Pepo Rosell Triumph Legend TT Custom
With the modern custom motorcycle scene awash with café racers, bobbers and street trackers, it’s refreshing to see a builder take a different tack.
What you’re looking at here is simply dubbed “Rocket” and is the work of a Spanish builder with an impressive – and extensive – history in custom bike building.
Pepo Style
Based in Spain, Pepo Rosell creates custom parts and builds one-off bikes under the ‘XTR’ banner, with an output that’s nothing less than impressive.
After starting in straight restorations in the 1990s, Pepo switched to bespoke builds at the start of the new millennium. While customs of all sorts rolled out of XTR Pepo’s workshop, the Spaniard soon developed a knack for stylish customs inspired by race bikes.
These included customs named after famous race circuits, like Imola, Daytona and Montjuich, as well as more fanciful names, like Pyrene, Morcuera and the Ducati-based (and brilliantly-named) Pantahstica.
The Rocket is a more recent creation of Pepo’s and takes specific inspiration from the BSA triples that represented the British bike industry’s last great competition successes in the 1970s.
Final Fling
BSA’s Rocket 3 and the companion Triumph Trident debuted in 1968 at a time when the British motorcycle industry was in increasingly dire financial straits.
Essentially a three-cylinder, 750cc version of the 500cc twins that had been the backbone of both brands’ “big” offerings for years, the triples were almost immediately rendered obsolete when Honda’s game-changing four-cylinder CB750 arrived a year later.
With American sales so crucial to the British bike industry’s survival (the CB750 was outselling the British triples by around 4-to-1 in the US), a race program was undertaken to lift the profile of both the Rocket 3 and Trident, focussing on AMA Grand National competition and the annual Daytona 200.
BSA/Triumph’s initial assault on the Daytona 200 in 1970 was hastily cobbled together, and while Gene Romero finished second on a Trident, their nemesis in the Honda CB750 took the win.
For Daytona ’71, a massive campaign was undertaken, with no less than 10 bikes entered across both brands; arguably the British bike industry’s last great factory-backed racing effort.
That effort for 1971 attracted the likes of Mike Hailwood, Don Emde, Paul Smart, Dave Aldana, Gary Nixon and 1970 winner, Dick Mann, who had been lured across from Honda.
In the race, Mann prevailed to take the win, leading home Romero (Triumph) and Emde (BSA) in a British 1-2-3 that would prove to be the last hurrah for a British manufacturer at Daytona.
That now-legendary 1971 Daytona event must have made an impression on Pepo, as the livery of his Rocket carries clear influences of the BSA racers from that era.
British Blend
Like those Daytona racers of the early 1970s, Pepo’s Rocket combines BSA and Triumph elements in the form of BSA branding over a Triumph triple base unit, specifically a 2000-model Legend TT.
Essentially a lower-spec version of Triumph’s Thunderbird triple from the late-1990s, the Legend TT featured the same 885cc three-cylinder engine, but with a lower seat height, less chrome and less obvious heritage styling touches.
To look at Pepo’s creation, though, those Triumph origins are hard to spot, thanks to a number of changes.
Leading the way here is a fuel tank from a Suzuki Bandit and a bespoke subframe that mirrors the factory backbone main frame, but drilled to reduce weight.
The front end is from a Triumph Daytona 675R, consisting of an Ohlins fork, triple trees and forged aluminium wheel. Brembo brake calipers and rotors handle the stopping, while the Daytona carbon fibre front guard keeps the lightweight theme going.
Modifying the swingarm allowed for a Daytona rear rim and complementary brake to be fitted, while the factory monoshock has been replaced with a compact YSS unit.
Triple Treated
Rather than just make this creation look like a racer, Pepo has made sure this creation is closer to performing like one, too, with ported heads, freer-flowing DNA air filters and a Domino quick-action throttle.
The exhaust headers are from a Speed Triple, modified and matched to a custom megaphone silencer made by a compatriot of Pepo’s known as ‘SuperMario’.
Enhancing the Daytona 675R braking package are high-end FrenTubo brake lines, hooked up to master cylinders from a Ducati 1098, with the clutch master cylinder also lifted from the Ducati.
For grippier performance on the road - and occasional track work - a set of Continental’s ContiSport Attack tyres have been fitted.
That XTR touch
Other ‘bought in’ elements on this build include a fuel cap from a Laverda, Yamaha TRX sidestand and a revcounter from Motogadget, but pretty much everything else is from Pepo’s own XTR business.
Those XTR touches include CNC-machined clip-on bars with adjustable and foldable levers, rearset footpegs and the rear mudguard.
That delectable seat unit, fairing and screen are all XTR’s handiwork, too, with Pepo making up brackets to fit the bespoke fairing to the frame.
Paintwork is by Pintumoto in Madrid and includes a rich, deep red on the fairing and tank, complemented by the BSA logo and sponsor decals that effectively evoke the ‘70s. The ‘2’ race number is, presumably, a nod to Mann’s 1970 Daytona winner (as he raced with a number ‘4’ in 1971), or maybe Pepo chose it just because it looks cool!
Race Continues
Since completing Rocket late last year, Pepo Rosell has already produced another racer-inspired custom, dubbed Pata Negra (Black Paw), that’s based on a 2003 Ducati Monster 1000 and has a distinct Suzuka 8-Hour racer vibe.
At time of writing, Rocket was for sale, too, with Pepo asking 15,000 Euro (which is around AU$21,000 direct conversion). So, if you like the look of what you see here, contact XTR Pepo via email at: [email protected]
If it’s already sold, no matter; more than 50 customs have been produced by Pepo’s hands to date, and there’s sure to be more cool motorcycling metal to come from this talented Spanish creator in the future.
Words: Mike Ryan
Photos: Cesar Godoy
Source: Bike Exif
