A brush with death, they say, can alter your perspective. Endow you with a renewed sense of purpose. Help make your dreams a reality.
Such is the case of Frenchman named Grégoire, a survivor of one of the recent attacks in Paris who realized that he’d been putting off his ambition to build a custom Kawasaki motorcycle for far too long.
To remedy that, he enlisted the help of Karl Renoult and Ed Turner Motorcycles and asked the custom bike shop to create a bike that could really “run” but “with elegance.”
In order to create what ended up being dubbed “The Sword,” Renoult used the frame of a 1980 Kawasaki Z1000 as his jumping off point and dove into the one-off build with both feet. The chromed-out creation has a sleek tail, CBR fork, “springerised” custom dampers, an aluminum fuel tank, stainless steel exhaust and a miniature LED system that meets the minimum requirements for being street legal.
In order to add to the bike’s aesthetic, Renoult selected a portion of Ezekiel 21 from the New Testament and etched verses about God using a sword for vengeance on the bike’s fuel tank.
“Greg, you run faster than bullets, that’s a fact,” Renoult wrote after finishing the build. “Now we wait to see what you can do behind the handlebars.”
We think he’ll do just fine.
All photos © Francois Richer
More Like This
We're always on the scene eating, drinking and traveling near and far to bring you the best of what's happening out in the real world. Sign up for IRL now.
