Bikes

Nelis 1000R: A Re-imagining of the TL1000R

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The Suzuki TL1000R is a special bike. It garnered little love from the media during its release; but despite being discontinued seven years ago, the TLR continues to foster a cult following, especially in Europe. So it doesn’t surprise us a great deal that when 25 year old fabrication apprentice, Mathijn Nelis, set out to create is first custom work under the careful gaze of master builder Nico Bakker, that the young Dutchman chose to work with the stout TL v-twin powerplant that dwarfed its Italain competitors during its initial release.

Starting with a custom frame of his own design, Nelis built his bike with some of the best components available for the TL…and since their isn’t a large aftermarket parts market for the bike, which in reality means that Nelis fabricated many of exquisite elements himself that you see on the Nelis 1000R.

The bike features Nelis’ own rearsets, exhaust hangers, triple clamp, and hand beaten aluminum bodywork. Other go-fast parts come in the form of Brembo monobloc calipers, which are radially mounted to the Marzocchi forks up front. Wheels are provided by Marchesini, and rotors are by Braking.

The Nelis 1000R is a stunning example of the TL breed, and shows that even 10+ years after the Suzuki TL1000R was introduced to the market, the bike and it’s class-beating motor still have some life left in them. Perhaps Suzuki killed off the Ducati-killer a bit premature? We’ll leave the talk about rotary dampers for the comments section. Thanks for the tip Mathias!

Source: Bakker Frames via TLZone

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