So right up front, do I like this real Harley bobber? Does the Pope wonder what’s for dinner? That I don’t know, but I know I like this bike because it’s just real as in real nice, real American, and real honest. With his photographer’s eye, Jeff took the best lines of various eras and combined them with choice American parts and his own fabricated parts to build a bike that looks like 3D bobber blueprint for generations to come. If the Smithsonian needed a bike to showcase a classic bobber exhibit, this Shovel would be a perfect example of that genre.
How do I figure that it’s a perfect example? Well starting with a Shovelhead anything could do that, but this bike still has an original Harley VIN number frame with one of Jeff’s hardtails welded in place. That’s two major points right there with a real Harley frame and engine straight out of an era famous for what you see before you. This is also a kick-only ride and that’s from an era when only “real men” were able to start those cantankerous Harley-Davidson engines. Don’t do it right and the bike would make you pay dearly for it unlike today’s electric starters churning away at a fuel-injected electronic ignition engine. I won’t say it was a better time, but it certainly was different from today.
Apparently Jeff thinks so too as everything he builds has a look that’s pure nostalgia without trying to be nostalgic for the sake of nostalgia. Obviously he loves, lives, and breathes simpler custom motorcycle times and is doing his best to not only keep a past era alive, but to enhance all that was good about it with cleaner builds than was the norm back then. See more of what Jeff Cochran’s been up to at www.speedkingphoto.com.