Harley-Davidson Road Glides with their frame-mounted dual-headlight fairings were never my cup of tea, I’m more of a batwing kind of guy. I totally understand all the so-called benefits of a frame-mounted fairing, but I’m a sucker for looks and the FLTR fairing just didn’t do it for me. Call me traditional or whatever you want, but from the original ’79 Shovelhead Tour Glide model to the reincarnated, rejuvenated, and renamed Road Glide in 1998 it just didn’t do it for me.

   Then something crazy happened in 2000 when Harley-Davidson popped the CVO FLTRSEI1 onto the somewhat dormant bagger scene and all hell broke loose. Loaded to the gills with H-D accessories, a big-bore 95-inch engine replacing the newly introduced 88-inch Twin Cam and a shocker (for the time) black and orange paintjob with the Screamin’ Eagle graphics running down the side. This was not your grandfather’s bagger (unless he was really cool) and it was a stunner the first time we rolled one out on Barnett Harley-Davidson’s show room floor. But, it still had that fairing and all I wanted to see was the same idea in principle, but with a batwing fairing.

   So you’re thinking, that’s a lovely little story, but what’s that got to do with this stunner of a 2007 Street Glide built for Randy and Joy Handy of Mount Airy, North Carolina, by Kendall Johnson Customs in Winston-Salem, North Carolina? Well it’s all personal again as this custom bagger seems to have the same spirit (and colors) that made the 2000 CVO Road Glide such a hit even though they couldn’t be more different if you tried. It’s all about the spirit and this thing’s got it in spades.

  And, if it’s coming out of Kendall Johnson Customs, you just know it’s got power the “big-bore 95-inch engine” could only wish for. KJC’s new owners, Travis Hathcock and Zach Johnson, are taking the Kendall Johnson legend of high horsepower to whole new levels with each and every build. It’s like the two of them have created a new class of custom baggers that probably should be referred to as muscle baggers or hyper baggers or whatever you’ve got to add. Not only do they make ridiculous amounts of power, but the lads have built their engines to last in day-to-day riding including a little cross-country trip they did recently on a 330hp bagger. These unassuming and totally down to earth guys are setting new standards especially since they started their tuning magic on ProCharger supercharger/intercooler-equipped engines. I don’t have any dyno sheet on this KJC engine, but they tend to start at around 200rwhp and go up from there. That’s a good three times as many horsepower as a nice running stocker puts out and that’s just the 200hp units. I love to daydream about what a 300+hp Street Glide would be like and I don’t have the imagination to comprehend it, but I’d sure love to try it.

    Randy and Joy’s Street Glide has got all the toys that make a custom bagger cool and show-worthy from the big front wheel to air ride front-and-rear to a killer audio system, but somehow this bike doesn’t look too over the top even though it is. That big front wheel doesn’t look so big and that’s part of the deception of the orange sidewall tires that aren’t what they first seem. That orange sidewall is not a sidewall or anything to do with the tire, but a painted rim of the wheel that looks like a tire. That’s a deception I can live with as I’m not a huge fan of the looks of a super low aspect tire and this tricks me into believing there’s more sidewall than there really is. Hey, I’m very superficial and this all looks pretty normal to me other than the orange “sidewall” color which I surprisingly like. Throw in the Performance Machine dual-calipers grabbing a single disc on the open air tri-spoke wheels and it’s all pleasing to look at and confidence inspiring when the PM master cylinder/brake lever is yanked to bring this supercharged bagger back to earth.

   Oh yeah, there’s a lot of other custom stuff too like the totally revised and handsome bodywork front-to-back or the electric center stand or the comfy looking mini-apes or the Butch Watson HighRollers seat or whatever else you see. It’s all been touched somehow and somewhere from what it started life as back in 2007, but there’s still a Street Glide feeling clearly resonating through the build. The paintwork by the ever talented Chad McCreary of Copperhead Graphics in Cana, Virginia, hits if squarely on the head with a look that the Harley designers should steal for a new model the first chance they get. It’s flashy, yet clean with the spirit and flow of the original CVO Road Glide that I associated with bagger power from first sight. It stands on its own, yet doesn’t fight for the limelight and that’s about as good as it gets for me anyway.

   So yeah, I really like this Kendall Johnson Customs special edition Street Glide on so many levels from looks, to power to the very idea of making a road worthy show bagger worthy of a look by The Motor Company itself. I know I’m not alone on this type of thinking and I’m sure Randy and Joy are enjoying this bike way more than any two people should. It’s that kind of build that makes Kendall Johnson Customs a force to be reckoned with now and in the future.

  For more info on Kendall Johnson Customs or Travis Hathcock and Zach Johnson, you’ll have to check ‘em out on Facebook while their new website is being prepped up for online duty.