The San Diego area may not be as famous as some locales made popular by the spate of cable television's bike builders, but it's not a backwater, either.

CRISSY PASCUAL / Union-Tribune Richard Pollock builds custom motorcycles out of his small shop in Poway. The bikes can take years to complete.

Consider Poway resident Richard Pollock and his Mule Motorcycles.

Pollock builds real-world, street-worthy, customized bikes. Don't look to him for any airbrushed skulls, ape bars or rear tires the size of beach balls. Every item on a Mule is there because it is needed. Think lean. Think light.

“Things must look right as well as function well. I like to make the bikes more seamless, cleaner and smoother,” Pollock said in his small shop.

His background in design and his flair for fabrication, honed in aerospace, have made him an eclectic builder of nonmainstream machines. No item escapes his need to make all things better.

A glance around his shop reveals parts from many sources. There's a Ducati 999 front suspension, a Yamaha switch gear, a Harley XLCH headlight bucket, Penske rear shocks and custom race-style wheels shod with sticky tires – all awaiting his particular vision.

“The whole should always be more than the sum of its parts,” said Pollock, whose race-style bikes leave no room for outlandish nonessentials.

One creation – six years in the making and nearly finished – has a 100-cubic-inch S&S motor built by Dan Baisley of Baisley Hi-Performance in Portland, Ore. The V-twin motor has been stuffed into a locally made frame. Baisley Hi-Performance builds one-off, billet Pro-Stock heads for serious Harley-Davidson drag racers, and this bike sports a pair of the only four made.

Pollock dubbed it the “XR-1660,” a paean to the H-D factory XR-750 flat-track bikes, even though it displaces more than twice the volume of those iconic, aluminum-head, factory racer 750s. Power comes from S&S Sportster cases with a special crank, Axtell cylinders, proprietary cam grind and a pair of 44mm, tricked-out Keihin carburetors on hand-built, extended intake manifolds.

There is $6,000 worth of modified Brembo brakes on this lightweight bike, plus Redline radial-mount calipers, dinner-plate-sized rotors, specially modified pistons and linings and assorted lightweight hardware. Setups like this were MotoGP race-bike secrets only five years ago.

Successful dynamometer runs are still in the future, but scratch-pad figures point to 130 horsepower and 130 foot-pounds of torque from this fast-revving 100-incher, which would translate to a fistful of torquey fun on a bike with a targeted weight of 400 pounds.

“The engine has been balanced and there is no noticeable vibration over 2,500 rpm,” Pollock said.

Pollock said the six-year wait doesn't bother his customers, whom he said are all gearheads and are into the process of the build, too.

“They're people who have had cars, trucks, homes, clothes or whatever made for them, so they know the process. They'll call and I'll give them progress reports and jpegs of the all detail work,” he said with a laugh.

As if on cue, his cell phone rings and it's the future owner of this particular bike, who gets an update.

“It's a bit like motorcycle phone sex for them,” he said, chuckling.

Pollock's pricing arrangement with customers is unique.

“If I give you an estimate of what it will cost, I never go back,” he said.

That has cost him money on occasion, he said, “but no bike is ever delivered until it is perfect.”

With the popularity of the dual-sport genres as design trends, Pollock has connected with a fine niche. His typical customer wants a custom bike that will stand out in the pack on a Sunday-morning back-road ride with the boys and is built with real-world performance and handling in mind.

He has a close-knit group of specialists who handle the outsourced work, such as welding, paint and plating. But the final designs always show his clean and integrated vision.

Pollock can be reached via his Web site, mulemotorcycles.net, or by calling (858) 442-9536.

---