Blacked-Out Friday Inspiration

Every now-and-then I like to do a spot light on a customer’s bike that I feel looks extra good and demands a second look. Phil Loverso picked up his 2011 Street Glide from us and immediately went to work fulfilling a vision he had. He got a Black Denim FLHX and decided to go ahead and black that thing out! The forks, all the trim around the lights, the turn signals, the hand controls, the brake/clutch levers, the saddle bag latches and guards, the pipe, all the covers on the engine, the bars, the wheels, etc, etc. The list goes on. 

The wheels are Harley-Davidson’s 18 inch (front and back) Agitators. Of course you have to have the brake rotors to match the wheels too. The FLHX gets air through the H-D heavy breather intake (which of course is black.) Then the air is spit out through the Vance and Hines Pro-Pipe (also black), all controlled by the Screamin’ Eagle Super Tuner. The bars are Paul Yaffe’s 12 inch Monkey bars (need I say they are black denim as well.)

As a nice little accent, some of the emblems around the bike have been hand painted red. You’ll see this nice accent on the tank emblem, passenger floor boards, and multiple covers on the motor.

Now what is a bagger without the tunes? This rollin’ black hole is equipped with Harley’s Boom Audio and Hog Tunes extra speaker pods. The stereo sounds great might I add.  To keep things techie - the iPod interface and mounting hardware is used to keep Apple in our lives.

The finished product is a wicked lookin’ bagger with red accents throughout. The Black Denim gives it the greaser, bobber look with all the modern comforts of a touring model. Well done Phil and thanks for letting me post your ride!

2013 Harley-Davidson Models have Arrived!

So this is a long over-due post that needed postin'! I first laid my eyes on the new bikes August 20th, 2012, so a month and a half later I'm finally getting to this.

 
Most everything that I predicted in a previous post came into fruition. The biggest stars of the show were the CVO Softail Breakout, CVO Road King, and the 110th Anniversay stylized bikes. I was wrong about the color of the 110th bikes (I guessed platinum and they are actually a copper color with a nice tank emblem).

 

First we'll talk about the new CVO Breakout. This bike probably received the most attention of any bike at the dealer show in Milwaukee this year. It's built on the Softail chassis and has all the CVO standard amenities such as the 110 CI motor and custom paint/chrome. I posted a video that gives a walk-around of each of the colors. Without going into the technical name of each of the colors, (they are a paragraph long) there are 3 unique colors, red, yellow, and silver. The yellow one (gold dust and liquid sun) has had the Hard Candy Custom treatment. This "treatment" basically is a multi-step process that gives the bike a large, deep, metal flake look to it. It's the same paint process that we saw introduced on the new Seventy-Two back in February. Later we will get more into the "Hard Candy Custom" empire that Harley built up this year. So the paint on all three bikes is completely off-the-charts-awesome to be said quite frankly. They also have some filthy wheels (that only fit on the Breakout BTW) which are another one of the main signifying characteristics. Another cool feature that I feel is over looked by some is are the braided cables coming out of the top of the tank to act as vent ports. They resemble something you'd see coming out of the Dark Knight Rises, Bain's neck. The stage introduction was quite memorable this year too, as there was a little accident! All-in-all, amazing bike. Definitely a show-stopper from all angles. Too bad most of us will probably never see one driving down the road. They are very limited and carry a price tag starting at $26,499. The best part of this bike was that it bumped off the CVO Convertible which stayed in the CVO line-up for way too long.

