If you live in the UK and you want a fast street tracker or a well-sorted flat track racer, you call Steve Hillary of Redmax Speed Shop. He’s got a reputation that most builders would kill for—and he builds a mean café racer too.
Steve is an old-school bike nut who spends more time working on his bikes than his website or Facebook page. And it’s not often we get the chance to examine one of his builds closely. But this very fast Triumph street scrambler has made the wait worthwhile.
If you went to the Bike Shed show a few weeks ago, you’ll have seen this monster in the metal. Steve built it for a client who already has a Redmax bike in his garage, and wanted a ‘hard as nails’ road bike with an electric start.
“We built Andy my favorite-ever tracker about five years back,” Steve recalls. “It had a Triumph T120 motor in one of our monoshock tracker frames, a serpent-like set of high pipes, and was painted in green with copper accents.”
“Everyone was happy—until Andy’s bad leg stopped him kick-starting it!” So Steve suggested building a new bike, using one of Redmax’s new Hinckley Bonneville tracker frames in the shop, designed for electric start engines.
It’s a very light frame, tipping the scales at just 16 kg (36 lbs.) including the swingarm. So Andy agreed, specifying only that the bike would need to work on the motorway and on the trails around his Hampshire home
Steve and chief fabricator Glenn Moger got down to work in their Devon headquarters. They slotted an 865cc Bonneville engine (with 270 degree firing interval) into the lightweight frame, and juiced it up with a pair of 38mm Mikuni carbs connected to a quick-action motocross-spec throttle.
The stainless steel 2-into-2 high pipes are terminated with alloy mufflers, which can be re-packed—just like those on enduro bikes from the 80s.
The motor looks the part, with finned engine covers in a raw finish imported from the US. Steve then blasted a Motone sprocket cover to match. (“Two k that little lot cost!” he laughs.)
There’s a huge alloy bash plate to protect that essential starter, plus the sump and oil filter.
Redmax bikes are always well set-up, and this Triumph is no exception. The forks are fully adjustable Yamaha YZF-R6 items, slotted into billet yokes produced to Steve’s design by the precision engineers at Fastec.
The heavy-duty shocks are from RFY—an eBay favorite with surprisingly good quality, especially if carefully rebuilt.
Steve is lucky to have one of England’s best wheel builders just half an hour down the road—Dave Massam. Dave fashioned up a set of alloy rims, powdercoated black, and fitted with stainless spokes.
They’re fitted with Motoz Tractionator Adventure tires, and Steve reckons it’s the first set of this cult rubber to make it into the UK. “They were imported from Australia, and once I saw them, I knew they were the ones. They’re 120 mph rated too—and hard as f–k to fit!”
The Brembo brakes have been lifted from a Ducati Monster, fed by fluid from HEL lines and mated to discs and hubs from an Aprilia Pegaso.
Another touch of practicality is in the lighting gear. “We had to have great lights, so we found the biggest rear light we could fit under the Redmax Astro seat, and some high-intensity indicators front and back,” says Steve.
A defining feature is the dual-halogen Baja headlamp setup, hand-fabbed in the Redmax shop with a race number board hidden under the leather toolbag. The brown leather was crafted by Glenn, along with the seat pad with a Redmax logo sewn in. The color is matched to the Biltwell grips, which Steve is a fan of.
The super-sleek bodywork comes from the Redmax catalog. “We needed the tank to have plenty of capacity,” says Steve.
“Our teardrop large XR alloy tank holds 2.75 gallons (over 10 liters), and is the biggest thing that looks any good on a scrambler / tracker bike. It should supply plenty of juice to the Mikunis fitted on the other end of that fast action throttle!”
The paint on the tank and seat unit was designed to stand out. It’s a Ferrari metallic red (chosen by client Andy), mated to a pearly white chosen by Steve, and laid down by Lee Cockeram at Roosters Voodoo in the port city of Southampton.
The rest of the bike is has a thick coat of black powder, which was turned around in just a week by Leighton at West Taunton Powder Coating. (“Yes, one week! They are very thorough too.”)
The electrics are hidden under the seat, powered by a lithium ion battery and controlled by a Motogadget m.unit. Motogadget also supplied the buttons on the Redmax flat track bars, but the digital dash is from Koso. There’s an RFID unit under the seat hump to allow for keyless starting.
All that was left was to give the bike a name, and Steve came up with ‘The Knobbler.’ It’s a play on English slang—as in getting ‘knobbled’ if you get hurt. And of course Poms call off-road tires ‘knobblies’ rather than ‘knobbies.’
It’s a subtle reminder that a bike as light and fast as this Triumph can bite if not treated with care.
As Steve says, “You want be the knobbler, not the knobbled!”
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