Tony Cenzi poses with his FatBook creation at the V-Twin Show in Cincinnati, January 2005. Watch for the full Drag Fatbook Bike Report in the next issue.

reat looking motorcycle, isn’t it? This is Tony Cenzi’s first FatBook project bike, and it’s pretty obvious these guys up in Spencerport, New York, know how to pick the right parts and put ‘em together. CC Cycles has been in business since 1996 when Tony opened the doors “and ruined a perfectly good hobby.” Hardly. Since then Tony’s shop has grown into a booming eight-employee beehive of activity, and these guys turn out more than two dozen motorcycles a year. Everything, including the paint and graphics, is done in-house, too. It isn’t just full-on customs like this one filling the workdays, either. CC Cycles is a do-it-all shop, so right alongside all those complete ground-ups there’s also plenty of routine service work, performance work and light customizing going on. Fat-tire kits are installed, pipes, carbs and chrome are sold and mounted. With all of this, CC Cycles, needless to say, is a pretty good customer at Drag Specialties. Tony has them on speed-dial. Tony’s son, Mark, runs the service- and light-custom area leaving Tony out in the back of the shop where he’s free to create, and create he does. Like we said, he’ll do probably two dozen bikes like this a year while Mark and the guys up front are just as busy putting on all those 250-kits, high bars and pipes.
     For his inaugural FatBook project bike Tony chose a Paramount rigid frame. He powered it with a Patrick Racing 113-inch engine topped with a Rivera dual-Mikuni induction and a set of Vance & Hines “Big Radius” pipes. Top shelf stuff, all in the FatBook. The list continues with Accutronix raked triple-trees and 2-over legs using Deuce lowers. There’s Arlen Ness wheels and controls here, a Baker 6-speed and Brembo brakes to bring it all to a halt. Tony matched a Metzeler 280 rear tire with a skinny 21-incher at the front, and if this parts list is beginning to sound high-performance serious, it should. “We went for a street digger feel,” Tony explains. “A little race bike for the highways, sitting nice and level and still having the front end out there.” Tony and the guys at Drag Specialties worked out a basic premise for this bike together, what it would be and what parts it would use. And it uses some pretty neat parts. Along with everything already mentioned, the bike’s swoopy tin work is based around a stretched Independent gas tank and a set of Russ Wernimont fenders. The oil tank came with the frame, it’s a Paramount. Tony modified it a little, blending the look just a bit more into the lines of the bike. Tony worked his smooth, custom magic around the neck area of the frame, too, but that’s about the end of the special work done to this neat selection of standard out-of-the-catalog parts. And that was the plan. The idea here, as with all FatBook builds, was to demonstrate just how cool a motorcycle can be built using what the aftermarket has to offer and what Drag Specialties can deliver.
     “We do a lot of these little street-digger type bikes,” Tony says, “but this one was just a little bit different for us. We don’t generally build them up around a rigid frame. It was fun.” Other than that one little change, though, the style lines here are pure CC Cycles, right down to the paint and graphics. Tony did all that himself right at CC Cycles, too. There’s a full body shop and paint booth right on the premises, and this House Of Kolor Pablo Purple accented with those Drag Specialties logos went on right there.
     “I think this one came out beautiful,” Tony says. “I’m happy with it.” So are the guys who ordered it up. Tony Cenzi definitely stuck to the program. About the only part on this whole bike that’s not readily available right out of the FatBook is the seat; Tony made the pan and had it custom upholstered. “I put one of my own coil mounts on, too,” he says, but other than that this bike is straight from the catalog. Anyone could duplicate it.
     That’s saying something, isn’t it? This bike screams custom just about as loud as it gets, yet under it all there’s just a nicely selected bunch of parts straight from the aftermarket and from those Drag Specialties warehouses. How cool is that? “And I’ll tell you something else,” Tony says. “FatBook project-bike or not, I get 90-percent of everything I need from Drag Specialties. Day-in and day-out. They’re the best, and I mean that.” So is the bike he just built for them.

Tony Cenzi and CC Cycles’ inaugural FatBook project bike is a beautiful custom built almost entirely from the FatBook, with parts from Vance & Hines, Arlen Ness, Metzeler and many more.