Linda Dady has been riding for years and also married to Brian Dady, owner of the Motorcycle Clinic in Kissimmee, Florida, so she technically qualifies as someone who might not be more involved with the mechanical side of things other than dropping off her keys at the shop Brain’s owned since Richard “I am not a crook” Nixon was still in office. Over the past four decades, Brian has built customs from Harleys to Hondas to whatever paid the bills and that’s probably one good reason he’s been so successful.

 

  But enough about Brian, this is Linda’s bike, her very first bike before she moved on to bigger things. “I have owned a Fat Boy we dressed out like a Street Glide and a V-Rod, but I fell in love with riding on a 2000 Honda VLX,” said Linda. “I decided after owning the bigger bikes that I wanted to see what could be done to my first love — the VLX.” Interestingly, a clubman-style handlebar inspired this build as she added, “The café bars being a key element, I set out to see what we could create.”

 

  Truth be told here, this custom is not Linda’s first-love bike, but an earlier version, a 1994 Honda Shadow VLX 600 that stock looks like a six-year-older identical twin to the Y2K version. “The idea was to build a truly affordable and unique custom bike that is rideable, dependable, and user friendly,” she said. “This is it and the first of many to come.” 

 

   Obviously this is not a rattle-can special, but an involved build from the word “go” over a two-year period, but Linda says the actual build time was two months, “Life simply got in the way.” Initial changes began with the frame and this is where Brian’s expertise came into play. “The major modification done to the bike was the removal of the double-backbone frame that was replaced with a single-tube backbone to accommodate the custom tank,” said Linda. “I was his apprentice, this being my first official hands-getting-dirty build.”

 

   Linda’s choice of a sorta-Mustang-style tank not only gave the bike a whole new look in one fell swoop, but it necessitated some other changes too as the bulky original hid a big air box. With the carbs properly re-jetted and now sporting individual pod air cleaners, the Dadys refinished the engine wrinkle black with engine covers powdercoated by ShadRack Powder Coating in gloss black and gloss white. Brian whipped up a set of custom Shot Gun-style pipes and that was about that for the 600cc V-twin other than a complete rewiring of the whole bike. “My favorite part of the build was watching Brian create a condensed version of the wiring harness to fit into his trademark electrical box containing everything electrical,” said Linda. “At this point of the build, I could only sit back and watch. I do love the clean look we were able to accomplish with no switches on the handlebars.”

 

   The rest of the stock bodywork and seat hit the trash bin with a tidy, tight rear fender and none on the front. Ditching the bulky side panels and the two-up seat for a sprung solo unit lightened the look of the back end tremendously and now it really looks like a hardtail at first glance even though it’s a suspended swingarm. Keeping the frame from sitting on the ground are Linda-built wheels. After powder coating the spokes and rims, Linda got busy learning the art of wheel building. “Lacing the wheels was a bit of a challenge —the nature of the beast I’m told,” she said.

 

   As far as accomplishing her goal of making a fun to ride, reliable custom bike on the cheap, Linda said gushing a bit, “I love every element of the bike. I use it for local trips, Sunday rides, bike nights and shows. I can actually travel over 100 miles on the little tank. I just logged my longest ride over 120 miles in a day. The bike rides like a dream.”

Sounds like Linda took a trip to the dark side for a lot of riders and helped build her very first custom bike and according to her, “There’s more to come.”

 

  For more information on the Motorcycle Clinic, please click on www.motorcycle-clinic.com.