Huntington Beach Hogs Fat Boy: Down, But Not Out

It’s been said that the natural resting state of a two-wheeled machine is on its side, which makes riding sound like pavement eating is inevitable. Even the most experienced rider cannot anticipate what every hair-brained wacko on the road will do, and there’s a good chance that someone driving a car will not see a motorcyclist and accidentally hit him or her. Such is life — and while not every rider survives, some are injured severely and (justifiably) decide not to ride anymore. But then there are those that heal from their wounds and swing a leg over a bike again, with first-hand experience of the dangers that riders can face.

Ed Syer, owner of Huntington Beach Hogs and Choppers (HBHC), in Southern California, made this custom out of the few useable parts left over from his motorcycle accident in 2002. “I had just bought my first brand new Harley, a 2002 Fat Boy. Six months later, a guy ran a stoplight and T-boned me with his Mercedes. I’ll never forget the date, August 16, the same day that Elvis died,” Ed said. Neither Ed or his bike faired well; he received a compound fracture in his leg that broke his tibia and fibia, endured a series of bone grafts, and ended up having a total of six different surgeries. “I barely remember the accident, it didn’t seem bad compared to the pain of rehabilitation,” Ed said.

Fortunately for Ed, his Fat Boy took the brunt of the force and was declared dead on the scene (the insurance company declared it as a total loss, or that it would cost more money to repair it than it would cost to pay out Ed’s policy). Somehow he was able to buy the bike back from the insurance company and started piecing it back together while his body healed. “I get restless and have a hard time sitting around. I was in a wheelchair for awhile, but it didn’t stop me from rolling around the garage fixing, replacing, and modifying the broken parts of the bike while popping Vicodins and downing a few Coors,” Ed said. Luckily, the frame wasn’t completely deformed, but the swing arm and front end had to be replaced. He bought a new, stock front end, and bolted it to an 80-spoke 21” front wheel. The rear end was changed-up, he modified it to accommodate a mammoth 300mm wide tire mounted on an 80-spoke 10.5”-wide wheel, with an American Suspension sprocket/rotor and caliper mounted to the right side of the swing arm.

The noticeable larger-than-stock rear wheel was fit to the rest of the drive line using a BAKER right-side-drive six-speed transmission. Ed mated the engine to the trans with a PrimoRivera Brute 5 three-inch open belt drive with a PrimoRivera clutch that aptly handles the tire disintegrating power produced by the hopped-up 124” motor. The bike’s stock cylinders were damaged in the crash so Ed upgraded the entire motor with an S&S Twin Cam stroker kit. He modified the S&S kit with a set of CP 11:1 compression pistons and had T-Man Performance fine tune the flow of the S&S heads to match the specific timing of the custom camshafts that he also designed. Ed finished off the motor with a custom set of HBHC stepped exhaust pipes and an S&S G carburetor topped with a D&M velocity stack.

There were a few aspects of the original ’02 Fat Boy that Ed wanted to maintain in the finished version of his resto-mod bike. He swapped the crumpled tin-can tank from the accident for a new H-D gas tank, dash, and a chromed horseshoe oil tank, and each bolted to the frame like it was made for it because they were. Stock fenders weren’t an option for the bike’s new super-sized wheels. An HBHC fender was trimmed to fit the 21” tire in the front and a short rear fender was cut to the contours of the big 300mm tire. The sheet metal was sent to Danny Martinez for a coat of paint based on Candy Brandywine and topped with silver tribal flames. While the tins were being painted, Ed finished up bolting on the remaining accessories and ran the bike’s new wiring. Wild1 Knuckles handlebars and risers were secured to the top triple tree along with a pair of PM Contour hand controls. Accutronix Tribal machined billet-aluminum foot controls matched the bike’s tribal graphics scheme, as did the tribal-flamed skull stitched into the seat by Danny Gray.

It only took Ed a year to get the bike back together, but healing takes time, and he wasn’t able to get it on the road until the Laughlin River Run in April of 2004. “My friends and I were sitting on our bikes when some guy walked by and asked if it was going to enter my bike in the show the following day. I hadn’t really thought about it, but decided I didn’t have anything to lose and did it. The bike took second-place overall in the show, that award got me thinking about opening my own shop,” Ed said.

Ed’s thoughts became a reality soon after the run, HB Hogs and Choppers has been in business ever since.