Phew… This bike’s history is heavily “charged” with Battistinis past antics and history; good, bad and, sometimes, very, very ugly… Indeed, it was named after the poignantly titled Jagger – Richards rendering to commemorate Dean Battistini’s fatal accident in the French Alps the year before (RiP)

The scoot was originally commissioned by some of our oldest patrons, Gert and Yako Nyssens of Aix en Provence (kewler than that, ya freeze…) who had literally fallen in love with our very first full blown custom, the one and only Corsa (picture supplied)

Having been given Carte Blanche (as they say in Aix…) to let our imagination surf over financial considerations, we decided that the best way to achieve a proper Corsa MkII Evolution was to base it, this time, on a Big Twin engine whilst keeping to that unique Bay Area long lean and low demeanour.

As you would expect, we started with the frame, which was built to our precise specifications by John Parry of Cobra Engineering. 7/8^th Chrome Moly tubing was used for that San Francisco look, with 6” stretch and 38 degrees rake; radical but still useable. John’s famous “plunger” rear suspension units were also specified as these look ultra neat whilst giving a modicum of rear suspension (and, yes, they do work; giving approx. 1 inch of vertical travel but more of this “suspension” bit later…) Aluminium oil and gas tanks, as well as front and rear fenders, were hand made by Simon Parker under our design and totally paranoid supervision .

The front forks are standard FXR 38mm tubes to which were added our own sliding stanchions (permitting ride height to be adjusted easy) encompassing in one go forward mounted axle, brake and front fenders brackets. Neat stuff.

For the powertrain, we chose an all billet aluminium 98 CI motor from that other exiled Britisher Nigel Patrick of Patrick Racing, California. Brakes, rotors and small furniture were carefully selected from Performance Machine and Arlen Ness best offerings.

Finally, our old mate Terry Spencer (who was initially tutored by Jeff McCann himself) did the paint job, which we wanted red, red, and again red, for the sad reasons expressed in preamble…

Now let’s let you in a “trade secret”: No doubt you will have read that on racing motorcycles, the frames are meant to flex a little under severe duty thereby preventing cracks at stress points as well as avoiding that “wooden” feeling that some bikes are endowed with… Well… the frame on Let it Bleed flexes a little, not out of ill conceived design or engineering, but rather as a result of using 7/8^th high tensile chrome moly tubing; la crème de la crème as far as industrial tubing goes, and extortionately expensive too… Spookily enough, this makes for a very smoof glide-like road behaviour. Did we “engineer” for this to happen? Hum, err, not really… but very, very nice all the same…

Mark Battistini & The Batt Boyz Gang.