Not a bad deal if that’s your style and there are a lot of you out there that still like the look and feel of that stretched out chopper of pre-custom bagger days. Nothing wrong with that as even I have to admit the view from the cockpit of a long bike like this is pretty dramatic as you shift through the gears. There’s a lot to look at over the splayed bars with the long front end leading the way to nowhere in particular. Where you’re going doesn’t matter a lot on a chopper like our feature bike belonging to Roland Ford of Axtell, Kansas, but the experience of riding something this radical and the admiring looks you get along the way sure go a long way in the added enjoyment department.

   Now I don’t have any idea if Roland’s bike is a re-purposed chopper or its own ground up build, but I do know it has a modern bit of twist to the old New School style of 2000-2008. If you’re not exactly sure what I’m talking about when I say “re-purposed” then check out this previous Barnett’s Magazine Online feature of Rodney Smith’s similar-style chop that he got for a deal he couldn’t refuse and modified to his liking.

    The bodywork on Roland’s bike is so smoothly designed it just flows like liquid metal from one end to the other. It looks like it could have been a single casting more than hand-formed flat sheets of metal. The huge curved single-downtube is the only bit of frame showing as everything is hidden behind bodywork of some sort. The incorporation of the blended-in chin spoiler as a style-point not only looks clean and right, but it ties the lower half to the front of the bike with a gesture of line.

  The tank is a lovely piece that harmoniously works with the chin spoiler to add a dab of stationary speed to the mix. On the go, they gotta look like they’re slicing the air cleanly. The artistic S-curve of the tank blends in perfectly with the seating are/rear fender almost like a frozen wave of bodywork that shows a delicate builder’s hand. Even the Ostrich seat with a comfy gel pad insert has its own special nook carved into the body so it doesn’t disrupt the flow. If I was trying to describe this bike by what song I think fits it best, I’d have to chose Sade’s Smooth Operator.

  Although a lot of yesterday’s customs were built with Harley-Davidson and S&S engines, somewhere there are a million RevTech engines sitting in choppers that are sitting in garages. At one point in the last chopper craze at the turn of the century, it seemed like every other chop we had submitted to paper edition of Barnett’s Magazine was Rev Tech powered. My personal experience with them was very limited so I have no opinion on them, but a lot of people sure did and it must have been positive by the sheer number sold. Roland’s RevTech is a 100-cube version gussied up a bit with Diamond Cut heads, a slick air cleaner and a set of swoopy 2-into-1 headers that could have been the inspiration for this build they fit so well. Black and chrome always look good and the Diamond Cut pieces only add a bit more bling to the mix.

   One thing I think Roland really got right is the paint. It’s sharp, clean and to the point. The gloss black base serves as a platform for the bright red to form a gorgeous sweep over the top to accentuate the lines and is almost an eye-popping surprise if you view the bike straight from the black sides. The wide gold striping separating the two makes the sweep complete and I gotta give Roland credit for knowing what he had was just enough. It’s too easy to get carried away on a paintjob without taking into account that it’s only part of the build and not the whole build.

   All the other bits from the billet wheels to the bars to the headlight and more don’t try to break any new ground, but honor the best of the past. At first I wasn’t sure about the chrome single-tube swingarm surrounding that wide rear wheel, but that added bit of chrome bling ties into the whole rear end nicely giving it a light airy look. If you run into this bike at high noon, just be sure you’ve got your shades on otherwise you might be blinded by the light like Manfred Mann.

  Styles never go away, they just change. For some of us, yesterday’s style is tomorrow’s dream and that’s great. Whatever your dream bike might be is all that counts and sometimes the flavor of the moment just doesn’t get the juices flowing. If you’ve got the hankering for one of these long, low and muy macho (my words) rides ─ go for it! The time is right and who knows, maybe you’ll be at the cutting edge in the near future. The old saying, “What goes around, comes around” couldn’t be more apt.