Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take the same approach to these outrageous big wheel baggers and appreciate them for what they are and the enjoyment they bring their owners. Like a lead sled, these are not my first choice of motorcycle I’d own, but I sure love looking at them and appreciating the hard work that goes into making a 2017 custom bagger today. Hey, I don’t want to own a Kawasaki, but it doesn’t mean I’ve got to hate them with all the vitriol so many Internet commentators go on and on about. Sometimes you just gotta go with the flow and relax a bit and appreciate what custom bagger builders are up to. Custom bagger builders have created their own niche and a lot of innovation in a sometimes too traditional world.

    This bagger that began civilian life as a regular old 2005 Harley-Davidson Road King before being called up for custom bagger duty is a great example of someone getting their version of a 2017 lead sled on two wheels. But, it’s the cleanest lead sled bagger you might ever see. Nothing too insane, just a lot of decent design, flowing lines and thoughtful approaches to the overall look that makes it sorta a bagger classic in its own way. Even more surprising is that old Rodney Landreth is actually a really, really young builder and seems to have the eye for design and the skills to hang right in there with the veterans for a long time to come. He does build other styles of Harleys that are really done well too, but he seems to have hung his hat on custom baggers. Probably not a dumb thing as that’s where it’s happening in the custom motorcycle world whether you or I or anyone likes it or not.

    Rodney’s approach is one of sleek lines, clean yet flowing bodywork and a paintjob that lets everything mesh as a whole instead of each piece fighting for attention like some baggers. The sleekness could be directly attributed to the lay frame this bike is built around. Obviously onboard air ride suspension lets it drop to its knees at rest and jacks it up when it’s time to get that big custom cut five-spoke 30-inch wheel a turning. I really like the airiness of the wheel and somehow it’s so slim it looses a bit of the Ferris wheel look many complicated designs do. The sharp chrome along with the lightly textured inner spokes makes it almost disappear in light while still having eyeball appeal. It’s almost as if Rodney tried to come up with a modern version of an Old School Invader wheel without trying to look like a retro special. Nice job sir.

   The whacky-cool Speed By Design Road King headlight nacelle makes a strong statement or maybe I should have said a really strong statement that this ain’t your grandpa’s old Evo dresser. You can’t miss that no matter how you might try, but I find this kind of style strangely interesting. I would never have had the balls to come up with something like that, never mind the skills required, but I’m sure glad it’s available. Rodney also dipped into Speed By Design’s inventory for the bags and fender too. Again, I hate to say it this way, but it’s all really nice stuff too with a clean, slim design that’s got its own style. Oh I could do without the speaker bag lids as motorcycle audio is none of my business, but I can tell you it’s one fancy-ass system that’s the audio equivalent of a nitro drag Harley at WOT. Hey, if that’s what somebody wants, that’s okay by me.

   The stretched fuel tank doesn’t have a single straight or even kinda close to straight line anywhere, but it’s no blob by any means. It has its own curved forward flow thing going on that is mimicked by the nacelle, front fender and the rear end. It’s almost like four separate items cohesively working to be just one and it succeeds on all counts. As usual, stitch-man supreme, Butch Watson of HighRollers Cycle Seats in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, somehow found the time to knock out another one of his extremely tasteful seats that look like they came out of an AMG Mercedes or something of that caliber. It’s a quiet, yet confident look that shows Rodney knew what he was going for – a subtle touch of class.

 The engine bay looks like the whole thing was dipped in a chrome vat in one piece along with all the foot controls and floorboards attached too. There’s a lot of bling going on there that is a neat juxtaposition to the subtle silver paintjob and really brings that strong purple frame a bit of mechanical glitz to bounce off. Purple can oftentimes be overused (unless you’re one of those rare extreme purple everything freaks), but that’s not the case here as the purple frame just looks so cool. The purple stitching on the seat brings it all together and doesn’t leave the purple frame just hanging there on its own. Just enough style to tie everything together like Rodney knew what he was doing. I can pretty safely say this was no accident.

    The view from the seat is dominated by those striking chrome Misfit Industries Brawler bars as there’s not a bunch of instrumentation or audio equipment blocking the view through the bars to the forward look headlight nacelle. It’s all very clean and looks pretty comfy looking too. The only item on this bike that even makes an attempt at nasty rather than smooth is also a Misfit product. You probably know what I mean as it’s that nice, but nasty looking Misfit 2-into-1 exhaust that’s more saxophone than header pipe.

   Hey, gotta give our Addison, Texas, bros some love on this one. Misfit always makes great stuff.

   As I said earlier, be sure to keep and eye out for Twin City Cycle Works as Rodney’s already built a nice resume of beautiful custom Harley baggers and more at his shop. Be sure to check out his website at http://www.twincitycycleworks.com/ to see all the different yet extremely beautiful bikes he’s built in a short career that’s surely going to last a long, long time.