After a slight pause where I could hear her typing furiously to the gentleman on the other end that it was a go and then getting his first question, the conversation began. Basically, it was about what kind of Harley he wanted and what he could afford. Turns out his credit unfortunately sucked and that new Fat Boy just wasn’t going to happen. But, I could get him on a new Sporty and relayed that to the intermediary who typed that away to him. There was an extremely long pause before she said anything to me and she broke her own rule of not just relaying his message, but timidly and in a totally different voice asked me,” I’m not supposed to do this, but I’ve got to ask why he answered me in all caps (as you know, the Internet equivalent of yelling) ‘TELL HIM I’M NOT RIDING A GODDAMN GIRL’S BIKE! TELL HIM TO SHOVE IT UP HIS ASS IF HE THINKS I’M GOING TO RIDE A SPORTSTER!’” She seemed a bit perplexed and quietly said like someone could overhear her, “I don’t know much about motorcycles, but I thought all Harleys were cool?” How little did she know she was so right. By the way, the guy stayed pissed at me and didn’t buy a Sporty.

 

    But, that’s all (finally!) changed now and Sportys are about as cool as you can get if you check out the huge number of new bike sales and the tons of too cool for school Sporty customs you see everywhere. To paraphrase Love Story’s Ali McGraw, Riding a Sportster means never having to say you’re sorry. Sportys rule and you better get used to it.

 

  If you still don’t believe they rule, well take a good look at this neat little Sporty bobber that Tim Firstenberger of Sarasota, Florida, whipped up on nights and weekends when he wasn’t working his day job. This former 1995 XL1200 basket case went from a pile ‘o rusty parts to a ton ‘o lusty fun in a little over two months. “My main idea was to build a nice, clean, bare-bones bobber. I grew up in mid-Ohio at the flat tracks and I love the old board trackers so there’s probably some of that in what I build,” said Tim. “I feel that I have done what I set out to do. I built a clean piece that somebody can afford to buy and I had a lot of fun doing it.” Personally, I gotta agree that it is a clean piece that looks ready to rumble day-in and day-out and that’s something I expect any motorcycle to do.

 

  Tim made sure it’d reliably rumble leaving no stone unturned in the Stone Age Evo mill. “This motor got the cases split and bead blasted along with the heads before powder coating them gloss black. I installed new crank bearings, Wiesco pistons, and did a valve job. I rebuilt the transmission with new bearings and replaced the clutch and stator with new ones,” he said. “It runs an S&S Super B carb that I always wanted to run on a Sporty Evo and so far has worked out very well. 

 

  Upping the ante a bit, Tim chose to toss the stock H-D frame for a shall-we-say “sexier looking” Kraft/Tech rigid frame. Nothing too crazy here as Tim stayed with a no-stretch design featuring only 30-degrees of rake for sporty (pun intended) and nimble handling. It is really nice looking tubing with what Tim says is “done in what they call black chrome powder coat.” I’m not sure about the “black chrome” part, but I do love the what I’d call the “silver gray” powder coat end result that contrasts so nicely with the black with silver gray graphics paintjob done by Richard Paxton at P-Mans Classic Cycle Paint in Bradenton, Florida. Tim wanted to make sure that I mentioned his two powder coaters, Custom Colors Powder Coating and Fusion Powder Coating (both located in Sarasota, Florida) as they both provide him with exceptional service.

 

   The riding report on this Sporty is that although it’s a rigid (that’s why Tim named it Little Comfort I assume), “it rides smooth and is rock solid on the road.” Tim uses it mostly for Saturday night and Sunday afternoon putts, but it’s a blast to ride it as it was intended in the first place. Hey, he wasn’t trying to build a Road King out of an XL. Right now he’s busy at work on a ’92 1200 and this bike will be up for sale at the end of January. That’s got nothing to do with Tim not liking this bike for some reason, but more to do with his long term goal. He wants to make this his full-time day job. “I was thinking that I should have said more about what I am trying to do right now. I’m building two or three of these bikes a year and I’m trying to keep the price point where the average guy can afford to buy one,” he said. “When I get to the point where I’m making five or six, I can leave my day job and start what I want to call Little Comfort Customs.”  

 

   It’s great to see new blood coming into this industry and guys like Tim seem to have their head screwed on tight and correctly about how to accomplish this successfully. I hope to be able to show case another Little Comfort Customs bike or two pretty soon and we’ll see if Tim’s got it going on. I have plenty of faith he will.