Shovelhead

1968 Harley-Davidson Shovelhead

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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Harley-Davidson Glamor Is Shovelhead Reloaded

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com There’s something special about older Harleys. Maybe it’s their looks, maybe the engineering, or perhaps just nostalgia, but there are fans out there, not few, who would always choose an aging Harley over a newer one. And the same goes for custom shops. In America, there are countless garages who like to take these old Harleys and customize them beyond recognition, as shown in June’s The No Show online event set up by the Milwaukee bike maker. Elsewhere, however, things are a bit different. Take Europe, for instance. The continent is Harley-friendly, yes, but far less so than the home market. There’s no decades-old tradition there of riding these bikes, not in the way we have it in the U.S., and that means that custom shops, few as they are, usually steer clear of older H-D bikes when it comes to customizing them. Have a look at one of Europe’s largest custom bike shop, Thunderbike. These guys probably have hundreds of customized motorcycles made over the past 25 years, but most of them are recent Softails, because this is what customers in Europe like. But there are exceptions, and this here Super Glide is one of them. Also built by Thunderbike, it comes as a testimony of how older Harleys can be better platforms for customization than newer ones. The bike is an FXE from 1977, and it was given its current shape at the end of a three-month long build that took place in 2016. It sports a Shovelhead engine inside the stock frame, and custom parts all around. An S&S Super E carburetor, custom struts, special wheels and fenders, and of course a unique fuel tank are just a few of the over 20 aftermarket pieces of hardware that went into building the

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Long Fork Harley-Davidson Chopper Has Fully Exposed Shovelhead Engine

by Daniel Patrascu from https://www.autoevolution.com Because of the global health crisis, the world is missing out on all those extraordinary events it came to take for granted over the past decades. Since there is no end in sight to the scourge, we’ll probably not be back together at auto or moto shows until the end of 2020. As chance would have it, the crisis came at a time when luckily we have alternatives. The Internet proved to be humanity’s best friend in these times, and has also become the place to go for concerts, movies, and more recently motorcycle shows. Harley-Davidson, the supplier of so many motorcycles for custom builds that they’re impossible to count, is currently holding an online motorcycle show as a replacement for all those canceled live events. Called The No Show, the event displays for a week, ending on June 21, the work of 60 American custom bike builders that were supposed to be featured in the flesh across America. As part of our Two-Wheeler Month coverage, we’ve already talked about a bunch of such builds. None so far seems to be as extreme as the one here. Built for a 2019 custom show by a guy named Hawke Lawshe from Montana-based Vintage Technologies, the bike is a wonder to behold. The first thing that catches the eye is the extremely long front fork that ends with a 17-inch wheel, the same size as the one in the back. Then, the frame, custom-made by Lawshe from scratch, holding a 1981, fully exposed Shovelhead engine that has been stripped of the cooling and oiling components. The engine starts by means of an exposed kicker mechanism, is controlled by an EMF auto clutch, and breathes through an inverted fishtail exhaust. Lawshe would have taken the bike to an

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A Brother Steps Up

A 1984 Tribute to the new Evolution Platform By Bandit and Zeke Zeke, the constantly moving outlaw rode a rigid framed Shovelhead for years starting in 1979, when he slipped out of prison for the first time. He sold his chopped ’74 Superglide in ’75 to help support his family, while he was shipped off to prison. In ’79 the man cut him out of some dank, concrete penitentiary on a windy spring morning and his first thoughts included sex and building a chopper quick. READ THIS FEATURE ARTICLE ON BIKERNET – CLICK HERE

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Easyriders National Invitational Bike Show 2019

The Final Chapter of Re-Birth of a Shovelhead By the Stealth There were bikes from all over the country, California, Texas, Michigan, New York, Virginia just to name a few. There was serious competition here! Every style bike was represented, early style choppers, antiques, club style, baggers, drag and retro stock, they were all here! I think there were eight bikes that won the Peoples’ Choice vote, and they were moved into the Invitational class. I love the Shovelhead, the bike is named GLORY DAYS because it takes me back to some of my GLORY DAYS! READ THE FULL STORY with exclusive photos at Bikernet.com Cantina – Click here – Subscribe today www.Bikernet.com  

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Rebirth of a Shovelhead, Part III

Prepping for the Charlotte ER Show By Stealth with photos by the magnificent Vicki The magnificent Stealth wrote this one week before the wild Easyriders Bike Show in Charlotte, NC. This show was always one of the best in the Easyriders annual series of shows. It consistently brought out the best in customs from the Easter seaboard. Mike faced stiff competition and a dire deadline to finish this restoration on time. Hang on! Read the whole story in BIKERNET CANTINA – CLICK HERE

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