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Everyone likes to name their bike something and that’s okay with me, but I wish they would tell me what song best describes their bike instead as I love a soundtrack to listen to in my head while looking at pictures of a finished build. For instance, here’s a chorus from my song choice for the wild ’01 Heritage Classic belonging to Riverside, California’s Corey Waterman with all due respect to a certain Mr. David Bowie.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man

Yup, that about covers it on so many levels as far as I’m concerned. Okay then, that about wraps it up. Thank you for coming and drive safely on your way home. Oh, wait a minute ― I forgot to give you any back-story so let’s start at the beginning in Corey’s own, well-written words.

“When I bought the bike, brand new, in 2001, I swore no one would touch it except for my mechanic, California’s best Harley mechanic, John Carney, and I would just use cookie cutter items to dress it up. I guess something in my brain went terribly wrong. This bike went through a lot of transformations starting in 2005 (when I got divorced) until now. I guess that’s when all my ideas surfaced and I decided to do something with them. I own and am the head instructor of Universal Self Defense League martial arts school in Riverside and this is where I got my first inspiration. So for a time I had made some martial arts weapons from aluminum that were being used for different parts on the bike, such as samurai swords for a sissy bar and dragon blades for my backrest and a sai [A sai is a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon ― a pointed, dagger-shaped metal truncheon with two curved prongs called yoku projecting from the handle].for my shift linkage. People kept their distance at that time. Even my mechanic got cut a few times while working on it,” said Corey. “The final design came to me about eight months ago and my new fiancée, actually through kind words, inspired me to start the new build. My thought was that I wanted to do something interesting with the handlebars, giving the bike a kind of medieval or dragon look to it without actually trying to create a dragon. When I finished the bars, I wanted to do something with the front forks. All that’s out there are tube- shaped forks and there isn’t much I could do with those that would not just look cheap or covered up. This is when I came up with the idea to use the leaf springs. Now I could do just about anything I wanted with the shaping and because of the way I developed the shock system on the forks, I could give it virtually any design and rake and still keep the front end safe with a reasonably soft ride.”

Corey continued with a back-story to the back-story saying, “I did the building in my home garage in Riverside, California. I had never done anything like this before and I don’t know how to weld, so everything I build needs to be able to be cut from billet or fastened with bolts or screws. This turned out to be a good thing, though. This meant that if something broke or I wanted to change the design, I didn’t have to scrap the whole piece, or re-weld things. I didn’t have any precision tools so I had to depend a lot on eyeballing some things and making sure when I bought certain pieces of aluminum that the pieces had at least one square side or corner.”

Alrighty then, with a plan in place, the building began and if your eyeballs haven’t stayed locked onto Corey’s one-off forks, here’s his explanation of them. “They’re made from cutting off the original forks at the base of the triple tree, then I bolted leaf springs onto the leftover pieces of the original forks. The leaf springs are rated for the weight of a large truck. I just used my imagination to figure out what I wanted for the design of the lower forks. When I came up with the idea of the leaf springs, I went online to see if I could find any other bike with anything that even resembled my idea. I didn’t, so I started thinking about how I would do it. I also came up with a design for the shock system for the front that is adjustable for safety and smoothness using a single adjustable rear Softail shock and brackets. The handlebar and riser assembly was cut and shaped from solid aluminum. The corners were then sanded, buffed, taped, and painted.”

That’s all well and good, but does it actually work? To that, Corey says, “I have put almost a thousand miles on it and have been quite impressed with it, if I do say so myself. Most of the riding has been on the freeway and downtown (I like seeing people do double takes). The bike handles very nicely. The ride, right now is a little rough, but I am in the process of designing and building a new seat with its own shocks. When that is done, the ride will be nicer than the stock bike. When making slow turns, you can feel some difference in handling, but once you get used to it, it’s no problem. The customization of the handlebars also helps a great deal to compensate for any handling issues. I don’t recommend trying to win any winding hill races, but then again, it used to be a Heritage Classic, not known for its handling.”

Summing up his bike which is a lot more than just a front end as you’ll see from the photos, Corey says, “I did all of the designing, fabrication, and building. The ideas were mine but not always with the positive feedback that I would have hoped for from my friends. I did have help with the wiring from a good friend of mine, Mike Powers. He made sure the electricity went where it was supposed to and helped keep most of the wiring hidden. I am also designing a new seat that will be upholstered by another good friend, Dwight Benner. He saw some of my other upholstering handiwork and said it would be better if he upholstered the new seat. I agreed after I saw his work. I am hoping to build another one (Harley, of course). My fiancée keeps telling me I should buy another bike and customize it too. She’s so mean to me. LOL.”