PETARDO

El Solitario doesn’t care what you think of this motorcycle. The snark of a thousand online trolls has passed through their ears, and they’ve embraced the title of “the most hated custom in the world” for their impostor BMW. Their bikes aren’t built to be hated, but to satisfy the curiosity of El Solitario boss David Borras, who among all the fiercely independent builders in Custom Revolution, is definitely the most provocative. He’s been dancing naked just outside the Alt.Custom campfire, challenging everything and everyone involved, simply by being himself and doing what suits him. After nearly a decade of these antics, El Solitario has matured and been recognized as a visionary project that arouses the kind of anger only a thought leader can inspire.

While El Sol built many explicitly “nya-nya” bikes before the “Petardo” (2014), this machine marked a turning point as their first to ignore the worldwide conversation on Alt.Customs and strike off into the woods. “Petardo” (“firecracker” in Spanish) is the least recognizable Ducati ever built; that it was based on a 1994 900SS is completely irrelevant, although the slim L-twin motor and trellis chassis provided a suitably narrow platform around which to build a concept motorcycle. Rather than take the usual path for a pared-down and hungry café racer, the “Petardo” is a celebration of complexity, revealed function, and vulnerability. It’s a reaction against minimalism, a bike essentially turned inside-out to reveal its vital organs. “We wanted to embrace the veins and arteries that move the body!”

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