For Sale: Fastec Sportster street tracker!
By Mark Turner of Blacktop Media.
Fastec Racing was established in 2010 and has been designing and manufacturing engineered parts for a variety of race, custom, and street bikes ever since. Their customer base ranges from the best custom bike builders ever to grace the covers of a magazine to BSB, WSB and even MotoGP teams and everyone in between — even the like of you and me. They have a large machine shop filled with the best CNC machines money can buy and some of the most skilled operators and programmers in the land. Fastec specialise in custom and low volume production, combining exceptional quality with fantastic performance, all designed and manufactured in the UK.
Fastec don’t just make the coolest custom parts, they also build bikes. They build for customers and they build their own bikes to showcase their considerable skills. I called in to the showroom and workshop over at Newmarket recently to meet the team and have a peek at a couple of the bikes they have there.
First up was a disrespectful, insolent Harley Sportster Scrambler / Tracker. This bike reeks of attitude and bad manners but man, it looks like it’s fun. Originally an XL1200 Sportster, it’s been rebuilt, piece by piece from the ground up. The engine has had a complete nut and bolt rebuild including brand new pistons and barrels. Exhaust gasses exit fast and loud through some hand made stubby pipes.
One of the most impressive tricks up the sleeve of this mischievous Harley is the electrical system. The old Harley wiring was ripped out and replaced with a Motogadget M-unit blue. This is the heart of the entire on-board electrical system and controls everything from the ignition to the lights to the alarm and everything else electrical. The coolest thing about this system is the bluetooth capability. All of these features and more can be controlled from an app on your phone. Remote start, engine diagnostics, positioning and a whole host of other stuff.
The rear frame overhang on the standard Sportster has been cut off behind the upper shock mounts and an upswept rear hoop has been seamlessly grafted in, following the line of the fame, from swing arm pivot to upper rear shock mounts.
An in house fabricated short rear mudguard and hand fabricated oil tank, ignition cover and custom made short seat gives the bike a tough, hard as nails look and those CNC’d footpegs have a steampunk kind of vibe.
A Suzuki GSF 1200 Bandit rear wheel has been expertly squeezed into the rear with a Fastec brake caliper mount and spacers.
Up front there’s a Bandit 1200 front end: forks, wheel and brakes. That’s not as easy as it sounds. The Bandit forks are beefier than the Harley forks and the spacing is wider to allow for the wider front wheel.
To accomplish this, Fastec designed and manufactured a custom set of yokes to take the 43mm Bandit stanchions. The forks are held tight by custom made Fastec yokes and supported with one of their own Suzuki Bandit fork braces.
Bars are mounted on custom risers with machined handlebar grips.
Why a Bandit front end on a Harley? Because they can, it’s what they do. The GSF Bandit is a great bike to modify and always has been. By grafting on a Bandit front end they get a twin disc front brake setup and a wider front wheel allowing for a much broader choice of rubber.
Talking of rubber, this scrambler / tracker runs Heidenau K73 supermoto tyres to give that hard core look and still offer plenty of grip, with 120/70-17 up front and 160/60-17 at the back.
The icing on the cake is the paintwork, taken care of by Hilary at Hurricane Airbrush Art.
Wow, a real beauty this one – minimalist but with wonderful attention to detail – just love the speedo! Well done Fastec!
Nice bike, but PLEASE reinstall the missing screws on the left side cover.
I’ll be honest, not a fan of this one! It’s nothing special! That’s coming from a hardcore tracker fan! I’ve had 4 sportsters set up like trackers over the past 12-13 years, yes before they even came up with the name of for this style… I was just trying to set mine up for dirt, gravel roads mostly but an occasional hill climb never hurt!
Great way to functionally improve an old Sporty! The Bandit front end and wheels are nice upgrades. The bike is clean, simple and not overdone. After all the whole tracker Sporty thing is more of a fire road cruiser than a Baja sled (though that’s been done too!). It’s a slick way to get rid of the fecal stock Sporty suspension and inferior Harley front brakes without spending a fortune. After seeing this I’ll look for Bandit parts for my scrambler project. I bought an 89″ S&S stroker Sporty for 1700 bucks (needed a starter and battery) and those would be a sweet inexpensive upgrade. I can machine a new fork stem (anyone else could have one turned at their local machine shop, bring both the complete Bandit and complete Sportster triple clamp assemblies) easily enough though those billet clamps are pretty.