Dawn’s ’98 Super Glide had about 35,000 miles on it when she brought it into the Suicide Cycles shop. Coop decided to tear the motor out of the frame and rebuild it sans the original natural-cast finish of the motor, replacing the aluminum color with a sinister black covering everything from the cases to the rocker boxes. Before he bolted the motor back up, he also added a larger-than- stock EV27 Andrews camshaft, cleaned up the ports in the heads, and installed .0005”-over pistons. The stock Harley ignition was replaced with a Crane HI-4 system and the CV carb was tuned with a high-performance jet kit. An Arlen Ness Big Sucker air cleaner was modified with a custom aluminum diamond- plate cover and Suicide Cycles made a custom set of exhaust pipes that received insulating Jet-Hot coating for added heat retention. Dawn’s stock five-speed transmission and primary were also coated black and reassembled with new bearings and seals.
Coop barely touched the stock Super Glide frame, but a few of the parts attached to it were exchanged for new ones. The rear shocks were replaced with short struts that turn the swing arm into a triangulated piece of a rigid frame. “We got rid of the shocks for a few reasons. One, I like hard tails. Two, my wife is just about five-foot-four-inches tall and thought the ‘Glide’s seat height was way too high. The struts are about four- or five-inches shorter than the original shocks,” Coop said. Now that the fender and wheel were permanently fixed in place, Coop was able to fit the new rear fender much closer to the tire. “Dawn was hoping for a spring seat, but the springs would add a few extra inches to the seat height and cancel out the height lost by lowering the rear end,” Coop said. The seating area was welded to the frame where the seat and fender strut supports originally were found. Five-eighths round-stock steel was bent into a seat-shape and he built a seat pan to fit into the area. On the leading edge of the bike, Covington wide glide-conversion triple trees are designed for 39mm tubes and were bolted to the stock-raked steering neck for a skeletal look, with the lower legs painted to match the bike’s other components. Next, 16” wheels were bolted to both ends of the bike, each measuring three-and-a-half-inches wide with a whitewall Metzeler ME880 130mm wide tire in the front and another nostalgic whitewall Metzeler 140mm attached to the stationary swing arm. Stock, single-piston calipers were bolted to one-piece, drilled aftermarket stainless steel rotors and a blacked-out rear pulley with holes similar to the hole-pattern seen on the rotors.
It would have been impossible for Coop to leave the ‘Glide’s original sheet metal parts alone. He considerably altered the gas tank by filling in the center section where the gauges are usually located and welding in a pair of custom filler bungs to the either side of the top of the tank. Then, he cut the sides off the tank and reversed them to create a concave dish on either side. Custom paint by Cliff and Skip shot the black basecoat and airbrushed the graphics. A pinup girl who closely resembles Bettie Page in a red latex devil suit, is found inside the concave dish of the gas tank, a Suicide Cycles logo on the right side of the oil tank and a little black, white, and red accent on the rear fender. “I’m pretty lucky, my wife kinda looks like Bettie Page.” Coop said.
He reassembled the bike with a bunch of new accessories. Flanders 10” ape hangers were bolted to the top of the front end with Choppers, Inc. .44-Magnum risers. He fastened Performance Machine Classic hand controls coupled with vintage black rubber grips to the handlebars. Barnett’s clear-coated stainless steel braided clutch cable and brake lines were connected to the levers above a black powder coated six-and-a-half-inch-diameter Drag Specialties headlight.
After finishing the final assembly, Coop considered a fancy name for the bike, but people were already calling it the Devil’s Mistress. “Not long ago I built a bike called the Devilman Deluxe. Everyone that saw Dawn’s bike called it the Devil’s Mistress,” Coop said. “Six months of waiting was driving her nuts, but I was happy with her reaction to the bike. I’m pretty sure she liked it — behind her smile she shed a few tears. We got married about three months after I finished her bike, so I guess it worked.”
Up-Close: Choppers, Inc. Six Gun Risers
A few years ago, Billy Lane, owner of Choppers, Inc., designed these Six Gun risers. The risers start out as billet aluminum that is CNC-machined into their familiar shape. They’re called Six Guns because the riser bolts are covered with an aluminum crown that is embedded with .44 Magnum shell casings. He made sure the risers would fill more than one bike’s style-needs with four-, six-, and eight-inch lengths, including a version for springer front ends. He also offers the Six Gun theme in other accessory pieces like grips (ball-milled), internal-throttle grips, black anodized, scalloped and rubber grips, fork-tube nut caps, standard pegs and fold-up pegs, gas caps (black anodized or chrome), shift knobs, and a new .50 caliber-style touring bike gas cap. The website also has a number of other unique Choppers, Inc. parts like their assorted license plate/taillight mounts adorned with dice, trucker girls, spades, and Iron Crosses.
A couple of mechanical-engineering degrees insure that his parts are mechanically sound, and Billy was smart enough to protect his designs by patenting the Six Gun look. That’s not the only one, though; he holds a total of seven U.S. patents on an assortment of parts that help guard him from knockoff parts manufacturers. On his website Billy writes, “I know I could cut costs if I made my parts overseas, but I won’t…It’s important to me to keep work close to home. I make parts that I’m not afraid to put on my own bike.” A good idea for every builder to adhere to that benefits local economies.
There is no listing for a phone number, but Choppers, Inc. can be reached on their website. Visit www.choppersinc.com for more information.
Builder: Charley “Coop” Cooper, Suicide Cycles
Manchester, Maryland, is located about 45-minutes northwest of Baltimore and the city is also known as the location of Coop’s bike shop, Suicide Cycles. “I started modifying my own bike using hacksaws and files. In the beginning I’d re-invest any money I made in tools, now I’m working with mills and lathes. The new tools have helped, and now I can modify bikes better and faster,” Coop said. Hand fabrication is important to his business, but it’s also key to Coop as a creative outlet. “When you hand-make a part there are no limitations, you can do whatever you want, regardless of what some book or someone else says,” Coop said. He doesn’t restrict himself by pigeonholing his services; he and his shop will work on any American V-twin, from Knuckleheads to Twin-Cams. But if a customer is looking for colorful knickknacks to bolt to his/her bike, he’ll probably give the person the address of another bike shop. “The bikes I build include just enough parts to get it down the road. Turn signals are ugly,” Coop said.
He used to work in the automotive industry and built bikes in his free time. The more work he did on his own bikes, the more people noticed his talent with the craft. Eventually the fabrication work he did for other people started to put a little money in his pocket and he quit the car business to work on bikes professionally. The majority of Suicide Cycles’ business is customizing Harleys, but their specialty is the two or three full-custom bikes they turn out a year. “I usually have to rebuild about 50-percent of the bike by hand to get it where I think it looks right,” Coop said. Cruise by the Suicide Cycles website www.suicidecycles.net or call the shop at 410-239-0500.
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