The frame is a Rolling Thunder Love That Radius Bend frame (yes, that’s what it’s called) featuring plus-five-inches in the backbone, minus-one-inch in the downtube, and a rake of forty-three degrees. Along with the frame I got a Rolling Thunder’s springer front end as well as a final touch, a custom tank built to my dimensions to go with the stretched backbone. Sam at Rolling Thunder Manufacturing in Quebec, Canada couldn’t have been more accessible and helpful it getting it done and to fit perfectly even though the shop was 2,000 miles away.
The motor is something I’m very proud of and it happened purely by accident. I was searching for wheels, and a guy out of Pittsburg had started a build and had a set of Chip Foose wheels that I had never seen. In contacting him about the wheels, he happened to ask if I needed a drive train. He stated that he not only had a custom-built STD 132-inch Shovelhead motor, but also mentioned a JIMS six-speed transmission mated with a Tech Cycle Cyclone open primary and a Barnett lock up clutch.
I admit, I’d never heard of STD and I let him know that I wanted to do a little research. He told me the supposed hp/torque numbers (150 hp/150 lb-ft), which, of course, who would believe? What I found was that he was being completely honest, and I was incredibly excited. STD Development out of Downey, California, was famous for their motors back in 2005, at a price of over $13,000. So, I bought the wheels, the tranny, open primary, clutch and, of course, the monster STD motor!
My favorite aspect of the bike is that engine. First, at 132 cubic-inches, it’s almost impossible to describe the feeling as you roll on the throttle, and second, I’ve never seen or heard of another complete motor made by STD in any other motorcycle. I’m sort of a ‘Proud Papa’ in considering the engine’s uniqueness.
During fabrication, there were going to be many one-off brass and aluminum parts that I knew had to be made: the points cover, shifter linkage, springer front rotor linkage, oil filter and front rotor mounts, and a coil cover/ignition housing. Mike at Gearheads here in Albuquerque, made some beautiful one-off parts that fit perfectly every time.
In 2009 all the parts were thrown together as a roller and sent to Dave Micklevitz’s shop, Leading Edge Customs, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The bike hung out with Dave for about a year, not making too much progress. Dave was hoping to make some time to do some fabrication, but with Dave and Leading Edge being one of the best and most sought after paint shops in the Southwest, he suggested taking it to Chuck Zettner and Pete Rumschlag to finish the fabrication. So, off to another shop it went.
Fabrication made some progress for about eight months, then that shop went bye-bye. A year later, after Chuck (Pete helped with some fabrication out of his home garage) moved to another shop, it was finally ready for paint. So, it went back to Dave for paint, where it received an amazingly intricate and time consuming scalloped and gold leaf work of art. In March of 2013, the painted parts came back to me so Chuck and I could put it together with a July deadline for the bike’s first scheduled show.
We took it to LA for The Calendar Motorcycle Show and earned second place. Since that time, it’s earned two first places and Best of Show at The Supernationals Custom Car Show and at The Sagebrush Custom Car Show as well as top honors at Thunderbird Harley-Davidson’s Motorcycle Show. I definitely think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. I wanted to build a bike that would primarily be for shows, but that I could ride as well.
I get the same comments at every show about riding, “Since you don’t ride it . . .” To the contrary ─ it’s an absolute blast to ride! It’s incredibly comfortable and the riding position allows a lot of miles without any problems especially my hands falling asleep or my back screaming at the end of a ride. And, the STD Shovelhead racing motor loves to run. That 150-150 hp/torque is addicting.
There were definitely a couple big issues involved in this build. First, after the initial 20 miles, every bolt was loose. I realize that customs, especially rigids with monster motors shake a bit, but I literally had to address a serious bolt issue. I did some research and found Nord Lock lock washers. They’re used, primarily, for big, expensive construction and production type applications where bolts absolutely cannot come loose. Otherwise, bad, bad things can happen. So, Nord lock washers plus a bit of red thread locker were used on every bolt.
The second issue happened at around 200 miles and on my first evening ride when I met a friend at a bar in East Albuquerque. I left about an hour later, it was completely dark at this point, and headed home. I pulled into my garage, got off the bike and started to walk away. I made it two steps before an odd shadow on the downtube caught my eye.
I looked closer and noticed that it wasn’t a shadow at all. It was a scrape, a long deep scrape that wasn’t an accident. As I walked around the rest of the bike, I noticed one more, a twelve-inch-plus ‘scrape’ along rear end of the bike. Seems as though someone had taken a blade and ran it down two of the long tubes of the frame, all the way to the metal. So, I pulled the bike completely apart and dropped the frame back at Leading Edge Customs for a $3,000 “touch up”.
I was never very excited about the original exhaust. So I took it to an old fabricator friend of mine, Jeff Wooldridge, who got it in his head to build six-piece, increasing- diameter, stainless steel custom exhaust. I dropped off the bike at his shop, along with a huge $600 box of stainless steel exhaust piping from 1.75-inches to 2.25-inches. A week later, Jeff did a beautiful job with the welding and the fitment. I sent all the pieces to Russell’s Custom Polishing in Mesa, Arizona, and in another week, we had all the mirror-polished exhaust parts back on the bike. From the exhaust side, The Juggernaut almost looked like a different motorcycle.
Sadly, not too many miles get put onto this scoot. As far as I’m concerned, Albuquerque is THE WORST place to ride a motorcycle. The roads are horribly maintained and the drivers are even worse. I’ve lived in and ridden motorcycles in many of the Western States and I had zero close calls during those rides. Here in Albuquerque, the first day I rode, I had someone almost side swipe me. So, The Juggernaut gets taken for a quick spin getting the motor up to temperature and then back into the garage.
The Juggernaut is officially complete, and For Sale! It’s time for me to start building something a little different. I love building bikes, but the challenging task is to try and make the next bike better than this one. Impossible, maybe.