If anything truly sums up ‘the agony and the ecstasy’, then racing a motorcycle really has to be it. In one moment, you’re leading the pack, the throttle is pinned, and adrenaline is pulsing through your veins, then before you know it a horrific pain overwhelms your body and a marshal standing over you looks on with grave concern. But one man didn’t let a nasty accident end his racing dream, it simply meant he’d build a very different bike to race on. That man is the incredibly talented Marc Bell of the UK-based Haxch, a design studio & production workshop. And this is his new race bike, a stunning, handcrafted and perfectly tickled for speed Suzuki GSX-R1100 Slabside.
Marc is a furniture designer by trade, but under the Haxch banner he also creates beautiful high end furniture, performs carpentry and metalwork, and also does fabrication for designers, architects and artists. What he produces is truly exceptional and leaves you wondering how one man has been blessed with so much talent. And we haven’t even arrived at our favourite thing that Marc does, build bikes! But two-wheels can be a hazardous game, “Last year I had a huge highside at Cadwell Park while racing an R6, the last lap of the last race and ended up being air-lifted to Hull hospital with suspected internal bleeding. Not being a fan of injected bikes or hospitals, I decided to follow what I truly love about bikes & come back next year to race classics.”
During his recovery, Marc spotted a slabside that wasn’t a nice stocker and thought it would be good for a build, without the guilt of cutting up a clean original. A swap for his own CBR900 and the GSXR was in the van and on the way back to Haxch HQ. Stripping the bike down to see exactly what he had acquired, there was the discovery of some scrutineering stickers from the Manx GP. Being a huge fan of the Isle of Man TT, this was a sight for sore eyes and had Marc already dreaming of taking on the Classic TT himself. But first things first, the bike had to be built and it was no small undertaking.
With the Suzuki on the dyno and only producing 116hp, it was clear the engine that had tackled the mountain course must have been removed. So now Marc went in search of those lost ponies, with the first step being to fit a bank of Mikuni RS38 flat slides with 30mm Mikuni bell mouths. With the intake and fuel side sorted, a Yoshimura Cyclone full system was added, but the gains just weren’t enough. Time to get serious, “we then reground the cams for higher lift, fitted heavy-duty valve springs, ignition advancer, and EBC clutch with heavy-duty springs. That all did the trick & got it up to 131hp!”
To improve the on-track handling, the rear end was fitted with a fully adjustable Ohlins shock and for the business end a full SRAD front end. A test trip to the track had the bike seesawing all over the place, but some clever tweaking got it sorted. The final version of the bike sees further improvement thanks to a set of Brembo discs, a steering damper to tame the bucking bronco and braided lines to ensure maximum pressure where it counts. There is also a billet alloy oil cooler with CNC aluminium bracket from Grumpy 1260 to ease the strain on the engine and a set of ACC rearsets is on the way.
“Appearance wise I wanted the bike to look like a proper classic ‘80s race bike, as good in terms of quality as the factory teams of the day. A lot of people say there’s no point making a club racing bike look good as it’ll be down the road soon enough, but I don’t want to race something that I don’t like the look of, so intended to go all out.” And when you see the flawless nature of Marc’s furniture, you understand that this is an important part of who he is. For the tail section, he tried a number of off the shelf fibreglass items, but they just didn’t seem right, so, of course, he made one himself. The design was carried out with the twin methods of cut-up cardboard and Auto CAD.
From here the design could be loaded into a laser cutter and each piece is produced from 1.5mm aluminium. “I then shaped these with the bead roller & welded them up to make the final form. One of the other standout features is that front end, with the Endurance style lighting that also serves as both form and function. “I wanted to be able to use it year-round and not just be limited to the track. The plan is to take it to the Nürburgring in August and for that you need a road legal bike so there’s another incentive!” The paint job is a thing of beauty, it’s classic racing Suzuki in the best possible way, with Marc’s design filled with ’80s charm and none of the unnecessary gaudy decals.
Fans of the slabside will notice that both the frame and the swingarm have been braced, an excellent idea on a classic racer that is fitted with modern rubber and suspension. There is also a custom stainless screen brace and the only information the rider really needs to know is shown on the stylish Scitsu racing tacho.
Halfway through the build Marc discovered that the bike wouldn’t be eligible in the class he hoped to race in because of the new front end. “So, I’ll go back to my old club and race in the pre-injected series called Thunderbike Ultra.” There the early R1s will provide stiff competition before it’s off for the long lap in Germany and then the Island of Man awaits; and as always, coming out of the Haxch workshop means it’s all done in absolute style.
[ Haxch ]