Harley-Davidson

1968 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Given all the lockdowns and social distancing measures ordered in place for most of the year, motorcycle shows got canceled or postponed just like everything else. Trying to save face and give custom shops across America a means to vent off steam, Harley-Davidson created The No Show event back in June. Held online on Instagram and Youtube, it was the perfect opportunity for some 60 builders from 10 countries to show their latest or best creations, builds that would have otherwise risked sinking into oblivion in 2020. As you might expect, most of the shops taking part tried their best to advocate the projects being presented, describing in detail and at times using big words the two-wheelers we were seeing. But not Tennessee-resident Rusty Perkins, the man behind this here 1968 Shovelhead. If you thought the title of this piece is some personal opinion on the build, you were wrong. These are the words the builder himself uses to describe the motorcycle: “nothing real special about it, simple, the way I like ‘em.” And that statement pretty much sums up the American custom motorcycle scene: a great two-wheeler is not what the onlooker wants or expects, but what the builder/owner thinks it’s right. As all the others in the series, Perkins was given a little over two minutes to present his bike. He uses most of them to give us a seemingly bored rundown of the motorcycle (available in the video below), without actually saying anything about it. He does reveal the bike was built over a long period of time, using what is described as a “messed-up Shovelhead frame” as a starting point. Slowly, the project was gifted with an engine, the proper wheels a chopper should have, a peanut tank with some flame […]

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Royal Enfield is coming after Harley-Davidson

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In its last financial year before the pandemic struck, Enfield company sold about 824,000 bikes globally. Harley, by contrast, shipped about 218,000. Last year Enfield company doubled the size of one of its three factories, bringing overall production capacity to 1.2 million motorcycles a year. To build buzz Enfield company has tried marketing to American customizers and flat-track competitors, and in 2018 it put Cayla Rivas, a teenage motorcycle racer, on a souped-up Continental in pursuit of a speed record for its bike class—and compelling footage for YouTube. (She hit 157 mph on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats.) Although it may sound counterintuitive, “the U.S. and Europe are very important” to making Enfield the aspirational bike of choice for the developing world, he says. Lal wants to be as big a player in the West as possible, but he argues that Royal Enfield doesn’t necessarily have to sell that many bikes in developed countries for the strategy to be considered a success. What it does need to do is move enough to give them a patina of cool at home and in other emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia. Read the full article at Bloomberg. Click Here.

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Let’s Hit Route 66 Easy Rider Style

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by Koz Mraz Picking up a Harley Road Glide from Sedona EagleRider, I hit 89A, a wonderfully twisty ride that begins in Uptown Sedona. The red rock views are astounding, let alone the 2500-foot altitude change that takes you through several different terrains and micro climates on the ride to Flagstaff. Click Here to read this Photo Feature Article on Bikernet. Join the Cantina – Subscribe Now https://www.bikernet.com/pages/custom/subscription.aspx

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Stainless 1940 Harley-Davidson Knucklehead Has Oil Running Through Its Frame

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Just like car lovers, motorcycle enthusiasts around the world had to settle for online shows this year. In America, where the bulk of custom shops is located, that was nearly a tragedy in itself. Most of the nation’s summer events – aside from Sturgis, obviously – were either postponed or canceled. Some bike makers, like Harley-Davidson, stepped in and tried their best to ensure people still have a means to show their creations. For the Milwaukee-based company, that aid came in the form of The No Show, a Youtube-based series that featured back in June the machines created by 60 builders from 10 countries. Among them was this 1940 stainless steel Knucklehead, coming our way from Buffalo, NY-based Christian Newman. Built a couple of years back, the bike is the winner of the People’s Champ competition, and the recipient of the prize for best Knucklehead at Born Free. The build has stainless steel frame and fork, housing the slightly-modified 1940 Knucklehead engine, a narrower-than-usual transmission, and a reworked clutch. One of the most important custom touches involves the way in which that engine gets its oil. According to the builder, there are almost no hoses on this bike. The oil gets into the engine directly through the frame, via the right-side chain stay, and gets back into its tank through the front downtubes. Visually, the bike looks like a proper custom build centered around Harley hardware but also blends some elements from the automotive world. The front lens of the headlight, for instance, comes from a 1951 Chevrolet, while the rear lenses (there are two of them) have been taken from Hudson cars made in 1940 and 1941, respectively. As a side note, had this year’s Born Free show taken place at the scheduled date,

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Harley Virtually Confirms Custom 1250 On Company Website

