The custom motorcycle scene is a melting pot of styles and philosophies, but few names have managed to stir the pot quite as consistently and compellingly as Roland Sands Design (RSD).
More than just a custom shop, RSD is the brainchild of Roland Sands, a former AMA Grand Prix National Champion racer. This background is the key to understanding the RSD ethos: his designs aren’t just about looking good—they’re about performance, function, and blending two-wheeled cultures. From high-speed road racing to stripped-down choppers, Sands merges the precision engineering of a sportbike with the raw soul of a cruiser.
Since founding RSD in 2005, Sands has built hundreds of machines, designed countless parts, and even founded the Super Hooligan National Championship racing series. His work has elevated the custom game, proving that a bike can be both a high-art showpiece and an absolute blast to ride.
Here are seven of our favorite customs from the RSD workshop that have appeared on Bike EXIF over the years.
The Pro Stock Peril: BMW R18 Drag Racer
When the BMW R18, a bike defined by its massive boxer engine and cruiser styling, first hit the market, California’s RSD was one of the first workshops to jump in. For this iteration, they threw caution to the wind, dialing the madness up to eleven and cloaking it in the iconic Daytona Orange livery.
The result is a full-bore Pro Stock drag racer aesthetic that borders on outrageous. To achieve this rigid, aggressive stance, RSD fabricated a bespoke trellised subframe that eliminates the rear suspension entirely. The rear end is a symphony of drag-spec hardware, featuring Grothus Dragbikes axle plates and a beefy rear wheel wrapped in an 8.5-inch-wide Mickey Thompson tire. Making room for that massive rubber required a drastic engineering solution: RSD eliminated the stock driveshaft, repositioning the rear drive hub in front of the wheel to act as a jackshaft, sending power via a new chain drive.
Up front, Grothus Dragbikes’ forks, an 18” wheel, and custom yokes with integrated handlebar mounts continue the theme. The rider controls are equally uncompromising, with a Race Torx thumb brake and a Pingel electric shifter eliminating the need for any traditional foot controls.
Finally, RSD cleverly integrated a nitrous oxide bottle by modifying the OEM fuel tank to carry fuel only on the left, carving a channel on the right for the chromed reservoir to sit proudly on display, cementing its status as perhaps the most extreme custom BMW R18 ever built. [MORE]
Yamaha RD400 ‘2 Stroke Attack’
In a sea of choppers at the Born Free show, the appearance of Roland Sands’ “2 Stroke Attack” Yamaha RD400 was a moment of pure, screaming defiance. Roland bought the non-running donor RD400 for a mere $600 at a swap meet and spent a year transforming it into an uncompromising, high-performance road racer.
This machine is a world away from the donor bike; only the engine cases and the California title remain. The air-cooled parallel twin was rebuilt and ported by two-stroke wizard Ed Erlenbach, and now fed by dual Mikuni flatslides carburetors. The exhaust is an equally uncompromising setup of handmade expansion chambers by Brian Turfrey, paired with genuine TZ250 silencers. The transmission has been beefed up with hand-cut Erlenbach gears and an early TZ250 dry clutch.
To handle this firecracker of a motor, the bike wears a full TZ250 frame and a genuine TZ250 ‘banana’ swingarm. Suspension is top-shelf, with black-nitrided Öhlins FG43 Road & Track forks up front and an Öhlins TTX shock in the rear. The bodywork even has a personal history, with the tank coming from the very TZ250 Roland rode to his AMA Championship win in 1998. Running on 17-inch magnesium track wheels and Dunlop KR race slicks, this bike is a stunning throwback that sacrifices nothing in modern performance. [MORE]
Yamaha Bolt Street Tracker
When the Yamaha Bolt arrived on the scene, it was meant to be a serious challenger to Harley-Davidson Sportster, offering a lighter, better-handling alternative to the American V-Twin. Yamaha USA tasked Roland Sands with displaying the Bolt’s custom potential, and he responded with a flawless, streetable tracker that required zero cutting to the frame—a boon for home customizers.
Sands, who had long wanted to create a streetable tracker, found the Bolt an ideal platform. The transformation begins with the stance: the back wheel was bumped up from 16” to a flat-track-appropriate 19”, fitted with Sun Gold anodized Buchanan’s rims and Dunlop flat track rubber. The aesthetics lean into race minimalism, with a fiberglass seat unit wrapped in race foam and new aluminum side covers.
Performance upgrades are plentiful, including an RSD Carbon Fiber Slant intake and a custom stainless steel exhaust with a carbon tip. Handling is tightened up with a braced swingarm, while the rider triangle is optimized with RSD Step Moto bars clamped onto RSD Nostalgia risers in a subtle Black Ops finish. The result is a radically different look created from a cleverly chosen selection of bolt-on parts, proving the Bolt’s potential as a modern, performance-focused custom base. [MORE]
Harley-Davidson Ameri-Tracker Sportster
Flat track is in RSD’s DNA, and the Ameri-Tracker is the ultimate solution for injecting that ‘go fast, turn left’ adrenaline into a road-legal machine. Based on a 2008-spec Nightster with a healthy 1200cc engine, this build showcases how to create a “highly functional, dirty version of the Sportster” perfect for both the street and a local hooligan short track.
