Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2016 i Baggers Magazine

It takes a lot to build a bike that totally blows the pants off the Baggers edit staff. We see a lot of elaborate bikes that take hundreds and hundreds of hours and thousands and thousands of dollars, but the Killer Klown 2 is a different type of beast altogether. Pulling more than 320 hp out of their supercharged 124-inch engine, Zach Johnson and Travis Hathcock from Kendall Johnson Customs have us picking our jaws off the floor. The guys from Kendall Johnson Customs brought this bike out, and one of the first things they said was, “We’re just hopin’ someone will want to race.” And after seeing their bike, we were all hoping someone would want to race just so we could have a chance to see this beast…

Joey Hensley of Back Yard Baggers definitely wowed the crowd with his extremely patriotic entry in the Baggers Invitational Build-Off at the 2015 Hot Bike Tour this year. The bike was sporting a radical tribute paint job to 9/11, which worked out seeing as how the 9/11 anniversary was one of the dates during the Hot Bike Tour. said by another local builder that Joey was just a “backyard builder.” Being the smart-ass that he is, he decided to stick with the name. Merica was built for the Baggers Invitational Build-Off at the 2015 Hot Bike Tour. It started out as Kendall Johnson’s daily rider. Joey always wanted to build a bike based off of his favorite movie, Easy Rider. The American flag theme had been in the back of…

I’ve been in the industry for more than 16 years now, and I love that I was able to take my mechanical engineering degree from the office world to the real world, from the choppers and pro-streets of the early 2000s to the present-day bagger movement. I’ve been able to take my style and metal designs from choppers to baggers and make my style known for clean and classy baggers, from mild to wild, from 21- to 32-inch front wheels (preferably 26). The majority of my baggers have drop-seat chassis that put the rider into the bike and make the bike flow from front to back seamlessly. This bike was a 2011 Police Road King that was bought as a teardown for me to use the frame as a mock-up…

For as much as I love me some Harley-Davidson, it did my heart good to see Tim Sutherland of Coastal Victory enter a 2015 Cross Country into this year’s Baggers Invitational Build-Off. The Cross Country is a different animal from the hog family, with not nearly so much aftermarket support. Transforming a Cross Country into a full-on custom ride isn’t exactly a matter of picking what you want out of a 500-page catalog packed with bolt-ons for your brand and your brand only. That’s what happens when you fabricate a one-piece steel-bodied bagger. Even though the bags are separate from the main piece, Tim’s bagger flows as smoothly as they come. If Tim wanted to prove Victorys can look as good as any custom Harley, he made the hell out…

To see your bike here in an upcoming issue of Baggers, please provide a highresolution photo—the bigger the better. Please leave out the neighbor’s minivan, trash cans, etc. Send in the year, make, and model of bike, detailed information about it, your name, city, and a description of you. To really get our attention, include a brief touring adventure or an epic ride story. Keep the pics and info coming to us at baggersmag@bonniercorp.com. LEISURE TIME Kevin J. Reynolds hails from Holly Pond, Alabama, and this is a picture of his pride and joy, Irish Rose, at Clarkston Covered Bridge in Cullman, Alabama. Kevin’s 2001 Yamaha Royal Star Venture has BUB pipes and a BaggerShield windshield, as well as some other mods. Kevin’s 9-to-5 is as an air compressor service…

Nine times out of 10, the words “custom” and “bagger” evoke a certain image in a motorcyclist’s mind these days: big front wheel. This, friends, is not that. That’s not to say the big-wheel custom scene doesn’t serve a purpose. Sure, 30-inch front wheels look unique and interesting on a bike. And, yes, I have seen and ridden plenty of them, but not every custom bagger needs to revolve around one focal point. For crying out loud, there is way too much creativity in this world for folks to only focus on one genre of custom, which leads us to this story. Obviously being surrounded by custom culture you see trends in the marketplace. Outdated trends or burgeoning trends are everywhere. Things change at a rapid pace, and we like…