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by Dustin Wheelen from https://www.rideapart.com The Harley website’s Future Models section has been a revolving door since the brand announced its ambitious plans in July 2018. Since that momentous Annual Dealer Meeting, the Motor Company intermittently teased the Pan America, Bronx, and Custom 1250, keeping customers curious as they further developed the platforms. With Jochen Zeits taking the reins from Matt Levatich in 2020, many believed the Bar and Shield would scrap its future models and fully return to cruiser-style motorcycles. Like most speculation, half was true (Harley shelved the Bronx indefinitely) and half wasn’t (the Pan America is moving forward). Most recently, the brand added its Custom 1250 prototype back to the Future Models page, paving the way for the concept to finally become a production model. While Harley officially labels the bike as its Future High-Performance Custom Model, most believe the custom could fill the Sportster’s slot in the company’s lineup. With the long-in-the-tooth model failing to meet Euro5 emissions standards, the MoCo isn’t able to serve a sizeable portion of its customer base. Though the Sportster’s throwback style contributes to its popularity, performance-oriented models like the Indian Scout, Yamaha Bolt, and the new Honda Rebel 1100 are pushing the segment forward. To meet its competitors, the Custom 1250 would share the same 1250cc 60-degree Revolution Max V-twin powering the new Pan America. Whether the cruiser-styled model will also achieve the Pan America’s claimed 145 horsepower and 90 lb-ft of torque is yet to be confirmed. What looks more certain, however, is that the Sportster’s broad customization possibilities will make it to the new platform. Of course, the website adds a caveat in fine print: All future models shown may not be available in all markets. Thanks to Harley’s new distribution deal with Hero MotoCorp, we doubt the

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Harley-Davidson Dynamight Is a Metal Predator

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The beauty about the custom projects, be it the car or motorcycle ones, is that generally speaking these products never get old. No matter when a build was made, and no matter how old the base for the project was, many of these creations still turn heads, cause a stir, or ignite debate once they come into the spotlight. Take this 2010 Harley-Davidson Street Bob, for instance. Or should we say, the Dynamight, as this is its post-conversion nickname, bestowed upon it by the garage responsible for its coming into the world, the Germans from Thunderbike. Completed a while back after a two-month effort, the motorcycle is a great representative of what custom Harleys mean over in Germany, even if, at first glance, it kind of does not look aggressive, as Thunderbike bikes usually do, but cutesy, like a metal panda of sorts. But truth be told, it’s anything but. Packing the original 96ci engine, the bike breaths through a custom exhaust system, rides on 23-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels, and bows on an air ride system. There is a long list of parts that went into the build of this two-wheeler. Thunderbike itself is responsible for most of them, from the rocker boxes and air cleaner to the fuel tank and forward control kit. The clutch and brake cylinder are from Rebuffini, the speedometer was made by Motogadget, tires from Avon (front) and Metzeler (Pirelli, rear), while the painting is the work of a shop by the name Kruse Design. We are not given any hint as to how much the entire build cost to make, but we do have the list of some of the parts used and their prices. Simple math gives us a guesstimate of at least 6,500 euros (about

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Harley-Davidson Big Spoke Is All About Wheel Play

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Wheels play a big part in the final look of both cars and motorcycles. Sure, together with the type of rubber they are shoed in wheels play a crucial part in the car’s performance or fuel consumption, but they are extremely important in determining a successful or less so build, visually speaking. Because of the way in which they are made, motorcycles rely heavily on wheels to send the right message across. After all, the two elements are very in-your-face on bikes, and the wrong choice can break a project. Thunderbike, a German custom garage that has been in the market of customizing Harley-Davidson motorcycles for close to three decades, knows this. We’ve featured them countless times, and in most cases the Germans nailed the wheel choice. In the case of this build here, wheels were the defining element. They are, in fact, so important that the entire finished build, based on a Street Bob, was christened Big Spoke. Big Spoke is the name of a massive wheel Thunderbike makes in house. It comes in two sizes, 17- and 21-inches, and three width measurements, from 2.15 inches to 3.5 inches. Its defining trait: the large number of spokes that make up the design, and play a big part in the price of the part: 1,723 euros ($2,061 at today’s rates) is how much the shop is asking for one. The wheels were not, of course, the only changes made to the Street Bob. Its stance is different not only because of them, but also thanks to the use of an air ride suspension system and a forward control kit. There are visual enhancements as well, such as the new mirrors, handlebar, point cover and front fender, or the seat. According to our calculations (Thunderbike usually

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Harley-Davidson Street Bob Silver Shadow

