Flat track mad scientist Toshiyuki ‘Cheetah’ Osawa delivers a spicy Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 flat tracker as hot as the chili pepper it’s named after.
Peaking at 2.2 million Scoville units, the Carolina Reaper is widely considered the world’s hottest chili pepper. But it didn’t get that way on its own. It’s a hybrid, spliced together by notorious chili expert Ed Currie to be hotter, fiercer, and meaner than anything nature intended.
This Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 hits just as hard. Rebuilt into a featherweight flat tracker by the enigmatic Toshiyuki ‘Cheetah’ Osawa, it earns its ‘Carolina Reaper’ moniker with a razor-sharp stance and incendiary livery.
Imaginative flat trackers are Osawa-san’s jam. Based in Tokyo, Japan, the man is a visionary and the brains behind the ‘Have Fun’ flat track racing event. So he knows what works and what doesn’t.
“In Japan, flat track is mostly run on short tracks,” he tells us. “With that environment in mind, I aimed for a more compact chassis and geometry optimized specifically for short-track performance. The rear was lowered and the front-end dimensions re-worked to achieve a lower center of gravity.”
As with all of Cheetah’s custom builds, the Guerrilla was designed to be exciting to ride and to look at. “The concept was a fusion of retro and modern, and of pure racing performance and custom bike creativity. I set out to create a bike that combines the slim profile and shroud-style bodywork of modern motocrosser-based DTX flat-trackers with the powerful, authentic character of framers; flat-track racers built around dedicated steel frames.”
“It’s a motorcycle that conveys the playful yet serious attitude of American racing culture from the 1970s—evoking the flat-track machines and race cars that once battled for U.S. Championships.”
To get the proportions just right, Cheetah fabricated a new subframe and swingarm, but left the Guerrilla’s main frame intact. Built from chromoly tubing using brass brazing, the new swingarm does away with the original rear suspension linkage in favor of a direct-mount setup. Cheetah designed it with three lower mounting points, so that the rear-end geometry can be tweaked quickly to suit track conditions.
WP Suspension forks do duty up front, gripped by KTM 390 Duke yokes. The Royal Enfield now rolls on 19” wheels with Maxxis DTR-1 tires. A single Brembo rear brake caliper keeps things in check, mounted on a custom-made bracket.
Handmade aluminum bodywork sits atop the Guerrilla 450’s bones, divided into two pieces. The polished aluminum fuel tank stands apart, designed with a generous cutout for the Royal Enfield’s chunky new air filter. The tank is cradled by a gorgeously sculpted one-piece unit that includes the bike’s side fairings, number boards, and tail bump.
Cheetah built the bike for race use only, so the cockpit wears little more than a set of Mika Metals handlebars and the essential controls. A number board mounted up front takes the place of a headlight, while, lower down, custom foot controls wear Bates rubber pegs.
Cheetah also treated the bike to a stainless steel exhaust header and an IXRACE muffler, before turning his attention to the Guerrilla’s finishes. S Paint Works laid down a base coat, but the scorching flame job was all Cheetah’s handiwork. Finer details include sporty upholstery from Atelier Tee, judicious red highlights, and an engine-turned effect on select aluminum parts.
Hot, compact, and impossible to ignore, Cheetah’s Guerrilla 450 flat tracker delivers every bit of the fury its name promises.
Cheetah Instagram | Images by Kouki ‘Uribou’ Kato
