a golden state of mind

our second shop build was to pay homage the 2015 – 2016 golden state warriors’ season. the season they achieved a record breaking 73 wins and 9 losses. although they would ultimately lose the championship to the cleveland cavaliers, it was one of the greatest season in the history of the nba. we started off with a 2004 model year ruckus found in the outskirts of sacramento. picked it up from a young seller who used it to get around. it was barely running with a few minor modifications on it. we stripped it down and salvaged only the engine, harness, main frame and subframe. inspired by the warriors’ team colors. we powder coated the frames candy electric blue, this included the lowered seat frame and the bar stem. from there, we got brand new oem plasma yellow battery box. the next thing to complete the chassis was to powder coat the engine mount and to keep the colorway going, that was done in yellow as well. since we did not intend to do a motor swap, we ordered a custom cut, 12×4″ rear wheel to match a front end kit with wheel and disc brakes. once we had it on a rolling chassis, it was time to machine some custom pieces. using the iconic san francisco/oakland bay bridge warriors logo as a template. we machined 3 custom pieces, the rear wheel cover, radiator cover and a battery box front emblem. the headlight bracket was removed to accommodate this piece so a single led pod light was attached to a fork mounted bracket. next we tackled the upholstery and used black carbon vinyl on the sides and suede top with yellow stitches. we used a drag bar and really got creative with it. powder coated white, we opted to make our own grip, we cut out a children’s rubber basketball and made grips out of it. the funnest part of the build was to make a basketball court out of the tank cover and a basketball hoop out of a carbon fiber cup holder. we wrapped the cover in a wood grain wrap and printed a pair of “roaracle” decals to make it look like the floor of what was then the oracle arena. this was also the build where we designed and tested out a bluetooth speaker floating mount. we molded a clear plastic rectangle and added a white border in it so symbolize the backboard and mounted it atop of the cup holder. this was a very fun build and it demonstrated a lot of creativity when it came to a subject build. a custom, up exit exhaust was added, rear derlin slider pegs and a side stand.

photos by @roybotvision on instagram