Bike Build
Here’s the story behind my custom made Harley-Davidson hardtail springer thats featured in a variety of magazines including the official Harley-Davidson HOG magazine.
The initial conversion was done by Sledhead Custom Cycles (SCC) in Wales using their own extended ‘Drag’ Frame, custom fuel and oil tanks. It was built to order for Ronnie Powell and was named the ‘Navy’ bike. I bought the bike directly from Ronnie as he was not using it and set about making my own changes.
Since its initial build its been stripped back to the frame and completely rebuilt with a bigger engine and a whole heap of modifications by Bods Speed & Customs and myself.
The handlebars are from a 1922 Harley-Davisdon type ‘F’ - amazing condition for a 102 year old part.
The rear mudguard is a modified 1930 Ford Model ‘A’ spare wheel cover.
The engine is an upgraded 1996 Harley-Davison 1200 EVO with skimmed and ported heads (built by Bods Speed & Customs in Tewkesbury) and matted to a low ratio Harley 883 5 speed box.
The forks were supplied by Paughco in California.
The seats air ride system came from TC Customs in California.
The bike was originally white. The new metalwork was painted red by SCC, Flaky’s paint studio then created a custom deep plumb colour, and it’s now been painted in a unique orange “Flake ‘n Candy” colour by Jake’s Custom Paint. To create the colour, Jake himself put on 4 coats of gold leaf paint over a black base coat, then he added 4 coats of candy red followed by 7 coats of clear lacquer. Each coat was smoothed off by hand and took over a week to do.
In the last 12 months I have fabricated new exhausts and an air ride seat base, made a custom side stand, fitted new electrics, new lights, new suspension, upgraded the brakes, fitted the forward controls and made custom brass linkages and detail parts for it, and of course had the new “Flake ‘n Candy” paint done by Jake’s Customs.
Why ‘91’? My late father held the British motorcycle drag racing record and ‘91’ was his racing number - he was also a Harley-Davidson owner.
My bike has its own Instagram account ('The 91 Bike' ) with nearly 25K followers
