Cherry’s Company BMW R 1200 GS

Words: Mike Ryan

Photos: Hiromitsu Yasui

The words “boring” or “predictable” could never be applied to Kaichiro Kurosu. Over the past five years, the man behind Cherry’s Company in Tokyo has produced some of the most imaginative, most intriguing and most beautiful custom motorcycles in the world.

Kurosu-san never considers the job done with a generic ducktail, clip-ons and some fresh paint. His ‘Highway Fighter’ – a comprehensively reworked BMW R nineT from 2014 (see JUST BIKES #307) - is still one of the custom motorcycle scene’s greatest ever creations, while the turbocharged Harley Street 750 ‘Turbo Street Fighter’ presented in 2017 (see JUST BIKES #359) still has people scratching their heads.

This 2017 creation from Cherry’s Company is another benchmark machine, and while it’s just as innovative as Kurosu-san’s past builds, it has polarised opinion; some love it, others loathe it. But before you pass judgement on what you see here, read on and find out what led to its creation.

Spanish Special

A Spaniard with a German bike in Japan sounds like the opening line for some sort of bizarre gag, but that’s where this project kicked off, as Kurosu-san explained: “The owner of this custom bike was a Spaniard living in Japan.

“At first, it was a vague request for a custom, but then the owner said he planned to do adventure touring around Europe and Asia. Therefore, the base was (selected as) a BMW R 1200 GS.”

As you can imagine, customising a 1200 GS without impacting either its adventure touring ability or its usefulness as a street bike between those off-road trails presented some significant obstacles, but Cherry’s Company doesn’t shy away from a challenge.

“I imposed conditions on myself before improving the image (of the bike),” Kurosu-san explained.

Those conditions were to leave the frame unaltered (a very tough restriction if you know this builder’s history!) and to retain all the standard electronic control systems, while the owner requested the seat position - but not necessarily the seat - remain as per the factory spec.

“If I removed the electronic control technology, it would ‘degenerate’ the motorcycle. As the owner was planning to go on a tough journey with this bike, electronic control technology is indispensable.”

A more practical element driving this approach was ensuring that the GS could be serviced at BMW Motorrad dealerships worldwide. This could only be realistically achieved if the factory frame, engine and electronics were left untouched.

Kurosu-san conceded that these restrictions made the build tough: “It was difficult and definitely different than a chopper, where I can make the frame from scratch.”

To clarify, Cherry’s Company produced wholly bespoke frames for their Yokohama HRCS-winning creations from 2012, 2013 and 2014, while the XG750 Turbo Street Fighter used only half of the factory Harley-Davidson frame.

“It was more of a struggle than I expected,” Kurosu added.

Seeing the (Head) Light

With the GS stripped of its plastics, screen, seat and other parts, Kurosu-san spent a lot of time exploring exactly what he could do without impacting both his own and the customer’s restrictions.

“The biggest problem was the radiators,” he explained. “The GS radiators are located on both sides of the fuel tank and it was impossible to downsize them without modifying the frame.”

Literally weeks were spent poring over this problem before the lightbulb moment came with the headlight; more specifically replacing its surrounds and subtly altering its location without impacting its function.

“By lowering the headlight, I could find the right ‘line’ on the top of the body - flowing from the headlight to the tank and the seat cowl.”

Of course, lowering the headlight isn’t as easy as it sounds and required the fabrication of an all-new bracket. Given the planned usage for this bike, this new mount had to be solid, too.

“It required high strength and rigidity. So I made a solid sub-frame for the light mount and painted it black to make it not so noticeable.”

Compared to a stock R 1200 GS, the new headlight sits only marginally lower, but it’s that custom mount, its trellis-style outer frame with a sheet aluminium surround and, more specifically, the removal of the GS’s windscreen, upper plastics and signature ‘beak’ front fairing that amplify the difference.

Kurosu said he would have preferred to sit the headlight further back, but was conscious of retaining access to the GS’s telelever front suspension.

