Roland Sands - Caselli desert sled

November 7^th marks the release of On Any Sunday, The Next Chapter – hitting theaters nation wide. With its highly anticipated debut, Red Bull North America wanted to do something special to promote this iconic movie. Dana Brown and Roland Sands decided it would be cool to build a custom bike that would take us back to the original 1971 classic, On Any Sunday and bring those nostalgic days to modern life. This bike build could have easily taken the path of flat tracker, hill climber or road racer; but with the tragic loss of offroad racer Kurt Caselli last year at the 2013 Baja 1000, they all decided that a “desert sled” build was in order. Roland Sands contacted KTM North America and they were on board to have RSD build the bike and help tell Kurt’s story, and raise awareness of the Kurt Caselli Foundation.

The online auction bidding for the bike starts today and ends on November 29th, with a live auction at A Day In The Dirt. For more details or to start bidding please head over to Compass Auctions and be part of history. 

RSD:
"Our aim was to take a brand new, 2015 KTM 450 SX-F and turn it into something with modern day performance and reliability but, with the aesthetics and styling of the long-gone bomb runners of yesteryear.  There’s something great about the simplistic lines of vintage bikes. The cool thing about customizing modern day motocrossers is that underneath all of the plastics, electric start and fuel injection, the bones really haven’t strayed too far from the original motocross bikes of the past. 
The new machines have obviously gotten a lot faster, have way better suspension and are much more reliable; but changing the look was pretty straight forward. We hand fabricated the aluminum gas tank and chromoly subframe first, then made the aluminum side panels and number plates. The aluminum fenders are reproduction versions from a 1974 Husqvarna. All of this was done right on top of the unmodified stock frame and, technically speaking, you could pretend your riding down cow trails alongside Steve McQueen one day then return it back to a stock 2015 KTM and go race Anaheim 1 with it the next, all in just a matter of a couple hours. 
We incorporated some parts that Kurt was critical about on his race bikes, including his preferred handlebar bend, grips, pegs and wheels, as well as a custom, thinned-out brake lever from Kurt’s long time factory KTM mechanic, Anthony Di Basilio. We think this bike would be set up just how Kurt would have liked it. All of the custom made parts, combined with the modern day aftermarket accessories, almost makes you wonder what year this machine is actually from.

Designer: Roland Sands

Fabricator: Aaron Boss

Mechanic: Scott Dimick

Project Manager: Cameron Brewer

Photos by: Joseph Hitzelberger