In his small shop in Owensboro, Kentucky, Mike McFadden of M&M Customs has built a few notable customs and cafe racers that have captured my attention. I always admire custom bikes made to be ridden, especially when they look like rolling art pieces. Something uniquely beautiful making you proud wherever you ride it. “Holy Moly” is Mike’s second creation I am featuring and having it headline my weekly news is well deserved. Recently unveiled at the 2014 Mid-Ohio Vintage Days judges agreed with me and gave this custom both the Best of Show and People’s Choice awards.

The story of this custom Honda CB450 starts when in 2013 McFadden was given the chance to take a couple of his builds to the 110th Harley Davidson Celebration AMD Invitational bike show. During a couple of days he incessantly walked the Harley museum looking for inspiration for a new project. His brain rich of visual and mechanical inspiration, he returned home decided to create a board tracker style bike the way the Japanese could have done it in the early days of racing…

McFadden knew right away that building a Japanese flavored board racker would require something to make it stand out and separate it from the already created multiple Harley and Indian versions. To free his creativity, only the neck and motor mounts were kept from the original factory frame. A twin tank set up with an exposed backbone and a mono shock suspension inspired the final frame geometry. The battery and electrics are housed in the one-off tail section along with the brake lights. Swingarm was sourced from an old bike he had cut up previously and extended by 2″. Bars where made from the cut up originals. Interestingly, the custom made seat is held in place thanks to a magnet against a metal brace.

Admirer of the art-deco style and of all its automotive applied variations and evolution, McFadden didn’t want the expected (on this type of bike) typical round number plate on the front wheel. So, he fabricated a more classy Flash Gordon like design. With the help of Ride Wright Wheels he was able to secure a beautiful set of 21″ 3.50 Soft Lip Exotica wheels wrapped in a set of Continental Conti Custom Attacks, a set largely responsible for giving the bike its final stance and appeal.

Although he is color blind (!), McFadden is also a long time painter (he started to experiment colors on his bicycles at age 14), with the help of his “eyes” (Joe Jones, Jim Warren, and PPG Rep Richard Shofner) he picked a color scheme of B/C Brown Pearl and Vanilla Cream with black for outlines. It’s only when the paint was applied that he was able to source in a thrift shop the matching color distressed leather from which he made the knee pads, grips, and seat. Builder friend Jeremy Cupp of L.C. Fabrications supplied the brass tank and carb caps along with the brake fluid reservoir. DEI provided the wire covering and pipe. wrap. And those foot pegscome from an old 80’s Bmx bike…

The motor received a 500 kit with a Mikuni VM34’s to wake it up and a smaller rear gear was installed. Enough to make this custom CB450 a pretty decent ride although equipped with tall wheels and relatively fat tires for a board tracker. A very slick around-town and country road bike. M&M Customs.