Leave it to beaver, in this case, Jason Beavers of Crazy Beavers Customs in Clayton, North Carolina, to attack an innocent 2012 Harley-Davidson Road Glide until it’s a shadow of its former stock self. Sorta like Marlon Brando as Dr. Moreau morphing a real beaver into a sleek Doberman Pinscher. The basic parts are the same, but the end result is totally different. In any case, Jason is a hell of a lot more successful to say the least than ol’ Dr. Moreau ever was doing his form of customization.

 

   After stripping the FLTRX to its bare bones, Jason got busy hanging an HHI 9-degree neck rake kit so he could accommodate a 26-inch SMW (Southern Motorcycle Works) Legend front wheel where an 18-incher formerly lived. Making sure there was enough room and the geometry was okay, Jason hung a set of Pickard USA 9-degree raked trees for a nice round total of 18-degrees of rakish good looks. Somehow a 26-inch front wheel just doesn’t look as cartoonish to me anyway as the 30 and 32 wheels do. I never thought I’d say this, but it looks totally rideable and apparently it is. Jason says, “The setup rides awesome. You would never know you have a 26-inch wheel in front of you. It is smooth,

straight, handles great and absolutely no wobbles at speed.”  Sticking with the stock H-D dual discs is not a bad thing as they work and work well and it sure cuts a lot of needless additional expense out of an already expensive proposition.

 

  Speaking of spending money wisely, Jason left the stock 103 Twin Cam alone internally. I mean, why fool with something that has ample power and is stone reliable? That doesn’t mean the old intake and exhaust performance (both physical and aural) couldn’t be tweaked a bit like Harley riders have been doing for over a hundred years. Bolting on a Screamin’ Eagle sock puppet air cleaner along with a factory high performance tune didn’t hurt a thing. The old tried and true upgrade was complimented by a Sinister Industries Up-Yours 2-into-1 exhaust that’s pretty damn hot-roddy to begin with, but not hot-roddy enough for Jason who politely removed the baffle to make sure you couldn’t miss him if you tried. To give it a little more edge, he had Jet-Hot ceramic coat it sinister black and the power plant was a done deal.

 

  When it came time for ritually changing every piece of OEM bodywork to custom bagger aftermarket stuff, Jason got a hold of Camtech Custom Baggers’ catalogue and threw the book at them so to speak. Oh you know, little things like a Camtech tank, dash, bags, rear fender, and a chin spoiler. “We added our Crazy Beavers Customs styling to the Camtech sides and 6” bags by molding them together for a clean smooth look,” says Jason. “We also stretched the stock front Road Glide fairing down to give it a mean sleek look.” The one piece he didn’t go to Camtech for was the front fender which he turned to Pickard once more for their 26-inch Wrap fender.

 

  With the bodywork basically out of the way, Jason retrofitted a killer audio system as no custom bagger is worth its salt without something that could fight with the exhaust for attention. In this case, he chose a Rockford 300-wat amp hooked up to a set of Rockford Fosgate 6.5-inch speakers and a set of Kicker 6×8 speakers. It does look like he stayed pat with the Harley radio and that’s all probably okay as I know absolutely nothing about motorcycle audio, sorry.

 

  Time to pull the bike apart again (and you wonder why custom baggers cost so much) and get it ready for paint. It’s getting tougher and tougher to come up with a paint scheme for a bagger that hasn’t been done, but Jason, who does his own paintwork, took his own route to painted glory. “We painted the bike with a subtle flowing paint scheme that starts with heavy black smoke in the front fairing that is almost all black until the light hits it and brings out the smoke, and flows down the bike on the white back ground,” he says.  “The smoke is carried across the front wheel and handlebars also. It is complemented by a few hidden eyes and a bone-colored alligator vinyl seat.” Everybody’s got their idea of what the perfect paintjob is, but you gotta admit it’s one of a kind and that’s not easy to say anymore.

  

 

  I should mention that this bagger was built a while ago and Jason’s been at it hard making his second print magazine cover in less than a year. All I can say is the guy has obviously got it going on and if you feel the same way too, be sure to check out his web site http://www.crazybeaverscustoms.com/home for more info.