You know, I took one look at this Sporty after all the hard core show bikes we’ve featured recently on Barnett’s Magazine Online and my first thoughts were, “That’s a nice bike.” Now that might seem a bit lame if you’re looking for some ground-breaking, insightful comment, but that’s really about the highest compliment I could give a bike. It’s a really good looking bike that...

       Shovelheads have the reputation of being a real bad boy’s bike and they’re what I think of when I’m picturing a bad ass Harley in my head. They’re just lovely, archaically-mechanical beasts that have all the subtlety of a howitzer and that’s exactly what makes them so likeable. I’ve always thought of them as Harley’s hot rod equivalent of a 425hp 409 Chevy engine. They’re a...

        No surprise then that old Jacko loves his white baggers even with all the multi-colored, multi-themed, airbrushed-to-a-fare-thee-well custom baggers he runs into at every show. Personally, I’d think after a while you’d be just looking for the wildest and most colorful paintjob on a bagger, but not Jack. It seems like any individual shot of a bike he just photographed he...

  Just like a lot of other people who’ve seen this bike, according to Dave, at first glance I thought it was just another Road King until I noticed the telltale Softail oil tank. I guess we’re just assuming any hard bagger is a rubber-mount model, but this twist is a nice change from the norm. “Everybody thinks it’s a Road King,” said Dave laughing. “I did put bags from a Road King...

     The bike was at Corbin’s to be re-seated as a larger battery was fitted to start the big 125-inch RevTech motor. A bigger battery meant the seat had to be customized to fit over battery. But that wasn’t all that had changed. The oil tank has been relocated under the tranny. The long cylinder attached to the front lower frame is the electric fuel pump to feed the...

   I remember the good old days cruising the boulevard in my parents’ Corvair. Don’t laugh; I could smoke any one of those bad boys in the winter on snowy roads with my rear engine. Funny thing, it wasn’t one of the new muscle cars that held the title of badest of the bunch, it was a black-primed 1954 Chevy that didn’t look like anything special until you noticed the cut- out...

  Howard Kelly at S&S said their Super Stock Hot Set Up Kit would get me going in the right direction, so we placed the order and got the parts in quickly. Included in the $2,815 kit were pistons, cylinders, Super Stock heads, and .585 gear-drive cams. Lifters, push rods, and assorted gaskets were also in the box. This set up would take the stock 88” Harley motor out to a more...

  Brown Suga got its start when Pat was cruising for motorcycle magazines and a BMX mag jumped out and caught his eye. “On the cover was a real sharp-looking BMX bike with a guy doing a backflip on it,” Pat explained. He liked the chocolate colors of the bike, especially the black rims with brushed spokes. “I thought it would be a cool color scheme for a motorcycle,” he said....

A prime example of a modified Harley that gives a real touch of the owner’s personality yet still retains its roadworthy charms is the 2008 FLSTNI Deluxe called Laila J belonging to Jerome Beckham of Chicago, Illinois. Making it even a bit more interesting is that this is 30-year-old Jerome’s first Harley Like a lot of new Harley owners, Jerome’s first move was getting a copy of...

  That’s not the case anymore, as Exile’s affordable Twin Cam Softail customs pictured here definitely don’t look like something somebody put together in a garage, although they actually can put it together in a garage. Forget the torch, welder, and milling machine, these all-out-looking Exile doppelgangers consist of strictly bolt-on items. “It’s hard to even recognize that it is...