My friend Pepo Rosell from XTR Pepo is one of those builders that simply keeps on going and going. You can almost set a timer on it to expect a new build from him. While he has a strong legacy with Ducati’s, he’s never afraid to take on a non-mainstream base bike to turn into something special. Today he surprised me with this awesome Suzuki Bandit Cafe Racer called “Grey Flash”. Unlike a lot of XTR’s builds, it’s has a more classic and less race look, but as you may expect, the modification list is pretty extensive. He took a ’98 Suzuki Bandit 600 and turned this rather boring forensic machine into a real desirable bike with up to date specs.
The bike was completely stripped and a lot of parts from a ’92 GXSR750 were used like the USD fork, brakes, front and rear wheel, front mudguard, swingarm, and rear sets. Of course, he ditched the subframe and created a new one to fit the beautiful custom (Italian) leather seat with a nice “caferacerish” rear hump. The GSXR swingarm was a bit modified to fit a CBR600 rear shock. This will give the machine a way better handling and more serious braking performance. The original gas tank was kept in place and got a nice raw steel finish, which perfectly suits the brown leather seat.
And of course, Pepo used his usual list of mods like:
- Frentubo brake lines
- Custom brake and clutch levers
- Custom clip ons
- LIPO battery
- Spark megaphone muffler
- K&N filters
- NG brake rotors
- MASH headlight on custom bracket
- Vicma LED indicators
- T&T speedo and control lights
- Tsubaki gold chain
- Montesa rear light
- And a lot of custom brackets…