RIDES asked what you wanted to see in a Harley-Davidson Road Glide Custom build. After sifting through thousands of emails, sketches, letters and phone calls, we sat down and organized your suggestions. A few of the unanimous categories were the following: acres of chrome, gallons of custom candy paint and more power to back up all of the show. To make all of this happen, RIDES teamed up with Gene Thomason of Gene Thomason Racing in Los Angeles to help bring your visions to life... and now we’re going to give the bike away.
A RIDES-built Harley-Davidson not only has to look good but also be a performer. While the stock 96-cubic-inch V-twin has plenty of grunt, a quick flip through the Screamin' Eagle accessories catalog gave us the itch to crank out even more power. The cases were bored to fit Screamin' Eagle 10.5:1 pistons, increasing the cubic inches to 113. They were then paired with 266 high-lift cams, CNC ported heads, a 58mm throttle body and a Screamin' Eagle Heavy Breather air intake. On the exit side of the block, a Screamin' Eagle diffusion disk “Nightstick” performance muffler helps give this bike that signature Harley rumble.
When it came time to pick a color for the tins of our Road Glide Custom, Gene gave RIDES his one rule: “Don’t be shy.” Following that mandate, Gene had Scott Baldwin lay the spray with a heavy gold flake paint accented with candy raspberry details. According to Gene, “Generally, gold is the trim, but having it as a base color is pretty bold.” We couldn’t have agreed more, and that’s what helps set this bike off in true RIDES fashion.
While a fresh paint job helps set the over-all tone of a bike, RIDES readers told us they wanted massive amounts of chrome to make our Road Glide Custom shine like the sun. The entire drivetrain was polished and plated by Supreme Plating, with the cylinders and heads powdercoated in a raspberry hue by Specialized Coatings to match the accent details in the paint job. The cylinder fins were then cleaned and shot with a clear powdercoat to help keep them shiny. For some extra wow factor, the pushrod tubes were given a gold treatment—of the 24-carat variety. Finally, we turned to the experts in chrome, Harley-Davidson, to order up every available shiny bolt-on in their accessories catalog. Remember to throw some shades on when staring at this ride.