 
After a several year hiatus the Road King was reintroduced into the CVO elitists. Just as I expected it shares the same bag/rear facia as the CVO Street Glide and Road Glide Custom. It has the Harley extended bags without the traditional rear fender tail lights but instead the light strips between the fenders and bags. In those bags we find the oh-so-useful speakers on the saddlebags lids and iPod pouch that were introduced last year on the Street Glide. It also has lower leg fairings on the front highway bars. These were put there, of course, to house the two additional speakers. My immediate question was, "Without a fairing how do you operate the radio and iPod?" Everything is operated through two thumb switches on either side of the handle bars. The controls are very rudimentary. One changes the track up and down and the other increases and decreases the volume. Oh, and there is no Radio, who listens to radio nowadays anyways? The King of the Road comes in three different color schemes one of which is the 110th anniversary edition (all CVO bikes except the breakout come in an anniversary edition besides the Breakout which is appealing on its own merits alone). The king rolls on Harley's large, 19 inch, agitator chrome wheels. The seat is new and unique to the bike which comes with a matching backrest to boot. The last new innovative feature on the bike keeps the wind off yer face. The new windshield has a venting system on the front that can be adjusted to help reduce the buffeting of the wind. It has a fin inserted into a cut-out in the middle of the windshield that can be angled up or down to place the wind just right according to rider height etc. The windshield has undergone a lot of R&D and can also be found in the P&A catalog. I have yet to test it out but when I do I'll post a review. Right now, I can say, I'm still undecided if I hate or like the look of it all. I'm a little sad they did away with the passing lamps and lolli-pop turn signals. They replaced them with the sleeker looking, handle bar mounted, bullet turn rignals.

 

The 105th anniversary color scheme got a lot of criticism and sold very poorly in California. I personally liked the color even though it did look like a Duracell battery. This year I can say I like the color, seat, emblem, etc of the 110th ann. bikes. Harley announced that they will be making far fewer of the anniversary edition models than in past years. I think this is a smart move, the bikes fit a very particular taste and not everyone will like them.

 

Overall it's basically copper and black but the copper has a lot deeper, darker tone to it. The badge is nicely done (its super high quality and requires a long process to make, I forget the details). The bikes all have the 2-tone seats that look great and tie in nicely with the rest of the theme. The derby covers, cam timer cover, and air cleaner covers all have 110th insignias.  The list of models that come in the anniversary color include: Sportster 1200 Custom, Super Glide Custom, Heritage, FatBoy Lo, Road King, Electra Glide Ultra Limited, and Tri-Glide. Also you have the option of 3 of the 4 CVO Bikes. The coloring is completely different on the CVOs though.

 

The CVO Road Glide custom is back this year. Harley made two very enticing upgrades this year. They developed a new LED headlamp for the Road Glide which is stock on the CVO Road Glide. This head lamp can also be found in the P&A catalog. Might I add that this light kicks ass and looks amazing. The Harley LED lights perform great and look even better. The price tag is up there though. Also the Glider of Roads comes with the saddle bags pre-filled. The famous lid speakers have been utilized for yet another CVO bagger from the factory.

 
Harley is really putting a lot of their developmental eggs in the Hard Candy Custom basket this year. They have a total of 4 colors under the Hard Candy Custom umbrella this year, 3 of which are on normal models and 1 that is on the Breakout. You got Coloma Gold, Lucky Green, and Big Red Flake that we saw earlier this year. The colors were dispersed around the different models. Some of the cool, notable combinations are the Black Line in Coloma Gold, and the Deluxe in Lucky Green. The Sportsters all come in a bunch of different combinations and the customizable Street Bob comes in all 3, I think. Along with these bike colors the P&A catalog has a bunch of new, swanky Hard Candy accessories that are fairly sick. You got some seats, grips, helmets, etc.       

 
The H-D1 house customizable  Sportsters was getting very lonely so Harley decided to welcome in the Street Bob. There are a lot of very nice, unique parts to bolt onto your customized Street Bob this year. To catch everyone up who didn't hear, you can create your own Street Bob online on Harley's website. You can choose from all sorts of wheels (some really cool red ones BTW), handle bars, seats, engine finishes, exhaust covers, and the list goes on. The Street Bob also had some nice overall changes like the center console mounted ignition (much like the Fat Bob) instead of on the neck of the frame. The engine finish is all black the way everyone wants but Harley had to tease everyone off and on for a few years there. Also the tail light that resembled someone's man-hood was finally removed and you just got the two bullet lights with the brake light and turn signals integrated into one. If you're looking for a custom Bobber at a good price there really is no better place or bike in the world than this Street Bob customizer.

 
I think that about sums of the most impressive stuff without getting into the small insignificant details. If anyone has something to add please do so in the comments. There is a new engine cover set called the Burst collection that is like that black and chrome contrast kinda like the edge cut stuff. Anyways its extremely tight and I'm tempted to put it all over my bike. The collection is available early next year. Thanks for reading and keep riding!