Ambling around

I see bikes like this fairly regularly around Tokyo. As far as I can tell it's a TW200 with a lot of modifications to make it look as bare as possible, and then the swingarm has been changed to a longer one.
I've seen hotted up bikes in the US with long swingarms (stupid looking imho), dunno if this is anything to do with that. Only reason I can think of to have a long swingarm like this (apart from trying to look different) would be to help keep the front wheel down in a drag race, which might be why the US bikers do it, but I can't imagine this one in a drag race. Usually the guys that like their bike done in this bare fashion also like to stick a supertrapp muffler on as well.
I wonder if he rides on rainy days, I'd imagine there must be a whole crap-load of water flying off the back tire and straight onto his back. Could be worse - last time I was in NZ I took a ride on a dirt bike on farmland, sometimes a dryish bit of cowdung would be flicked up by the front wheel, ready to be collected by my face.
VFR is still not here...