That new headlight bracket also holds the factory instrumentation, while the indicators have been moved to the fork legs. The handelbars, grips, levers and mirrors are all stock BMW items and remain in their standard positions, but a pair of accessory handguards have been added.

Metal Skin . . . and Fibreglass

Removing the factory plastics and reconfiguring the headlight didn’t solve the problem of the radiators – they were still prominent and still needed to be covered or somehow incorporated into the design.

But, with the new ‘line’ of the major elements now dealt with, Kurosu-san now knew he could make the rest of the design work. He applied his metal shaping skills to hand-bend sheet aluminium in a ‘shroud’ that covers both the factory fuel tank and the radiators.

Extending almost down to the cylinders, this skin has scallops in the upper and lower sections, to allow steering clearance and knee room, respectively. The lower section is also painted to break up the visual weight, while the whole piece uses rubber mounts, just like the factory fuel tank.

The seat unit is another bespoke piece, hand-shaped from sheet aluminium to blend with the tank shroud, while also doing away with the handholds and luggage mounts that characterise the stock GS back end.

Skunk, a collaborator on all previous Cherry’s Company projects, produced the one-piece saddle, which has light and dark leather elements to pick up on the two-tone bodywork.

As skilled as he is with hand-forming metal pieces that look like they’ve been moulded from fibreglass, Kurosu-san actually chose fibreglass when making a new front mudguard, saying he wanted to emphasize the silhouette and continue the line set by the fuel tank cover. Finished in a black-with-white-coachlines colour scheme - inspired by the earliest BMW motorcycles - this front guard also adds a mesh section, picking up on the treatment applied to the headlight bracket.

Seen in silhouette, the build carries a lot of forward-biased bulk, with the overall appearance being a more extreme version of themes already explored by Cherry’s Company on the Highway Fighter and Street Fighter projects.

Finishing touches included a bare metal finish for the frame and subframe, with some minor trim items, like side reflectors, removed.

Ready for Adventure

Given the intended purpose for this build, BMW Motorrad accessory engine bars and an engine bash plate have been added, but the factory pegs and pedals remain unchanged, as do the stock rear mudguard, tail light and rear indicators.

Tyres are Michelin Anakee Wild off-road units, similar to the Continental Twinduros fitted as OEM to the R 1200 GS Rallye. While these chunky hoops are normally matched with spoked rims on the Rallye, the standard R 1200 GS Adventure model’s alloys have been retained in this application, but repainted black.

With no engine modifications, nor any changes to the exhaust system, gearbox or shaft drive, there’s no reason to suspect this build wouldn’t perform as well as the stock R 1200 GS in light and heavy going, although the new bodywork obviously adds more weight.

Overall geometry is unchanged, while the seating position looks almost identical to factory spec, too, despite the all-new saddle.

Finally, the mantra of ‘Ride Rough and Remote’ has been engraved into the top of this bike’s custom fuel tank cover and is one the few whimsical elements of the build.

How much actual rough and remote riding this custom will do is anyone’s guess, but there’s no denying it’s been put together with such use in mind.

A Proud Achievement

Given the restrictions he had to deal with, Kurosu-san is pretty happy with the finished result, also noting that what he’s created is one of the few customs to be produced – by anyone - on an R 1200 GS base. A quick online search backs that claim up: delete the Dakar rally homages (which are merely recycling old ideas and not really creating anything new) and R 1200 GS customs are very thin on the ground.

“I felt that I was able to build a custom that is completely different from that (factory bike), while meeting the client’s theme,” Kurosu-san said.

There’s no doubt something completely different has been created here, but what do you think? Given the restrictions behind this build, is it a worthy continuation of the Cherry’s Company legacy, or has it taken a deviation down a weird path?

If you think the latter, you’ll be relieved to know Kurosu has returned to familiar territory with rigid-framed Harley choppers for his most recent projects.

But if you think the former and are looking forward to more boundary-pushing from this talented Japanese craftsman, you’ll have to watch this space or go to cherryscompany.com to find out what the future holds!

Thanks to Tadashi Kohno for assistance in compiling this article.