Looking at Jack Cofano’s photos of this bad in black with a high dose of orange, radical turbo Road King built by Tyler Foster, owner of SikPipes in Tioga, Pennsylvania, I couldn’t help but notice a few racer’s touches have infiltrated the build. The bike usually tells a story about the builder and in this case the view over the bars broke the case. Adjustable CNC billet levers, small high tech master cylinders for both the brake and clutch on what appeared to be dirt bike handlebars and a traditional black spin-on dirt bike vented gas cap were the giveaways.

 

    Then I couldn’t help but notice the BMX-style bear trap pedals that were mid-mounted on a bagger of all things! You don’t see many (or is that any?) mid-mounts on a big wheel bagger, but you do on SikPipes’ bike and it looks cool as living hell. So, I’m guessing that Tyler has spent some time racing and it’s gotta be in the dirt of some sorts. Ah yes, another rush to judgment. But, the facts are there if you look for them and if it’s on the Internet it must be true (which it is now). Plus there’s a damn Trask Performance turbo mit intercooler hanging off the side of the Twin Cam and any serious competitor worth his weight in any competition whether it’s dirt or street or whatever is addicted to power. All that may or not may be true, but that’s the way I see it. I’ve never met Tyler or communicated with him in any way, so I hope I’m at least kinda right.  

 

   Since he was basically chucking everything but the engine, tranny and frame Tyler wisely started with an older Harley-Davidson Road King, a 2002 to be precise. Whether it’s an ’02 or brand new really doesn’t matter when you plan to begin from ground zero anyway and slapping on a turbo makes anything feel new and fresh. Trust me on that one.

 

   After the necessary frame mods to fit the big 12-spoker up front wheel that’s been decked out with a single Wave Rotor and Brembo four-pot caliper, things began to fall in place. An electric center stand was welded on to compliment the bagger-mandatory front and rear air ride suspension with a sturdy base on the way to the ground and that’s always nicer to me than a bagger on the down-low sitting on its frame tubes. Might be okay if I always parked on fresh cut, thick grass, but I can’t remember the last time I did that. I mentioned them before, but it’s worth mentioning again that the mids that Tyler fabbed up are fabulous. They’re simple, to-the-point, and just attractive to my mechanical third eye and they’re mid-mounts on a custom bagger of all things.

 

  Even though there’s still a lot of bodywork by chopper standards, there’s the minimum amount a lad would need to still qualify as a bagger. No front fender for the stripped and ready to go look, but there is what appears to be almost a racing number plate replacing the Road King nacelle with an asymmetrically mounted Baja Designs Squadron Pro Flush Mount LED light on the right side of the “plate.” It’s so small at 3”x3” that you could miss it, but apparently you won’t at night according to Baja’s claims. I gotta give Tyler credit as it really is a whole different take on a classic Road King nacelle and it looks pretty damn cool doing it. And hey, if you’re gonna skip a front fender for looks, you might as well skip the headlight too for all practical purposes and replace it with a metal number plate. I do like the “rubber” gaiter look on the forks and I bet you can guess what they remind me of ─ yup, those dastardly dirt bikes.

 

   The slab-sided fuel tank design also reminds me of dirt bike styling in its simplicity and shape. Plus the view over the tank top looks dirt-bike narrow back to front. I’m sure this was completely intentional and probably built around the dirt bike gas cap. It may be dirt-bike narrow from the seat forward, but it all goes to baggerville heading aft. The bags and rear fender are utter simplicity in itself with nothing too flamboyant to needlessly pop out. The view from the rear only shows a plate mount at the bottom of the fender and not much else like taillights or stoplights or turn signals. I’m just gonna assume there’s a couple of vertical strips of LEDs between the bags and fender to keep things on the up and up as Tyler does ride the piss out of this bike believe it or not. Heading off into the turbo’s red zone without at least the street legalities out of the way is asking for it and I don’t think Tyler is the least bit stupid. Crazy maybe, but not stupid.

 

   In the dark engine room, crazy things are going on. The Twin Cam has been freshened and upgraded with The Motor Company’s Screamin’ Eagle pieces and parts before the all encompassing intercooled turbo began its mechanical soiree across the right side to the front of the engine. Pieces and parts are everywhere doing their thing like a small industrial complex devoted to making gobs of horsepower. Besides all the piping going to and fro from the turbo to the intercooler creating mechanical art, there’s also one of Trask’s clear plenum covers with an injector sucking compressed fuel and air behind it just to make sure you get involved with the combustion process.

 

   Obviously, when it came to an exhaust, this was Tyler’s chance to take things to the next level and he doesn’t disappoint. This might be the most organic exhaust I’ve ever seen and that’s probably because this is the first time I’ve seen something just flow around and look like it’s hanging in air like the snakes you see in trees on the National Geographic channel. The shape almost defies the possibilities, yet you know it has to work and it really has to sound good too. SikPipes wouldn’t be SikPipes without sick pipes and man, that’s a sick pipe.

 

   So what do for a wild paintjob on a performance-oriented custom bagger? Apparently you keep it simple, but with a twist. Tyler called in Kyle Morley of XecutionStyle in Elmer, New Jersey, to shoot it and what they came up with is pretty damn interesting. A high-horsepower bagger like this is the closest thing to a weapon on two wheels and what better to way to cover this assault vehicle than with an assault weapon finish? The matte gray is Tungsten Cerakote finish straight from the gun world and not PPG or HOK. If it’s tough enough for a gun it’s good enough for this bike. Even the engine bay gets a dose of matte gray with a touch of black for contrast to go along with the minimalist paint.

 

  But, the elephant in the room and the thing that grabbed your eye for better or worse is the in-your-face neon/fluorescent/KTM/whatever-you-want-to-call-it orange paint on the front wheel. Oh you can see a bit of orange from the back wheel if you look closely, but like the Winston cigarette TV ads from the ‘50s proclaimed, “It’s what’s up front that counts!”  That huge swirling bright orange wheel could have attracted Helen Keller’s attention. Okay, maybe that’s going too far, but you get the point. That thing is big and nasty and orange as living hell. If you’re going to have a big ass front wheel, you might as well have one that everybody notices ─ not some, but everybody whether they like it or not. Now that I think about it, that’s exactly what Tyler intended with this bike as a whole and he definitely accomplished that. Score one big one for the guy from Tioga.

 

  For more info on SikPipes, visit http://www.sikpipes.com/home/ or check out SikPipes Facebook page.