The Cutting Edge of Design From Pangea Speed Shop

The Artisans at Pangea Speed have created their Pangea Speed “SpeedMaster,” and it’s a custom bike with a slightly different flavor, if you will.

The man responsible, builder Andy Carter, took a relatively pedestrian if cool 2008 Triumph Bonneville engine, and acting on the direction of the ultimate owner, Bret Walton, came up with something marvelous.

What did he have in the way of direction from Walton on how to proceed? Not much.

“He told me to build the wildest bike I could think of,” Carter said.

And that he did, brothers and sisters.

Pangea fabricated the frame from scratch in their Salt Lake City garage, created a wonderfully blocky set of girder forks, and then added finely-crafted details of all sorts to come up with the finished product.

“Girder forks were very popular in the early years of motorcycle design and actually provide far less change in trail measurements than a springer or a telescopic fork,” Carter said. “The fork blades were CNC-machined and then hand-worked to have a more organic look.”

So what did they keep from the original manufacturer? Just wheels; a 21-inch Triumph TR5T front and 18-inch rear straight off a 1971 Bonneville.

At the tender age of 27, Carter got the fabricating bug working in his parents’ proto
typing shop.

As for inspiration, Carter says he looks both forward and back in time.

“I 
always try to look outside of what is going on in the custom motorcycle world and at what great designers in other facets of design are doing. I also enjoy looking at what people were doing in the early days of motorcycle building because there was so much experimentation going on that it lends your mind to thinking about the problem differently,” he said. “My family and friends are my biggest inspiration.”