Reader's Rides - Sporty Bikes

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 toward the purchase of a set of the shop's 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 BIKE-WORKS, Attn: Readers' Rides, 2570 E. Cerritos Ave., Anaheim, CA 92806, or e-mail us at bikeworks@primedia.com.

Real Men Ride Harleys

Tim Riggs owned metric bikes for years before deciding it was time to buck up and get a real ride. He originally wanted a Heritage because he wanted to take his wife Rachel out with him, but ended up with this '03 Road King because it provided the most bang for his buck. He started buying chrome before the bike even arrived, and as you can see, he's been having a great time with it ever since-after all, "A good Harley is always $2,000 from being finished."

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Bike

George Virgil digs spiders. At least, that's what we figured out after spotting the cool spiderweb paint scheme on his custom Sporty. This bike has been a steady work in process, and even the seat partakes in the arachnid theme, with a black widow perched on the end.

Papa Knows Best

Dirk Hinsey told his daughter Erin that he wasn't going to mess with his '98 H-D Sporty-he was just going to ride it. She said "Yeah, right," and as it turns out, she was right: With 13-degrees over rake, a stretched tank, Jesse James fenders, Bassani exhaust, and various other trick upgrades, this Sporty is hardly stock anymore.

It Takes Time

Take a '79 FX and put two years and $18,000 into it, and what do you get? A pretty sweet old school chopper, that's what. Big Bear pipes, a RevTech tranny, and an 80ci H-D motor give this nifty little scoot plenty of sound and style as Chris Rebidue cruises around Columbus, Georgia.

Fixing What's Broken

Fred Quigley found this '79 Sporty in a bike shop with a broken transmission, among other problems-the result of too many people picking it up as a project bike, trying to fix it, and giving up. A complete rebuild cured the bike of its problems and gave it a cool retro look that's sure to have heads turning for years.