As the sponsor of HOT ROD'S BIKE WORKS Readers' Rides, Bassani Motorcycle Exhaust, available exclusively from North County Customs, wants to help you get the most out of your motorcycle. If we select your bike to run in the Readers' Rides section, the folks at North County Customs will give you a gift certificate good for $75 towards the purchase of a set of their pipes. Now what could be better than that? Getting your bike displayed on these pages is as simple as sending a couple of good-looking photographs of your motorcycle shot against a clean background (no poles growing out of the seat, no cars or trash cans in the background). Please include some information telling us what you've done to make your bike cool.
If you think your bike has what it takes, then show it off for all to see. Mail your photos, a brief background of the bike, and your contact information to HOT ROD'S BIKEWORKS, Attn: Readers' Rides, 720 Hundley Way, Placentia, CA 92870, or e-mail us at bikeworks@primedia.com.
Don't Mess With The Mail
This is the mailman's bike -- otherwise known as Tim DeMerchant's of New Britain, Connecticut, 1999 Dyna FXDWG. All you have to do is take a look at Tim's license plate and you know exactly why the moniker is appropriate. Tim has added a Screamin' Eagle 88 Twin Cam, a Big Sucker air cleaner, and Vance & Hines pipes to upgrade the performance of his ride. To improve the appearance, he has added Arlen Ness mirrors, mirage lights, and Carriage Works wheels. But what has probably made the biggest impact on the look of his Dyna would have to be the custom paintjob by Explicit Airbrush. It'd be cool if mail trucks were customized like Harleys, skulls and all. Then postal would take on a whole new meaning.
They Said He Was Too Young For The Old Stuff
Your childhood experiences often shape your adult actions; we all know that. Therefore it was no surprise to Joe O'Bryant of Louisville, Kentucky, that when he built his first bike he put a 93ci Shovelhead engine in a '95 Jammer frame. Joe wanted, as he puts it, "all the old stuff" on his bike. That meant if he couldn't find it, he built or customized it himself. The gas tank started out as a Sportster tank that he stretched and raked. The fender was modified by adding flaring metal to the sides and then lowered to hug the tire. Joe also had the Progressive shocks cut down about 2 inches. The paintjob by Jimmy Brown is a tribute to past-owned hot rods using Dodge upper blue with old-school hot-rod flames that are streaked and shadowed. After taking a road trip through Texas and Oklahoma to visit an old friend, Joe is ready to build yet another bike -- only this one he wants to be even "older."
Garage Fairy Tale
The way Robert Bain of Ramona, California, puts it, he decided to take his stock black "road toad" and turn it into a true Road King by giving it a custom paintjob thanks to the talents of Rock & Roll Custom Paint. We're quite familiar with that shop being that it's located just about 15 minutes away from us in Anaheim, California. Of course, Robert couldn't leave everything else stock once he went ahead with the marbleized Brandywine and Candy Apple flames, so he also added a handmade seat by Bar Enterprise, the flames stitched in, beach bars, and solid chrome wheels courtesy of Carriage Works. Robert kept on with the upgrades with LA Choppers pipes, a skull air cleaner by JBS, Arlen Ness passing lamps, Legend Air Ride, and rear turn signals that are incorporated into the saddlebags. Clichs aside, this toad is definitely now lookin' a lot more like royalty.
He Did It By The Book
Our "Readers' Rides" submissions come in all forms, mini tech sheets written on tiny sheets of paper, handwriting we can barely make out, simple lists of parts, rambling stories pages long, or sometimes just images of the bikes themselves. Not only did Larry Brill, the owner of this '04 H-D Night Train, e-mail us several shots of his ride, he also sent us a very complete tech sheet, it even looked just like the one we publish in the magazine. So some stats on Larry's ride include a 103-inch Twin Cam with H-D cases and mainly Screamin' Eagle internals mated to an H-D trans in this Lava Sunglo Night Train. Other features include Joker exhaust, a PM swingarm, Accutronix risers, grips, foot controls, and pegs. A few more additions in the looks department are a Headwinds headlight, a Kuryakyn taillight, Paul Yaffe front fender, and Milwaukee Iron rear fender. Obviously, when the tech sheet is complete, we get to share a lot about your ride.