Muscle Rétro: A Yamaha XJR1300 from Bad Winners

Bad Winners is one of those shops that consistently do good work. It’s owned by Frenchman Walid Ben Lamine, who has an unusual and very performance-focused CV—including stints as a championship rower and a race team mechanic. It’s not surprising that the machines he puts together in his workshop in the 19th arrondissement of Paris are clean, thoughtfully specc’d, and designed to perform. Like this XJR1300, which took two years to build and will comfortably outpace a showroom bike. The XJR1300 was one of the best of the old school muscle bikes: an air-cooled cruiser in sporty clothing that handled...