There were a few custom bikes built in the area that were using Independent Cycle Inc.’s LOWLIFE frame and Trent liked the way they looked. But, his first notion was to look for another frame because much of the reason he wanted a custom to begin with was to have something unique. “The guys at TCX understood I didn’t want a cookie-cutter custom, and explained that the (LOWLIFE) frame was versatile enough that I wouldn’t have to worry about my bike looking like any one else’s — and they were right,” Trent said.

Not long after Trent’s meeting with the guys at the shop, a LOWLIFE frame arrived, and it gave a place for the crew to get to work building his custom. Concentrating on making the bike unique, TCX made a big change to the frame by exchanging the original swing arm for an aftermarket part built for an aftermarket frame. One of Jim Nasi’s chromed swing arms, designed to hold a 300mm tire, was bolted to the pivot point of the frame and attached to a Legend Air Suspensions unit. An American Suspension inverted front end was bolted to the 42-degree-raked steering neck built with a hidden two-piston caliper and a trick internal brake line. The guys took a 21×3.25” and an 18×10.5” pair of Renegade billet wheels and fastened them to the bike with a matching rotor in the front and pulley in the rear. “The bike’s name came from the wheels. Renegade (the wheel manufacturer) calls them their Mid Evil wheels, and the name stuck with the bike throughout the build,” Trent said.

Known in their part of North Carolina as one of the best performance shops around, TCX had to meet Trent’s expectations by coming up with a motor with more get up and go than anything found at the local Harley dealership. It wasn’t hard to talk Trent into agreeing to an S&S 124” motor for two reasons; it packs more than twice the power of a stock, pushrod Harley power plant, and it’s known for reliability. “I only wanted cosmetic changes made to the motor to make it look a little different. The large displacement produces plenty of torque and the BAKER six-speed trans gives it pretty-high top speed. All I had the guys change on the motor were Ness pushrod tubes and rocker boxes. It’s not set up to be a race motor, but after the bike was built it turned out over 120-horsepower at the rear wheel,” Trent said. That’s more than enough power to keep a smile on any gearhead’s face. As Trent mentioned, the BAKER OD6 right-side-drive transmission allows him to achieve considerable speed and the ability to comfortably cruise at triple-digit speeds. Bolted to the trans is a TCX-designed trans brake that reduces the parts covering the bike’s wheels to a single front rotor and rear pulley. Both parts are located on the right side of the bike and keep the Mid Evil wheels clearly visible on the primary side.

TCX’s collective ability to shape metal is exceptional and they weren’t bluffing when they said they could disguise the frame’s origins. “Mike Kelly is TCX’s head fabricator and formed all of Mid Evil’s sheet metal by hand. Towards the end of the build, Mike told me he had over 200 hours of work in just the beadwork and molding alone. The bike is incredible from every angle, if you get a glimpse under the tank you’ll find it’s just as detailed as the top,” Trent said. When painting a bike with this much metal work, the painter has to exercise a certain degree of restraint to insure the bike’s graphics and topcoat don’t overshadow or hide the craftsmanship underneath. “The first version of the paint job had graphics on the sides of all the metal surfaces. I thought that it looked good, but the painter, Ron Fleenor, looked at me and said that he couldn’t let the bike leave the shop like that and insisted that he paint it again. The second time it looked incredible because the paint complemented the shapes and beadwork instead of competing with it,” Trent said.

According to Trent when the finished bike is seen in direct sunlight the tangerine-gold paint affects people the same way as if they had seen Jessica Alba walking down the street. The list of details about this bike are practically endless, even the license-plate holder is unique, it pops out of the left side of the bike and retracts, hidden under an inconspicuous cover and controlled by a key-fob remote. “One of my favorite parts about this bike is people’s reactions to it when they see it. I knew the bike was worth every penny after the first few people who saw it couldn’t think of anything to say other than; ‘Holy Sh*t, look at that bike,’ ” Trent said.