Art Steele at All Star Baggers in Dallas, Texas, took a completely different route in building a lay frame bagger out of a 2012 Harley-Davidson Road Glide and not just by eliminating its trademark frame mounted fairing. According to Art, this is the first lay frame bagger with a bolt-on neck. Instead of the usual cutting and welding involved in making the fame suitable to run a 30-inch front wheel, Art chose to go with American Suspension’s Bolt-on neck kit. The nice part about this is that the stock frame does not have to be permanently modified like with a weld-on setup.

   Combine that with a custom American Suspension front end with air suspension and a pair of Dirty Air shocks out back with its Fast-Up system and you’ve got a bike that can sit on the ground looking relaxed one second and up and at ‘em the next. Nobody including bagger haters can turn away while that’s going on, it’s mesmerizing for some silly reason. Bike goes up, bike goes down, owner walks away and everybody’s mesmerized that it’s still just sitting there straight up and down. Especially when the front end is sinking over a big ass front wheel, it’s a bit of high drama you have to watch no matter what.

   The big offset/slow swirl of a 3D wheel up front is from Metalsport Wheels in South Gate, California. It is a fairly complex design to bring to fruition and, the closer you get to it, the more you appreciate that it’s not the regular old run-of-the-mill 30-inch wheel. The off-set spokes are just a trip and I can only assume Metalsport knows what they are doing after being in the big wheel business for a long time since wheels became huge. By the way, there are rumors of a 34-inch wheel coming soon. How big is too big? Out back I can only tell you that there is a wheel there and it must contain the only brake on this bike so it’s pretty important to have along. Oh, and it’s belt driven. Other than that I got nothing.

   Very surprisingly for a full-on custom bagger, it’s got a hell of a power plant on board. It’s now 106-inches and sporting a mechanical steroid of a CMP Turbos High Output Turbo kit. The kit includes a three-piece finned plenum, complete exhaust, choice of TurboSmart or TiAL blow-off valve and wastegate, Accufab clamps, billet cam cover, oil feed and drain lines, pre-programmed Thunder-Max tuner, high-flow injectors, two-bar map sensor, and all necessary hardware. Plus there’s another little bit of high-power glamour from CMP on this ride and that’s the see-what’s-going-on Deep Breath Air Cleaner. Anyway, getting back to that “very surprising” part of this paragraph, All Star says there are 167 horses galloping away at the rear wheel. Man that’s cool, but I wish it had a front brake to kinda help with all that fun power when it’s time to chill out quickly.

   All of the bodywork is nice. There I said it, “nice” which could be taken as an insult for all the hard work that’s gone into it, but it’s not. I don’t mean to sound nasty, but there are a lot of very well done big wheel baggers out there and this is certainly one. The style elements have gotten a little formulaic, but if that’s what the customers want, that’s what they’ll get and I don’t blame the builders. As I said, I even like it without the fairing better as it’s easier to admire the front end, swept back bars and especially the headlight just sitting out there in space. It looks light for a big wheel bike and I like that. Art wisely chose a slimmed version of the classic Heritage-style front fender and it fits right in with the rest of the airiness up front.

  I do like the way the tank seems to be hunkered down a bit with the dash being featured prominently on top. The sweep of the dash to the very back of the tank is pretty as hell. All I can say for you motorcycle audiophiles is that the speaker lids hold promises I know nothing about. I like the zone of being stuck with myself on a motorcycle. I’m sure there’s even more audio stuff on the re-fairinged bike that has gone on to a new owner so you’ll have to track him down to find out. I’m just a motorcycle audio Luddite I guess. There is a nice sense of movement contained within the lines of the bags and rear fender and it must look truly windblown when this bike’s on the go.

    But, the real crowning glory of this build is once again the paintjob. From the Miss Right Now graphics on the tank that gives an idea what the paintjob might be about to the color choices and patterns, it’s a winning paintjob. No, it’s probably not something you’d do a show and tell with to a bunch of fourth graders, but it is a voyeurs delight. The candy metal flake purple fade paint is simply something else and I’m not a purple freak in any way. It’s just stunningly striking in composition with shades of blue panels with almost a pink/purple pinstriping. Between the graphics and the paintwork, there’s a lot to take in. And, it’s different graphics side to side so a walk-around is a must. Shocking and stunning, the very definition of a show bike paint job and All Star Baggers knew that definition well.

   Before being sent off to it’s new owner and a Road Glide persona, this little gem had a very successful tour of show duty. All Star Baggers and the new owner have to be proud it won Baddest Bagger at The Lone Star Rally in Galveston, Pro Class Champion at the Battle of the Baggers at the Cabbage Patch in Daytona and a second-place showing in the Extreme Bagger class at the Rat’s Hole Show in Daytona. Not bad for an old Road Glide that wasn’t one anymore but now is in its new life. Seems like this is just another case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.

  For more info on All Star Baggers, just click on http://allstarbaggers.com/ and see what Art’s been up to lately.