Man, it’s getting to be 15-years ago in the custom motorcycle world. Especially in the custom bagger segment where builders can’t seem to build a radical bagger and hold onto it for any length of time like their forbearers did with those wild and whacky rad modern choppers straight out of TV land. I couldn’t help but notice that whenever a camera went into the back rooms or outside of a TV shop, the builders seemed to have more than their fair share of on-screen builds still hanging years later. Did nobody ever really buy them? Were they ever used for something other than a vanity museum? Who knows, but I do know I never saw any on the actual street even at big events.

Bad ass custom bikes of the Y2K and later era certainly didn’t come cheap and there were a lot of shocking “asking and sold” prices being thrown around which I had a hard time understanding. Building a ground-up bike means you start with nothing and get what you need from there. Nowadays, people buy a new or close to new Harley-Davidson bagger and drop it off for the Full Monty which basically means replacing everything but the frame, engine and tranny, and a few other crucial pieces. Expensive custom baggers are the norm and unlike their predecessors, there’s a lot more just going into them than a raked-out, stretched-out, big-inch, TV chopper from the early 2000s just because there is a lot more to them.

   There’s extensive bodywork to replace and killer audio systems to install along with air ride front and rear and big wheels and acres and acres of paintwork compared to some stripped-down rigid chopper. What goes into a custom bagger today, especially a show-winning one, blows my tiny mind and blows up my wallet just thinking about it (Sorry, my wallet has a very short fuse.). But if you compare what goes into one of these to a TV universal custom chopper of the 2000s and what a finished bagger seems to sell for today, these are a deal if you absolutely gotta have something nobody else does. I just want to know what happens to the huge pile of take-off parts.

    Some builders and dealerships have really tapped in with the baggerites and I have to say that B/X Custom Designs, a custom sub-division of some kind of The Bike Exchange in Gastonia, North Carolina, knows exactly what it’s doing and the success of its custom division shows in the large number of interesting, yet different builds it constantly turns out. Take a good look at Jack Cofano’s photos and tell me (as long as you are a true baggerite) if this bike called Blue Baller doesn’t hit all the right buttons for you? You gotta love the love-at-first-sight electric blue paintjob with black and silver graphics by Chris Fox of Fox Custom Paint in Salisbury, North Carolina. If somebody said this was the new CVO paintjob for the (whatever model), I’d say, ‘That’s really good looking. Clean. About time.” Or something pretty close to that. It’s a paint design scheme that I personally think will age well and not be dated like a neon hue paintjob does in a millisecond. I just like the overall feel of the paintjob plus I like that it says Harley-Davidson respectfully and tastefully on the side of the tank.

  The B/X crew didn’t miss a beat with this Road Glide which looks entirely capable of spending some time cruising the streets when showing it gets boring as hell. Built around a Hawg Halters Inc. 26-inch wheel/ short neck builder’s kit that includes a weld-on 7-degree neck piece and beefy 9-degree trees, it’s just another day on the farm for B/X as they’ve done a ton of these now. The dancing spokes wheel by Xtreme Machine is their new Cruise model with a Black Cut Xquisite finish. It’s amazing how different (and better) looking the BCX finish makes the wheel look compared to the show polished version. B/X chose Performance Machine’s MegaBrake setup consisting of dual four-piston calipers squeezing a single 16-inch custom rotor. I wonder what dual MegaBrake kits with twin rotors would stop like?

   This is one custom bagger build where someone cared about the little things like giving a bad boy bagger some bad boy power. Call in the big bore kit (107) and add some spice with a Performance Machine high flow air cleaner and the bad ass hot rod look and sound of the matte finish 2-into-1 exhaust. That’ll add some pep to the Road Glide’s step and everybody likes peppy. Next, get every single gorgeous engine cover that PM makes for the Twin Cam and throw ‘em on. Roland Sands designs nice stuff that’s not trendy, just beautiful and well made. Besides final tuning ─ Engine done!

   B/X went with one of their old standbys for bodywork, Topshop Bagger Products in Mitchell, South Dakota, supplied them with one of their CVO light Money Maker rear end kits and other body pieces like the swoopy new-shape tank. I’d have to guess that familiar and high quality parts are much easier to work with especially when you’re basically re-bodying something like a Road Glide. I do like how the chin spoiler ties everything together and adds a bit of sporty sass too. With no cut-outs for exhausts in the bags and using the ultra-modern yet stylishly un-intrusive CVO taillights, it’s all uninterrupted lines and flow from the ass end. All the bodywork flows and harmonizes like any cool custom bagger does and, once again, the 26-inch wheel is scaring me because it’s starting to look like the new normal. The step up to a 30 or 32 is huge visually or so it seems.

   Obviously there’s all the cool custom bagger gimmicks on board like air ride front-and-rear that works in conjunction with an MRI Customs electric center stand to let it sit as low as you can go without scratching the bottom of the engine cradle. Carl Brouhard Designs provided the definitely-not-retro floorboards and pegs and their edgy design falls right into the modern flow of the bike like they were intended for it. Audio-wise, there’s some stuff going on with a minimum of speakers popping up to keep it from looking 1983 Boombox silly. I appreciate that B/X even though the last thing I need is pumped-in sound when I’ve got a nice Harley sound already going on doing all the pumping up I need.

  What the custom crew at B/X Custom Designs has accomplished transforming one of the latest Harley touring platforms into a sleeker and crazier version of itself shows a lot of style yet tasteful restraint. It’s a radically changed Road Glide that can still hit the streets as long as there’s gas in the tank and a plate on the back. If you’re looking for a personality change for your bagger, visit http://bxcustomdesigns.com/.