The first look is shocking or captivating depending on your point of view about radical custom motorcycles that are seriously intended as showpieces more than cross-country jamming. My take on Wayne is that he is an imaginative, skilled, and believes anything is possible at least in his garage. There he works some cool old machines and a lot of handwork to come up with a bike he’s building for no one but himself. That makes it both easy and hard as your toughest critic is always going to be yourself. I think that’s why every build Wayne turns out is a huge leap over the last one usually involving excruciating detail work. 

 

  Take the Shovelhead engine in this bike which is listed in show results as a 2010 Shovelhead. I think I can safely assume this is an S&S Shovel and not a product of Harley-Davidson because I think Harley stopped building these at some time prior to 2010 if I remember correctly. Doesn’t matter as it’s 96-inches of Shovelhead love from the custom milled rocker boxes to the polished cases. The round finned aluminum cylinders bring their own bit of bling to the fest along with the copper and brass touches.  

While that cool Looney-Tune of an exhaust snakes all around the magneto-fired engine until finally getting rippled before exhaling out the trumpet ends. That little piece of work must’ve taken a lot of man-hours to bring to fruition.

 

   Another interesting tidbit is Wayne’s relocation of the transmission up and behind the engine. Actually he’s the type of guy who does things because he thinks he can and that’s all he needs. It definitely changes things up and the open belt primary takes on a whole new twist. I especially like his belt tensioner; a little piece that not only does its job simply and cleanly, but makes you notice something different is going on here. You know, like the tranny’s not where it’s supposed to be. More roller coaster than airport moving walkway.

 

  Speaking of the transmission, you probably noticed the hand shifter sprouting out of it with that brass ball on top and wanted to see what’s up wid dat. Personally, I think the shifter is a ruse so Wayne could build a set of foot controls that you won’t find in any catalog. If you follow the left-side foot control past Wayne’s neat checkered flag pedal on a nicely milled arm, you’ll see a set of sprockets and chain that actuates the hydraulic clutch. Now that’s a lotta work just by itself, but it sure is cool with a hint of mechanical watch innards to it.

 

  The brake pedal does double duty on this bike working both the rear K-Tech hydraulic drum and the disc front. Obviously, there’s a proportioning valve stuck in there somewhere to make sure everything’s on the up and up when Wayne stabs the checkered flag pedal. I’m still not exactly sure how all this double-footwork works in less than ideal conditions, but that’s Wayne’s business. It seems like an auto clutch setup would be called for, but then there’d be no wicked cool foot-actuated chain and sprockets hooking things up. Oh the decisions you have to make over the long winter.

 

   That lovely pile of Shovelhead shines proudly in a very heavily reworked Tigman frame. Getting everything inside the frame required lots of cutting and welding on Wayne’s part. I’d call this a modern digger-style frame as I’m not sure what else to call it so I hope that doesn’t offend anyone. The one-off linkage fork with a heavy ‘70s flavor shoots off at a crazy-cool/show-bike angle to cradle a front wheel with more than enough spokes for two. The rear drop-seat part of the frame spreads its legs around another wheel of fortune of spokes. This allowed Wayne to use a reasonably wide rear wheel and also a place for his double-spring metal pan of a seat with only a small area of tooled leather to maybe act as some sort of pad. Actually it’s really there to call out the name of the bike.

 

  Like every bike name, there’s something personal behind this bike’s moniker of Spitball Magoo too. It’s just one of those things that came about by happenstance so I’ll give you what I know. Apparently when Wayne was a young biker, he hung around with a bunch of like-minded riders who called themselves The Magoos just for the hell of it. Somehow, like all nicknames, the others started referring to him as Spitball Magoo for no apparent reason and the name stuck. Well, it stuck to this bike at least as I’d be careful walking up to a stranger and calling him or her Spitball.

 

   As far as bodywork went, Wayne dug in making a tank that fit perfectly in a curvaceous way above the engine with a straight backbone top that’s almost level with the asphalt. That little piece of chrome furbelow running the length of the top of the tank is a bit of chrome whimsy that doesn’t seem extraneous. It just looks ridiculously right for reasons I can’t explain other than I like it. You might have noticed the lovely machined oil tank sitting low behind the tranny or the one-off external oil filter mounted high near the Vee of the cylinders, guess who made them? Yup, it was that Wayne guy again. Man, he loves the details and he loves his lathe.

 

   With all the other stuff done in Wayne’s nicely equipped garage, it’s no surprise then that the paint was not farmed out where it couldn’t be watched and every detail fawned over. Wayne laid on the heavy metal flake with what I’ll call an Irish green base with deliciously purple panels featuring orange flames pinstriped in silver. There’s a whole lot just going on with the paint alone that it might be hard to get past the initial shock and see all the time and effort that’s gone into this build. I’m sure there’re a million more details I’ve missed, but I think that’s part of Wayne’s plan. The longer you stare at his bike the more you see. Hey, he didn’t spend all that time in a garage for nothing and he’s gonna make sure you notice by hook or by crook.

 

  For more info on Wayne’s bikes, check out his Facebook page Wayne Pops Burgess and, if you need a good fence, check out http://www.burgessfence.com/.