”