No, this is not some theme bike ode to The Blues Brothers movie, but a bike that was originally born to an actual working life in a police department and later to change its career to sort of a runway model. “It started out as an ’07 police bike, an actual cop’s motorcycle with all the pursuit lights and all that,” said David Covington, son of company founders’ Jerry and Kathleen. “It only had like 4,000 miles on t. It was so new and nice looking we just stripped it down and built a whole custom out of it.” Not just any custom, but one that has to earn its keep. “We try and build one real nice bike to display out front and to showcase our products at shows. This bike sold at its first show. I finished it, rode it around a little bit, put it on a trailer, and it didn’t come back,” said David adding. “Actually we got four or five complete bikes out of it. People sent us their bikes and they’re doing their whole bike over because of that one.”
It’s easy to understand why it never made it back from its first show when you start running your eyeball over this blue beauty. There’s not a vestige of cop bike left visible when Covingtons finished with it unless it was intended for use by a deep undercover cop. Maybe it’s the tall 23” front Rampage Lucky 7 wheel with a sporty tire-hugging Fat Katz fender or the Gator Boxes long saddlebags sandwiching a ground-hugging Klock Werks rear fender, but Don Johnson would look right at home on this riding the Art Deco streets of South Beach. There’s something different in the stance of this bike to me compared to other big wheel dressers I’ve seen and I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. David let me in on something he’s been working on as a future Covington product that explains it all. “We’re working on some triple trees that people can just bolt on, add a little rake, and still handle good. I don’t know how soon they’re going top be out, we’re about half-way done with them. It adds five-degrees of rake total. They’ll probably handle better with bigger wheels; I’ll have to test that.” He’s serious about testing and paraphrasing Orson Welles’ famous ‘70s ads for Paul Masson sparkling wine; he will serve no trees before their time. “It took a while to figure it out, to make it where it wouldn’t bottom out and the fender wouldn’t hit the trees. I had it all done before we painted the bike and rode it on back roads and stuff ‘til it was right,” said David. “We took it from zero to like one-twenty where it pretty much quit running and it handled probably a little better than bikes with a 21-inch stuck on ‘em. Between the 23 and the raked front end, it actually helped the handling and made it easier to steer at low speeds.”
Like their four-wheeled cop brethren, Harley cop bikes do have a cop motor in the form of a standard equipment 103” Twin Cam (Hey Harley ― Sure would be nice if this leaked over as standard motorvation in civilian bikes). The only engine changes David made was a Screamin’ Eagle air cleaner (with a Covington insert of course), a Terry Components’ Terminal Velocity-3 fuel management system, and a set of Covingtons True Duals. “They’re Bassani mufflers with our tips and some new head pipes we helped them design,” said David. “I know they dyno real good and made more horsepower than most of ‘em out there. It runs real good.”
Even though Elwood didn’t bring it up, this bike had cop brakes too. Initial-design cop ABS brakes were quite different from the hidden ABS of civilian bike of today. “We took all that off because the police ABS is kinda nasty, it’s in the saddlebag and everything,” said David. “It’s pretty easy to take it all of. You gotta replace all your brake lines and the wiring harness out and ground out the ABS light that’s in the speedometer so it doesn’t stay on. The newer ABS is pretty nice. I could work around those, but that first year in ’07 was pretty bad.” Not cluttering up the showpiece 23” front wheel was taken even further with a single Jaybrake caliper setup showcasing the elegantly-beefy seven-spoke Rampage Wheels’ design set between American Suspension chrome lower legs topped with Covingtons’ finned (or ribbed if you like) fork bells. Actually, all that glitters on this bike (and there is a lot) is not gold, but chromed pieces direct from Covingtons’ vast array of parts for baggers. If you see anything shiny on this bike you would like for yours, it’s available directly from Covingtons. That’s a simpler way of pointing out what’s what on this bike. Remember this was built to blingingly showcase everything Covingtons makes. “Most of all our parts are in black chrome now too,” said David. “We don’t really advertise that, but I thought I’d mention it.”
Sitting low and proud on its Arnott Air Suspension, the rechristened FLHX sports a knockout, but still tasteful Candy Blue and flake paintjob by Dusty Brown featuring graphics by Brain Loker. It’s one of those rare combinations of a truly custom look, yet not over-the-top end result that The Motor Company should steal for their next CVO dresser (although in all fairness they should toss these two guys a big bucket ‘o money in compensation).
So with this one gone, what’s David unsurprisingly up to? “I’m doing another one right now, another cop bike. It’s going to be red with red flake,” said David. “We’re also working on some floorboards and a couple of other things too besides getting the raked triple trees ready. We’ve done a couple of new things like dashes for the older model Road Kings that went from like ’95 to ’07. Our ignition cover took off real big, but we only made these for ’96 and up, but now we make them for older models now as a lot of people were asking for those.”
Sure seems like Covingtons Cycle City never heard there was a bad economy out there, they’re just forging ahead like it was 1999. If you’re in the market for bolt-on American made bagger parts that can turn your dresser from a dowdy one to a exquisitely tailored one, check out Covingtons’ website at www.covingtonscyclecity.com. Oh, and be sure to have your have your Visa card handy as you’ll absolutely, positively see something you just can’t live without for your Harley bagger.
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