Sure, Kent Croskey is a doctor. But unlike many of his peers in the medical profession, “I don’t play golf,” he says. “I go to Sturgis instead.”

This gearhead got hooked on motorcycle racing as a high school student in Waterloo and spent more than five years on the professional racing circuit. Now an anesthesiologist, the man formerly known as “Crash” to his fellow racers splits his time between Iowa Lutheran Hospital and Radical Cycle Co., his custom motorcycle shop at 751 N.E. Broadway Ave.

“It’s great,” Croskey says. “I get to wear my pajamas to work and I get free time to do what I like to do.”

But he’s not just tinkering around with bikes as a hobby. Croskey is working to build a motorcycle with the world’s largest V-twin engine. To compare, most Harley-Davidson motorcycle engines are about 80 cubic inches; most Radical Cycle customers choose 113 or 124, “potent engines that aren’t exorbitantly priced,” Croskey says.

But this new bike? Think 260.

“Well you gotta do something,” he explains. “Some people build the tallest one or the longest one. We build the biggest one.”

Croskey learned to ride in high school with his friends at local sandpits. He was the state motocross champion in 1971 and spent the next five years juggling school – first at the University of Iowa, then Des Moines University – and the pro racing circuit. Tuesday through Thursday he went to class, and Friday through Monday he was traveling the country.

“That was a riot,” he says. “You’re like a band of gypsies. We were living out of guys’ vans with our bunks in the front and our bikes in the back.”

Croskey spent a couple of nights in the hospital during those years. After one wreck left him with a broken ankle, he cut off the cast, put his foot in a boot and wrapped it with duct tape so he could race the next night.

But after his first year in medical school at DMU, he realized his schedule and priorities wouldn’t allow him to continue competing on the weekends.

“There were three reasons (I quit),” Croskey explains. “Money, ‘cuz I didn’t have any, time, ‘cuz I didn’t have any, and not being able to crash. I’d be driving 120 mph getting ready to crash into a wall and be thinking, ‘I can’t crash because I have a test on Monday.’”

He completed medical school, became an anesthesiologist and joined Iowa Lutheran in 1989, but says, “I still rode a crotch rocket all the time.”

In 1998, he and a friend started River Dog Customs, which offered parts and service and operated as a local dealership for several national lines of custom motorcycles. They dissolved the partnership in 2002 and Croskey founded Radical Cycle. With a full-time sales and service team, he is the shop’s “financial, insurance, legal, marketing, Web site, behind-the-scenes guy.”

The company sells several lines of custom motorcycles and parts, but also works with customers to build their “custom dream bike.” The sales staff can spend hours with a customer to go through each feature: frame (hardtail, softtail or swing arm with a pair of shocks), engine size (anything from 80 up to 260 cubic inches), tire size (as wide as 330mm), amount of stretch in the backbone and height in the neck, headlights, handlebars and other features.

But to get exactly what you want, custom paint job and all, it could run you $90,000 or more. One of those custom-built bikes will be auctioned off at Jordan Creek Town Center on Jan. 15 in a raffle to benefit the Des Moines Ronald McDonald House and Toys for Tots.

The Predator, which features a 190 cubic inch engine and 280mm rear tire and is priced at $74,800, has brought home several awards in the past year, including two at the 56th annual Grand National Roadster Show in Pomona, Calif.

The success of that bike and the interest it has generated have encouraged Croskey to take the next step forward with Radical Cycle. The company is working with a consultant to build its own line of Radical Cycle custom motorcycles based on the Predator’s long, low, curvy frame. He has also considered entering the manufacturing side of the business, which would give Radical Cycle better control over parts supply.

His ultimate goal is to see Radical Cycle’s custom bikes listed in national catalogs.

“Nationally, we build the biggest engine custom bikes,” Croskey said. “So for the guy who wants the biggest and the best, we’re it.”

For now, Radical Cycle is preparing for its upcoming move into an expanded location at 5125 N.E. 14th St., with a showroom four times the size of his existing space that will allow Croskey to showcase more new, used and custom bikes. He hopes to add one to two new lines to his stock as well.

“I want to be the premier custom bike shop in Central Iowa,” Croskey said.