This Motorcycle Is Called the Sword. It’s Pretty Sharp.

Heads won't roll — but they'll definitely turn

August 31, 2016 9:00 am

A brush with death, they say, can alter your perspective. Endow you with a renewed sense of purpose. Help make your dreams a reality.

Such is the case of Frenchman named Grégoire, a survivor of one of the recent attacks in Paris who realized that he’d been putting off his ambition to build a custom Kawasaki motorcycle for far too long.

To remedy that, he enlisted the help of Karl Renoult and Ed Turner Motorcycles and asked the custom bike shop to create a bike that could really “run” but “with elegance.”

In order to create what ended up being dubbed “The Sword,” Renoult used the frame of a 1980 Kawasaki Z1000 as his jumping off point and dove into the one-off build with both feet. The chromed-out creation has a sleek tail, CBR fork, “springerised” custom dampers, an aluminum fuel tank, stainless steel exhaust and a miniature LED system that meets the minimum requirements for being street legal.

In order to add to the bike’s aesthetic, Renoult selected a portion of Ezekiel 21 from the New Testament and etched verses about God using a sword for vengeance on the bike’s fuel tank.

“Greg, you run faster than bullets, that’s a fact,” Renoult wrote after finishing the build. “Now we wait to see what you can do behind the handlebars.”

We think he’ll do just fine.

All photos © Francois Richer

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