I’m going to take a leap of faith without too much investigation (oh we’re all going to Hell in a hand bag anyway) and declare this an extremely nicely customized Harley-Davidson Breakout. Barnett Harley’s GM and motorcycle aficionado extraordinaire, Mark Barnett, is always sending me middle-of-the-night eBay listings of bikes. Everything he sends me is loaded to the gills with horsepower in some sort of tough guy Softail just like this one. Sometimes I think I see his drool droplets when I open the auction, but that could just be my screen. Being an ex-flat tracker will do that to a man even with more responsibilities than any three men have the right to claim to. If I had to answer what religion he was, I’d have to say, “High performance solo Softail.” We’ve never discussed religion, but we sure have motorcycles.
Anyway, this bike is right up Mr. Mark’s racer alley with a look that confidently says, “Go for it – I don’t care if I win or lose, I’m in it for the action.” Actually it’s pretty amazing what a few changes to a pretty-damn-good-looking-bike-in-the-first-place will do. As always, changing out the wheels with good taste can do wonders just by itself and in this case, it’s a winner from the get-go. I’m usually not a fan of millions of spokes, but in this case they lend a bit of airiness with a bit of industrial mechanical look. Especially out back where the butch low-profile tire is just wide enough to be declared bitchin’ if that’s some sort of declarable category.
Although I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on inside those counterbalanced 103 cases, anything that exudes bad ass performance like this FXSB makes me assume it has had a bit of cam and headwork just to pep things up nicely without screwing with reliability. All of the ancillary attachments like the Figure Machine Flow Vision air cleaner, the always lovely and never boring Roland Sands Design Clarity cam cover and Derby cover (watch the video ─ anything Roland touches is cool), and the ungodly beautiful 2-into-1 exhaust from Hell all bring a bit of the inside out for both your viewing and aural pleasure. Man that exhaust has all the subtlety of the Army’s M26 MASS under-barrel shotgun attachment for the already potent Colt M4. I love it to pieces and it looks deadly in a good way.
Bodywork has been extremely tastefully played with while seemingly retaining the factory profile at least in spirit. Comparing a stocker and this baby directly definitely shows the differences immediately. Kind of like seeing the ultimate hot rod restomod car of your dreams that looks like it might be a stocker from 20-feet away. Every peek leads to thoughts of stuff like, “Gee, I think that fender looks different (which it does)” to “Is that sitting lower?” and so on. When you really look around, this unknown person (all I have to go by is painted Ace Motorsports-logo on the back fender) knew what they were doing and spent some good bucks to accomplish their dream bike. Well, maybe it’s not their dream bike, it’s wicked cool at least, but you know what I mean.
Besides some other obvious, but nice mods and changes like the deconstructing going on the top of the tank along with a bit of restructuring to the new seat and the tidy chin spoiler and totally revised headlamp, there’s nothing stopping someone (with permission of course) from hopping on and riding away. There’s no new lesson to be learned, it’s just a damn good looking in a tough-guy-way Harley that’s still got what’s good about the Breakout intact. Ace, if that’s your name, you knew what to screw with and what not.
Basic black is always a good thing and here it’s been put to good use showcasing some simple, yet desirable gold graphics. Just enough gold to keep things from going all murdered out and disappearing into the sunlight or darkness. Sometimes too much black turns sorta gray unless there’s a hopefully tasteful highlight to bring it out in all its lovely blackness. Even the original pimped-out chrome primary cover has been rightfully changed to black with the polished fin ends and engine hardware and lines defining the engine’s lines. Just enough shiny stuff to showcase that assault weapon exhaust I can’t get over ─ sorry, I can’t seem to.
So kudos to you Ace Motorsports wherever you are for rethinking one of Harley’s most stylish models. Just knowing there may be a bit of street grime on that bike makes it all the more attractive to me. Now all I gotta do is wait until this shows up on eBay and I’m sure I’ll be getting a middle-of-the-night email with the listing from El Marko with the title in the subject line ─ “Hey, take a look at this cool Breakout. It’s got 145hp” or something like to that. Yep, it’s all in a day’s work.