Starting with a wrecked donor bike found in a junkyard, Roland boosted its performance with a Vance & Hines Fuelpak FI Tuner, an RSD Radial Air Cleaner, and a Slant 2-into-1 exhaust system. A heavy-duty Barnett clutch prepares the machine for abuse, while the controls lean into the oval track ethos with rearsets on the left and mid-controls on the right.
The biggest functional upgrade is the suspension: Suzuki GSX-R forks up front, customized with new triples to adjust geometry, and Progressive Suspension 970 Series shocks out back. The bike rolls on 19-inch RSD Del Mar wheels in a ‘Machine Ops’ finish, shod with classic flat track race compound Dunlop DT3 rubber. RSD’s genius for balance is evident in the bodywork, with a modified Softail Vintage Tank, hand-made side plates, and a kicked-up tail creating a look that’s immediately recognizable as a high-performance RSD creation. [MORE]
KTM 690 Enduro R
The KTM 690 Enduro R is known for its performance, but Roland Sands took the 66 hp, 305 lb Austrian machine and gave it a radical aesthetic and performance overhaul, proving that the ‘KTM look’ is not the only option. The challenge with the 690’s nearly 36-inch seat height was reconfiguring it to work, and the RSD team succeeded with panache.
The bodywork is completely new and hand-fabricated from aluminum, then painted by Airtrix, retaining the signature KTM orange in a classy racing stripe. Engine output was boosted by plundering the KTM Powerparts catalog, installing an EVO 2 tuning kit that includes a race-profile cam and a K&N filter, all breathing out through a custom-fit RSD ‘Slant’ exhaust.
To convert the tall dual-sport into a street-carving machine, RSD swapped the stock wire wheels for 17” Morris wheels with a custom nickel anodizing effect, running Dunlop Q3 Sportmax street/trackday tires. The forks are derived from a 690 Duke, shortened and revalved by Race Tech, and the bike now features a hand-fabricated swingarm hooked up to a custom Race Tech shock. The final racing touch is a set of Graves Motorsports clip-ons, eliminating any doubt about the bike’s high-performance, streetfighter focus. [MORE]
Indian Track Chief
Starting with the formidable Indian Chieftain, a massive touring bike powered by the 111 cubic inch (1811cc) Thunder Stroke engine, Roland Sands performed one of his most ambitious transformations: the Indian Track Chief. Tapping into Indian’s rich motorsport heritage, Sands created a boardtracker-inspired beast.
The bike is centred around a hand-fabricated 4130 chromoly steel single-sided rigid frame that hugs the engine perfectly. This is matched by a black Paughco Leaf Spring Fork assembly up front, a vintage-style piece of engineering that is surprisingly modern, with its motion controlled by a Fox DHX mountain bike shock tucked low near the axle. Despite its rigid-looking appearance, Sands reports the bike handles surprisingly well, even in the twisties.
The Track Chief is an exercise in weight savings and performance. The stock engine internals remain for reliability, but the colossal Chieftain sheds hundreds of pounds, now estimated at 400-500 lb. versus the stock 827 lb. tourer. It features a titanium fuel tank, an aluminium belly pan, and a custom titanium 2-into-2 exhaust. Final details include 21” x 3.5” lightweight RSD Del Mar rims in a bronze finish and see-through RSD Clarity covers that reveal a custom Barnett clutch pressure plate. The finished bike takes the burgeoning cool factor of America’s oldest brand up several notches. [MORE]
Honda Monkey for Wee Man
Customization isn’t always about outright speed; sometimes it’s about making a motorcycle fit its rider perfectly, and this wild Honda Monkey built for Jackass star Jason ‘Wee Man’ Acuña is the ultimate example. As a shorter rider returning to motorcycling, Wee Man needed a bike that was geared for the pavement and built to his frame.
The diminutive Monkey provided the perfect starting point, but even its famously thick seat was a hindrance. The RSD crew got to work, lowering the front forks with a Racing Bros kit and adding 280 mm Racing Bros shocks out back. Crucially, they fabricated a custom subframe with new shock mounts and trimmed a Saddlemen seat to ensure he could get both feet firmly on the ground.
Roland’s racing background ensured the performance box was also ticked. The Monkey’s engine was tuned with a Chimera intake, K&N filter, and a full Yoshimura exhaust system, resulting in a surprising top speed of 70-plus miles per hour. This speed is managed by lightweight BST carbon fiber wheels and an upgraded Brembo/Galfer braking system. The finished bike looks killer and is perfectly sized for its owner, proving that RSD is truly a “non-denominational motorcycle company.” [MORE]
