Robin Fagerman of Sweden’s FRC Moto walked outside his apartment one morning to find his 1999 Ducati Monster 900s — “Leonora” — the victim of an attempted theft. The bike was “totally broken,” says Robin, but he could not fathom the idea of writing her off to the scrapyard. Instead, he decided to rebuild her into a “modern classic” cafe racer.
Robin estimates that he and his colleague Fredrik worked an average of three hours per day for nine months on the bike, crafting a wide array of handmade details. They lightened the bike by some 25 kilograms (60 pounds), installing a Ducati 998 front end and setting the bike’s ergos for Robin’s 188cm (6’2″) height.
The duo’s hard work paid off, as “Leonora” was recently selected as one of 25 custom bikes to be featured in Sweden’s largest annual motorcycle fair. While this selection was an honor in and of itself, as this Ducati cafe racer won the fair’s People’s Choice award as the best motorcycle build of 2018! Below, we get the full story on this sweet Swedish-built Duc.
“Leonora” Ducati Monster 900s Cafe Racer: In the Builder’s Words
My name is Robin Fagerman, and I live in a small town in Sweden called Boras. I’m quite new to the Cafe Racer culture but it has turned out that I really love to build bikes! I’m not alone behind those builds — Fredrik is my colleague — and we have a great workshop with everything you could wish for.
The story about “Leonora”
Everything started by buying my first motorcycle, the Honda CB750. I rebuilt it to be a cool Cafe Racer and I sold it quite soon after it was finished. I started looking for a new motorcycle that I could ride immediately and found this Ducati Monster 900s 1999 in original condition, 28000km and I was completely satisfied.
After riding the motorcycle for a while, I became comfortable and I parked on free parking outside my apartment. The next day she was totally broken — someone had tried to steal her. I was so in love with this motorcycle and I did not want to throw her to crap so I chose to fix her to be good condition again. It ended up to be what she is today — an absolutely fantastic motorcycle that any person of any age likes her.
She is not only handsome, she is also very nice to drive and she sounds good. I myself am about 188cm tall and I sit comfortably because we made our own braces for the footsteps, so the knee and the elbow has good space. As the speed increases, you take your position over the tank and let the wind fly over you. We installed the Öhlins adjustable shock absorber rear so you have good road suspension and the front is from the Ducati 998cc. We have made her about 25kg lighter when we switch to better parts.
I have probably spent 100 hours using Google, Pinterest, and other Cafe Racer blogs to see how others have built their Ducati Monsters. I saw a gap in creating a motorcycle that has a classic style but still has an aggressive look, like a modern classic road racing machine. On average we have worked 3 hours/day for nine months.
There are so many handmade details, parts from so many different motorcycle models and everything takes time!
Choosing the right color took enough time for haha, the motorcycle has the color mix with gunmetal grey, chrome, gold and red, if you thinking more about the color on other motorcycles they are only in 3 color.
I am very proud of the lines. It doesn’t matter from what angle you see the motorcycle, you can easy see that is much of love behind this creation.
“People Choice 2018”
Last week between Wednesday and Sunday, we were at Sweden’s biggest motorcycle fair, “2 Wheel Fair 2018.” Every year 25 motorcycles are selected to get the honor of exhibiting their motorcycle building at this fair — we became one of the 25.
During the fair there is a competition called “People Choice 2018.” After a couple of nervous days and extremely tough conditions we managed to win and take home the trophy as the best motorcycle build of 2018 thanks to the visitors’ votes. All love for you! Now we are waiting for the next fair!!
The stainless steel exhaust system, cuts, leather seat, all stainless steel details… To make it easy, everything is handmade. We have also upgraded some engine parts. We put in the following…
- KEHIN FCR39 carburators
- CDIBOX Ignitech
- K&N pods
- New setup front/rear sprocket
- Ducati sport timingbelts
- Ducati sport clutch plate & springs
- Yoshimura silincer
- All the electiric parts are from MotoGadget
- Super Small Lithium battery
He obviously only likes going round left hand corners because that front cylinder exhaust pipe will almost certainly deck – also does not ride at night on unlit streets, Monster headlight is marginal at best – otherwise nice
I made a 2 into 1 exhaust for a monster and quickly realized I hadn’t gone high enough when I started sliding and almost high siding on all the right handers at the track. I had a 4 inch long flat spot on my new custom exhaust. Back to the drawing board for that one. You have to design as if it was a boat keel. The closer to the ground, the closer to the center the part must be or it’ll “deck” like Richard said. This is a scary lesson to learn the hard way.
To Richard, i agree your comments and i want to add: look at the trippletree srews: Rust!? Why he didn`t
make pics from the left side of bike ? Tom
Beautiful, exhibition bike. Given the comments and the fact that I like Ducs for the balanced rear view, I would prefer dual pipes. I have a 2001 M900Sie and love the changes that makes the model looks current. Happy to connect with the builder on some ideas