The Hot Bike Tour stirs up competition between some of the best builders in the world. It is not only a challenge to build a better bike than the guy next to you, but it’s also about being unique and bringing something to the table that people haven’t seen before. Nobody on the baggers side went a more unique route than the king of Bagger Nation himself: Paul Yaffe. Paul brought out an old friend for this build—but one that rarely (if ever) graces the pages of Baggers mag: an S&S Knucklehead. The Knucklehead was Harley-Davidson’s top-of-the-line engine from 1936–1947, until the Panhead replaced it in 1948. This begs the question: With an older motor you gain miles of style but don’t you lose the power and reliability of a…

Whether it’s mini-trucks, baggers, or cocktails, Curtis Hofmann from Hofmann Designs is a guy who definitely has his own vision. Stock anything to him is really a jumping-off point for whatever idea pops into his gray matter. What’s more, he has the knowhow to make whatever he likes, courtesy of his design talent and strong work ethic. You see that all over his 2015 Baggers Invitational Bike Build-Off entry right here. It rolled off the assembly line a 2015 Harley-Davidson Road Glide Special. I think we can all agree he didn’t leave it that way. Our Tour is a big event. Curtis went big on the bagger. It’s that simple. What isn’t so easy is what we mean by “big.” There’s the large we’ve all come to know in a…

“I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him.” Revelation 6:8 I’m usually not one to cite the Bible very often, but that quote is what I think of when I see Pete Schraeger’s ’09 Street Glide here. Born a Road King that Pete bought at auction, it’s the bike he and DA Performance brought to the invitational, and it puts the “mad” in intimidation. Pete raised unholy hell on this sinister steed at more than 100 mph on the 2015 Hot Bike Tour. The bagger’s Screamin’ Eagle 120R powerplant performed like a champ the whole trek though. Of course, running the Trask turbo kit on it didn’t hurt either. Hell, rumor has it that the…

It’s not an easy feat to be a repeat winner of anything. You have to be on top of your game to ward off competitors hungry for the title of whatever event you’re competing in. First of all, the stress and pressure of being crowned victor of any event is enough to turn your hair gray, but to do it two years in a row? That’s testament to skill and quality and being tuned in to what the people want. John Shope of Dirty Bird Concepts accomplished this feat—yet again taking top honors and being crowned Grand Champion of the Baggers Invitational Bike Build-Off during the 2015 Hot Bike Tour with his insanely detailed 2010 Road King. It’s not like Shope didn’t have some serious competition for 2015. There were…

Chris Eder of Misfit Industries was a return builder this year for the Baggers Invitational Bike Build-Off on the 2015 Hot Bike Tour. Misfit is booming and has an evergrowing parts and accessories catalog to rival the best of them. Chris is the real deal, and his 2015 Harley-Davidson Road King submission shows why. Chris is known for his big-wheeled, non-fairing builds. His build-off entry this year was a real piece of art. He fabricated the entire bike of metal, and fittingly it is branded across the rear fender with “Steel is Real.” The bike is a great matte gray with red accents and sports a beautiful big gloss-red wheel up front that complements the gray. Chris didn’t run a front brake on this beast, which makes the gorgeous front…

On one level, Cha-Ching is a currency forger’s wet dream. Clad front wheel to back wheel in meticulous engraving and gold paint, it’s a tribute to material wealth in all of its glory. The best forged US Treasury plates ain’t got nothing on this bagger’s artwork. It’s enough to make a forger weep. Engraving is where the similarity ends though. Unlike funny money, this 2015 Road Glide Special and its creator, Jerry Covington, are the real deal. Jerry and his shop, Covingtons Customs, have been in business for decades. You’d expect someone with his builder’s rap sheet to turn in a real masterwork, and he did not disappoint. Cha-Ching might look all show, but as he proved with it on the Hot Bike Tour, the bike has plenty of go…

There’s just something about exploring a new town and the best roads possible on a two-wheeled machine. The ride isn’t always about the destination. Sometimes getting there is the best experience, right? Well, if you mix in one part epic riding and one part killer nightly shindigs, you get one explosive and very tasty concoction known as the Hot Bike Tour. For the third year in a row, the staffs of Hot Bike and Baggers magazines took the show on the road to mingle with twowheeled touristas from all walks of life on the 2015 Hot Bike Tour September 9–13, 2015. This 1,000-plus-mile two-wheeled traveling circus brought nearly 30,000 folks from far and wide to the starting point of Spirit Lake, Iowa, and west to Billings, Montana. For 2015, almost…