The annals of music history are littered with bands whose third albums didn’t quite manage the success of their debut and sophomore offerings. That trend was at the forefront of Rick Hannah’s mind when he set out to build his third Kawasaki W650 desert sled.
A South African ex-pat currently living in the UK, Rick works in the tech industry—but he’s a petrolhead at heart. Working under the cheeky nickname of Dirty Dick’s Motos, he burst onto our pages a few years ago with a picture-perfect Kawasaki W650 scrambler in the style of vintage British desert sleds. He followed it up with a similarly styled W650 a year later, leaving him with more than enough data to build a third.
Rick’s biggest challenge was figuring out how to repeat his success, without getting carried away. “I approached this sled like Metallica’s Master of Puppets,” he tells us. “Metallica took what they had, brought in outside help, and made sure that their third album was tighter, louder, had more focused lyrics, and delivered an hour of thrash metal bliss.”
“I had thought I couldn’t push the desert sled concept further after the second one, but then I realized I was thinking about it incorrectly. There was no need to push the technical aspects any further. What I needed to focus on were the design elements—taking the best parts of both previous W650 sleds and working those into a bike I would be truly happy with.”
This time, Rick gave himself a leg up by starting with a low-mileage donor bike that was running well. “It’s all well and good rescuing a bike and turning an ugly duckling into a swan,” he says, “but it takes an enormous amount of time. And to be honest, I was tired of battling problems that were invisible when I started!”
The 2001-model Kawasaki W650 was stripped down to its bones so that Rick could assess which parts to refresh, and which to toss in the bin. The frame was de-tabbed, chopped, and treated to twin tail loops. One loop follows the traditional scrambler style, while the second sits behind the seat, perfectly aligned with the frame’s rear downtubes.
Moving to the rest of the chassis, Rick relied on his tried-and-true arsenal of Kawasaki W650 mods. A burly CNC-machined swingarm does duty at the back, propped up on a set of Hagon shocks that measure an inch longer than stock.
You’ll find new billet aluminum yokes up front, designed with an offset that lifts the front end to match the rear. The forks now sport an Andreani cartridge kit, adding full adjustability and much better handling.
Rick wanted to retain the Kawasaki’s 19F/18R wheel size configuration, but the stock rims weren’t up to the task. So he stripped the wheels down, had the hubs powder-coated silver, and re-laced them with wider Morad rims measuring 19×3.00” at the front and 18×4.25” at the back. They’re wrapped in Heidenau K67 and Mitas Terra Force tires, respectively.
The W650’s OEM rear drum brake adds a classic touch to the bike, but the front wheel now uses a Dirty Dick’s Motos Big Brake Kit. Developed by Rick, it combines a six-piston caliper with a 320 mm floating disc from EBC.
Rick outfitted the W650 with high-mounted fenders and a diamond-stitched solo seat, all of which hit the mark for a neo-retro desert sled. The original fuel tank is still in play, but he’s modded it in myriad subtle ways.
“One of my favorite parts on the W650 is the tank,” he states. “It’s such a classic shape, so it baffles me why Kawasaki makes it ugly with giant knee pads and huge plastic badges. To show off the curves of the tank, I removed the brackets and welded the seams.”
“The trick here is not to cut the seam and weld it as you go, but to fill the gap between the tank and seam with a long bead of weld, and then smooth it down. This fills in the ugly area of the stamped seam without removing the nose-to-tail line of the tank and seat.”
Rick also moved the fuel filler to the right side to mimic vintage Triumphs and added a knurled aluminum cap from Motone.
Further forward, you’ll find a color-matched headlight mounted on handmade brackets. Tiny Kellerman turn signals are mounted directly to the headlight brackets up front, and tucked under the tail loop out back. The taillight is a Motone part.
The cockpit uses classic Western-style one-inch handlebars, fitted with K-Tech brake and clutch controls, a new throttle, Biltwell Inc. grips, and neat micro switches. A Motogadget speedo sits front and center, housed in a mounting that, like the extended handlebar risers, is part of the top yoke.
Elsewhere, Rick installed a burly sump guard and lengthened the bike’s side stand. Every aluminum part was polished, the frame was nickel-plated, and the engine’s valve cover was ceramic coated. The kickstart lever wears a brass kicker from MotorRock in Japan—a part that’s now discontinued.
The real magic here is how well each mod harmonizes with the next, none of them hogging the spotlight. This was a deliberate move on Rick’s part; “The design had to be as slim as possible with no busy design elements, as I wanted to emphasize two parts of the bike above everything else.”
“First, the exhaust, which is a stainless steel marvel of straight lines and curves, snaking its way around the side of the bike. The sound is fantastic, with a deep and gentle lopey lope at idle which rises into a Spitfire-like howl at higher revs. My buddy Dave outdid himself here—it’s his best work yet, and probably his last as retirement swiftly approaches.”
“Secondly, the paint. Arnie at Kustom Tech has laid down the most incredible layered and sparkly purple I’ve ever seen. My brief was to take the factory Kawasaki purple from the 70s and make it 10 times blingier. Arnie delivered—there isn’t a single angle where this bike doesn’t look incredible in the sunshine.”
If Rick’s latest Kawasaki W650 desert sled tickles your fancy, it’s currently for sale via the Bike EXIF Classifieds. But you’d better hurry… because it’s also his last.
“This is the kind of desert sled that I would build for myself with no compromises or ‘safe’ design choices,” he explains. “There is nothing subtle about this bike, the style, the colors, the sound, everything is the epitome of ‘better, faster, more.’ This is as good as it gets, and I’m not going to try and top it.”
“More importantly, Dirty Dick’s Motos will shortly be closing down for the foreseeable future. There will be a swansong, but this will be the last W650 sled I build.”
“It’s been an incredible decade; I’ve met some wonderful people and built some cracking bikes. I got to stretch my skills and ideas and put them into practice, and will always be grateful for that. The time has come to move onto pastures new, so thank you all for the support and appreciation!”
Dirty Dick’s Motos Instagram | Images by Mihail Jershov | Buy this motorcycle
