What I’m blathering on about here is that a lot of people are always knocking custom baggers because they feel they’re un-rideable with all the bagger custom tricks in full force. Especially when the front wheel sprouts out to the 30-inch and above range, but that’s not the case here as you can clearly see. This is one rad bagger that still keeps its street worthy credentials by going bigger up front, but not too big. How does a nice 23-incher sound to you? To me it’s just enough to stand out a bit and not overwhelm the build like a 30-inch wheel can. With a six-piston caliper working a single disc on the left, you get an unobstructed wheel view on the right clearly showing it’s custom, but not over the top.

   By the way, what year Harley-Davidson Ultra do you guess this is? Here’s a hint ─ Y2K. Yup, it’s a thoroughly modern, hip as hell, 18-year-old Ultra that’s found a whole new lease on life instead of being a sad, tired back marker in some dealer’s show room. It just makes so much sense financially to customize a ride that’s already had the depreciation take a hike leaving more money for all the new bits and pieces you were going to replace anyway. A true and on-point custom bagger today sheds its stock skin and a lot of stock parts and grows a whole new shell with trendy high tech stuff replacing what The Motor Company gave you in the first place.

   The turn of the century was Harley’s second year with its pretty revolutionary (for Harley) Twin Cam engine. Whatever problems they had are known now and there have been a lot of upgrades and fixes for what might have ailed them. If you were going to take the Twin Cam 88 engine and drive train apart to rebuild or refurbish, what a perfect time to check for all the upgrades and maybe a bit of hot rodding too. Plus, while it was apart, it was the perfect time to polish the living hell out of the block, heads, cylinders, tranny case while absolutely chroming anything and everything else in side the engine room. It’s so shiny in there it’s hard to pick out individual parts other than major bits like the elbow macaroni intake and the snaking set of pipes. Even the foot controls and the floorboards get sucked into the black hole of Twin Cam chrome. It might just be the shiniest engine room I’ve ever seen.

   You probably noticed that like most current bagger builds, this one is sitting on the deck too. Air suspension with an on-board compressor pops this bike up to ride height for street duty or drops it down low, real low, on its MRI electric center stand when parked. I know I’m still obsessed every time I see a parked bike fall down on its knees for reasons I can’t quite understand. Maybe it’s just that added drama of cool or maybe because the bike ends sitting straight up and down and not leaning over on a side stand. And, no, I don’t have this feature on my own bike, but I always try to catch one going down low for its owner. Either way, instant, yet adjustable, front and rear air suspension and what it entails to install is still a lot of nose to the grindstone custom work and not to be taken for granted. I’m sure Jamie didn’t.

  The only possible stock piece of bodywork on this build that you can actually see as Harley is the bat wing fairing. Even that’s been mucked with a bit in the interest of making everything truly custom. The shape of the tank is distinctively Harley, but distinctively stretched and re-shaped until it is its own entity. Same goes for the bags, side panels and both fenders that are lovely show quality replacements for the OEM stuff. The Harley-Davidson bagger mojo is still there in spirit, but everything is completely different. Even the speaker openings on the lids of the bags are lovely shaped. I’m not a big motorcycle audio guy, but the design of the speaker cutouts flows nicely with the subtly elegant solo saddle. It’s a luxurious look of a beautiful car interior.

  The only thing that looks a little bit out of line, yet perfectly custom bagger acceptable at the same time are the pretty high bars that appear to float above the bat wing fairing. Apes, in their many forms, have always been about attitude as well as altitude. There’s always been a cool factor about them over the years that still continues to shock people today even on a dolled-up, chromed-out custom bagger like this one. Once they go over the shoulder, though, it’s outta my league on any bike. A bike that ends up all bar loses it for me.

   For all the glitz and glamour Jamie’s infused this bagger with, he surprisingly took it down quite a few notches on the attention-grabbing aspect of the paint job. Don’t get me wrong, I really like what he’s done as it almost looks as if it should be a new CVO paint job with that smooth slash of red/orange that swirls around the bike in a continuous sweep from one end to the other. It’s pretty inspired stuff popping up nicely against the silver base coat that also features a bit of dark shading for depth and definition. Jamie used some very subtle colors for the delineating pinstriping that are an added feature when you’re up close. Other than Harley-Davidson on the tank, there’s not a bunch of busy graphics to clutter things up. Personally, I think this is one of those custom paint jobs that will age well unlike a custom neon paintjob from the 1990s might.

   What Jamie Boone did here with an 18-year-old bagger is what a lot of you Facebook freaks are yelling for ─ a completely custom bagger that you can still get on and go. Maybe even ride to the show. Or maybe even to work or to the mountains. It’s all there in this one bike and maybe that’s why Jamie listed only one thing under “Special features of this Bike” on his Easyriders show card, “We Ride Our Shit!” Maybe that doesn’t tell you a lot about the bike, but it sure tells you a lot about the builder, Jamie Boone and his Lakeview Speed Shop. And, like the kids used to say, “It’s all good.”

  For more info on Jamie Boone and Lakeview Speed Shop, Google is your best friend.