“So is that the gas tank, or is he just happy to see me?” was my wife’s comment as I showed her the pictures Lock Baker had sent of his build. I laughed and honestly replied that I hadn’t really looked at it from quite that perspective. “How could you not?” she asked, with one eyebrow cocked in disbelief. I didn’t really have an explanation, but what came out of my mouth was, “Well…guys don’t really check out other guys’ gas tanks if we can help it.”

When Baker designed Daddy Go Hard, of course he realized it would be pretty hard for anyone to avert their gaze from his gas tank. He just didn’t realize what a big deal they’d make of it and said, “It’s totally funny because if you think about it, a set of long stretched forks is really like a penis extension sort of thing too. It is phallic. Whether you choose to accept that or not is up to you. But for some reason having a stretched gas tank seems to get a big reaction. Everybody goes, ‘Oooooo, it looks like a dick.’ Well, what do you think a stretched fork is?”

The 96” seed that would grow into a beanstalk of a build came courtesy of a donor that gave its engine and transmission to this project. Baker says it wasn’t the sort of bike that he would normally go out of his way to find. It’s a big 5-speed Evo, and he usually prefers older, smaller-displacement power plants. The price was right, though, so he decided to approach it as a bit of a throwback to the Biker Build-Off era and design the project to be a little larger with more tin and paint than usual.

According to Lock, “I wanted to do something different, so I actually started building this bike ass-first, starting with the fender, then the seat pan, and worked up to the tank and bars. If you start at the rear and build a really big muscular fender area, you approach the tank differently because you know it has to be really big or else it’s just not gonna look right. The tank actually just sort of grew out of the tail. I knew I wanted the fender to be a part of the frame, so I just built a whole body around it.”

And what a complicated body this is, consisting of a veritable chef’s salad of flats, angles, and complex curves. Not easy lines to merge synergistically and yet that’s exactly what Daddy Go Hard does. The jumbo suicide shift lever appears like a loyal lieutenant to the regal gas tank, as its shifter knob salutes the gas cap. The angle of the pipes parallels the upsweep of the frame and tank. Even the Spartan Frame Works girder forks are just funky enough to suit the style without competing against the other elements.

Baker explains, “I love sheet metal work, so the weirder the shape, the more I get off on it. For the last few bikes I’ve built, I’ve made sort of a concerted effort for them not to flow because when I think of flowy bikes I think molded bikes, Pro Street-style, and that old mentality of, ‘blend everything together and make it look all streamlined.’ For the most part I don’t like those kinds of bikes. But this one did kind of do that. In retrospective, I’m happy with it, but I didn’t set out initially to build it that way.”

Amazingly enough, given all of the handcrafted exotic design elements, Daddy Go Hard is no trailer queen. Yes sir, Lock builds his bikes to ride, and ride them he does. I asked Baker how that 2.5 gallon jumbo Johnson of a gas tank affects the center of gravity. He replied that while the big twin is pretty hefty, it’s also fairly low, so it doesn’t feel top heavy at all.

He even claims that his Dyna is harder to ride, “If you get the shape of the seat right, and the frame geometry, and use grippy pegs and handlebars, it’s amazing what you can get away with otherwise. I really hate seats that don’t have a back on them. My philosophy is that you’re only attached to the bike in three spots, so you better be secure. I don’t do slippery seats, pegs, or grips. When I hit the gas, I don’t like to slide off the back of the bike. Most of the people that come to me want something cool, but also want something to ride. ”

In fact, Daddy Go Hard is currently in search of a happy place in the right buyer’s garage. Maybe yours? While it may not be a daily driver, it offers luxurious touches such as electric start, rubber mounts, and even passenger pegs in case the shadow you cast attracts a John Holmes fan in need of a ‘ride.’ Besides, think of all the money you’ll save on Extenze!