After over two decades in the motorcycle industry I decided it was time to go back to the roots of customizing. Over the years I have gone from bolting on items to stock motorcycles to taking the stock bike and cutting up the frame stretching and raking pulling motors apart rebuilding transmissions and polishing cutting, plating, painting and just about anything that would change the style that came out the factory.
Things are changing, nowadays; you can buy a full custom bike on the floor of most dealers across the country. These motorcycles sell for anywhere up to $50,000 and come with factory finance, warranty, big motors, custom paint and no six month lead time its everything that most people ever dreamed of.
Harley themselves have stepped up to the plate with increasing production to meet demands and improving the product with fuel injection, six-speed transmissions and at last starting to take pride in customer service.
Last month my friend Uwe turned up at my house on a brand new ‘07 Roadglide. Uwe is the owner of Realhogs, a shop and website dealer in Livermore, CA and he’s also a rider in the true sense of the word. He only owns two wheeled vehicles and rides everyday everywhere. When I saw the bike I knew I wanted to “play” with it.
The 16” wheels needed to go and I wanted a 21” under the front with an 18” at the rear. These would fill the fenders. In fact the front was so tall I needed to make a front fender bracket to lift and move it backwards.
The rear was another problem; I wanted to go wide but did not want to change the standard paint or fenders. I looked at options and with the new bike coming with a 1” belt I had so much clearance I was able to run a 18” by 5.5” rear wheel with a 160mm rear tire. It filled the fender right up. In fact it is so tight that you would have trouble running a sheet of paper up the sides. Matching floating rotors were fitted to add to the look and aid stopping power.
I noticed the floorboards were already scraped when Uwe turned up, so the extra width played an important role in giving more tire on the road to help with clearance. New Battistini floorboards front and rear were installed, along with shifter and brake pegs. A new brake pedal was designed but unfortunately it was not ready in time for the photo shoot.
Matching Battistini saddlebag latch covers were made to keep the “hole” look going.Even through Uwe is 6 foot 4 the bars still pulled on his lower back, so I wanted something wider and more pulled back. I also wanted to be able to have some adjustment on the forward and backwards position and run a thicker bar.
What came about was a unique design which incorporated an “ Battistini Underbar.” This underbar is welded on to the main bar and allows for, not only, the tilt angle to be adjusted but also the back and forward position as well. When fitted, this bar gives the impression of a floating handlebar. In fact, so cool was the idea that we went ahead and filed a patent on the design.
Per Lindby from Lindby sent me a set of his Highway bars to clean up the front. Corba sent the pipes up to keep the left side of the bike clean allowing ample space to show off the rear wheel and pulley (pulley missed the photo shot as well).
With the extra sound on the pipes I fitted some J&M speakers to give the sound system a little umph!
Uwe collected the bike and took off. Not only is the Battistini Bagger a show piece for his shop, but also he is giving the products a “REALHOG” road test.
Rikki can be contacted:
Rikki Battistini
1109 Langton drive
San Ramon
CA 94582
USA
Telephone: 925.270.4211
Cell: 925.719.5941
Fax: 925.905.4664
Email: rikki@battistinisUSA.com
Skype ID: battistinisusa
WWW.BattistinisUSA.com
Uwe Can be contacted on
RealHog
4671 Las Positas Road, Building C
Livermore, CA 94551-9631
Phone: 925-583-2222 (Mo.- Fr. 6am – 6pm PST)
Fax: 925-605-1799
www.realhog.com