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Say the words Silver Shadow, and the mind immediately links that with Rolls-Royce. The moniker has been around in the Brits’’ portfolio in various guises for about 15 years starting with 1965, but it is still talked about and admired to this day. But how about a Harley-Davidson wearing the name Silver Shadow? Why not slap the moniker on something perhaps even more exciting in terms of thills, such as a custom motorcycle build, made in Germany of all places? That’s what our favorite European motorcycle garage, Thunderbike, did with this former Harley-Davidson Street Bob FXDB. Not only did the shop modify it, but the bike was christened Silver Shadow in honor of, well, not the Rolls-Royce machine, but all that silver that adorns its body. The modifications come in the usual Thunderbike packages, meaning the usual elements have been changed or tampered with in some manner. There’s a new and massive fender at the rear, the saddle is a single-seater designed to give the build a more bobber-like look, and there are custom wheels holding the frame and engine (the powerplant is unmodified, as far as we can tell) upright and off the ground. The silver that gives the bike part of its name is abundantly used all over the motorcycle, from the rims of the wheels, to the front fork and even on the handlebars, and of course of the fuel tank. Just like it normally does, Thunderbike makes no mention of how much it cost to put this two-wheeler together. The shop does list some of the parts used for the project, as they are being sold to Harley owners across Europe from their website, and a simple math exercise gives us a value of close to 3,000 euros (about $3,500), but

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Players dominating Electric Bike Market

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by Joe D’Allegro from https://www.cnbc.com Harley Davidson and Honda are among the dominant motorcycle makers with big plans in electric bikes. Harley also recently announced that it is spinning off a nascent electric bicycle business. Uber is among the top investors in electric scooter company Lime, which just posted its first quarterly profit, while competitor Bird is reportedly planning to soon go public via a SPAC. NIU Technologies, which makes smart scooters, has seen its share price soar. Tesla reached a $500 billion market valuation this week, a sign of its dominance in the electric vehicle market. But Elon Musk has shown no real interest in one growing EV segment: battery-powered scooters and motorcycles. An accident he suffered as a youth on a motorbike — nearly fatal, Musk has said — turned him off two-wheelers, for now. But the manufacturing of battery powered bikes is growing and consolidating, which means it’s likely to produce one or more dominant players in the years to come. The electric motorcycle and scooter market reached $30 billion in 2019, according to a June 2020 report by Preeti Wadhwani and Prasenjit Saha from the research company Global Market Insights (GMI). They estimated that the market — which includes everything from large motorcycles meant for interstate cruising to tiny stand-up scooters as used by Lime and Bird — will grow more than 4% annually for the next few years and hit $40 billion in 2026. Concerns over vehicular emissions, increasing consumer awareness about air pollution, and increasing investments by government authorities in the development of EV charging infrastructure are all expected to keep the market growing. Another factor boosting electric bike prospects is the continued improvement in batteries. E-bikes, scooters and motorcycles Electric motorcycles and scooters are still relatively pricey, and none yet matches the range

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Harley-Davidson Spoke Bob 23 Is How Germans Like Their Street

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by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com The Harley-Davidson Street Bob is one of the favorite base motorcycles for Thunderbike builds. In the market of customizing Milwauke-made machines for close to three decades now, the German shop has made a name for itself with its conversions of the “gritty, stripped-down bobber cloaked in black,” as Harley describes the iconic two-wheeler. Over the past year or so, we’ve covered Thunderbike quite extensively, mostly because we find their products worth talking about. Love them or hate them, the garage’s projects are unique on the European scene (possibly even beyond the continent’s borders), and so numerous they’ll keep us busy for a while longer. Because winter is upon us and in most parts of the world bikes are going into storage, we thought to give you something to dream about in anticipation of next summer: here’s the Spoke Bob 23. Built a few years back starting from the Street Bob, the custom bike sports fewer modifications than we’re used to, but effective nonetheless. The build’s name is a combination between that of the stock bike and the spoked wheels used for it (sized 21 and 23 inches) – if you’ve been watching our Thunderbike stories, you know by now these guys do lack imagination when it comes to naming stuff. Other major changes are the use of a custom forward control kit, a new air cleaner, and a Dr. Jekill & Mr. Hyde exhaust system. Minor modifications include the deployment of a new handlebar and turn signals. As usual, we are not being told how much the conversion of the Street Bob cost. Knowing most of the parts that went into it though we can estimate that to be of around 2,500 euros (roughly $3,000 at today’s exchange rates), but not including the base bike

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