As you can tell from the photo galleries, Floyd had quite a little project on his hands. Oh there were the rusted, corroded, and worn-out basics there in all those boxes, but there wasn’t a single thing he didn’t have to rebuild, refurbish, and re-do before ending up with the black beauty he calls Small Change. There’s a good reason for that name too as Floyd was building this bike on a tight budget where his skills and imagination took precedence over having someone else do the work and then claiming it as his own. “I guess I wanted to prove that anyone could create something with very little cash. I built the bike and all the fabricated parts over a nine-month period,” said Floyd. “It took a while as I’m approaching 72 and not as fast as I used to be.” In my opinion, Floyd is the master of the understatement. Taking that heap ‘o trash and turning it into the something spectacular in such a realistically short period of time while working within a tight budget is something anybody, any age would have a tough time doing. That he’s saying he’s “not as fast as I used to be” only makes me wonder how fast he used to be. Most of us couldn’t assemble a bike in that time, never mind rebuild and fabricate all the stuff Floyd did.

After totally rebuilding the 650cc twin until it was back up and running in its stock single-carb configuration along with the 4-speed tranny and clutch, Floyd started work on the chassis. Keeping the main frame stock to maintain the sporty handling of the stocker, Floyd cleaned it up and spruced up the bolt-on hardtail until it was probably better than new. Making that hulk of a springer into something worthy of this build was not easy either, regardless of how old he says he is. Obviously he’s still got it in spades. As you can tell by the photos, it’s been through a bunch of different configurations too like the hand-shift/clutch assembly that mysteriously disappears in the final version.

For a bike with not too much actual bodywork, you can see that a lot of work went into them. Floyd reworked the tank until it fit exactly the way he envisioned and this has to be the first case of “Elk-eye” gas caps. The brass tail lamp is nicely executed on the rear fender and adds a bit of retro bling. “I used copper and brass, NO CHROME, black powdercoated everything I could and painted everything else in black lacquer,” he said. “Dave Perewitz once said that nobody would walk across the street to look at a black bike, but would crowd around an Easter egg. I wanted to prove him wrong. ”

When Floyd handed the “finished” bike over to his son after entering four shows and coming out with three firsts and a third at the rat’s Hole Show in Leesburg, Florida, said son had Bomb Art do a bit of pinstriping to apparently jazz it up a bit. ”Not my choice, but everyone likes something different,” said Floyd like a real true dad. “I think I accomplished everything I set out to do and I believe it turned out pretty good for the limited amount of money spent. It rides and handles great for a bar hopper, but the best thing about it is that it draws a crowd everywhere it goes. People will walk across the street to see a black bike if it’s different!”

So now what’s this “approaching 72” guy up to? Well not sitting back on his laurels, that’s for sure. “Right now I’m into another build, a 1974 Triumph T140 750cc five-speed with a totally different look that I hope to have ready for Leesburg, Florida, Bikefest’s Rat’s Hole Show in April,” he said. Hopefully we’ll get to feature Floyd’s new ride in the near future and see if he’s still into proving black is beautiful.