ETTO Motorcycles TRX850

Ian Davis set up his custom shop ETTO Motorcycles in late 2016 and this is his first show bike. It’s a Yamaha TRX850 featured in Built magazine (out June 21 2017). Ian’s an ex racer as well as a fabricator and likes to build bikes that handle. He needed a new loom because he’d moved all the components from their original positions.

The switchgear (from Allens Performance) is really neat but the high/low beam switch is a simple button that makes momentary contact. To work as a dipswitch it needs a latch relay, which is the item in the middle behind the headstock.

I got to ride the bike near Ian’s workshop in Nottinghamshire. It steers like a club race bike, and the carbs are perfectly set up by TT racer Dan Hegarty. The exhausts, built by Nigel Parker at NRP to Ian’s spec, are unbelievably loud – almost MotoGP level.

The bike’s soon going to get a fairing, and a new seat and paint job. But it’s already a real example of a bike built by a guy who knows exactly what he’s doing.