I bought this 2001 Road King from my local Harley dealer thinking that I'd leave one of my bikes stock and have a reliable stock bike to go on trips with. I rode it to Laughlin once and Las Vegas once and that was about it. I really didn't care much for the bike, it was big, heavy, slow and smooth, so smooth you could fall asleep riding it.

The one thing that just killed it for me is it just looked like every other Road King and I couldn't stand it, so I just let it sit in the corner of my shop for almost two years. I came up with the idea that if I tricked it out a little without infringing on the reliability it would still serve a purpose and I'd enjoy it a little more. It was always last on the list of projects and I just never got around to starting the project so the bike continued to sit in the corner covered in dust.

A buddy of mine, Scot McGhie bugged me for almost a year and a half about selling him the bike, I declined for quite awhile knowing anyday I'd begin the custom build project on the bagger and I'd refuse the offer.

One day I just decided that this was the day, I talked to Scott and we struck a deal. I had no sooner sold it to him and I started freaking out because I'd never got to customize it like I'd wanted to, so I asked Scott if he'd let me do what I'd always intended to do to the bike. I'm sure he thought I was crazy but he went along with it, so the project was off the ground and flying.

We added some Performance Machine 18" chrome billet wheels along with some new Avon tires. We entrusted the stopping duties to the new Performance Machine rotors and calipers. I took an old fender I had lying around and did a little cutting and welding and we had a cool looking front fender befitting our custom bagger.

We extended the bags 4 inches deeper to give it the low slung look and then decided it needed a cool rear fender that tied into the dropped bags. I welded to stock fenders together to get the length I needed, then split then and sectioned them to get the width to cover the 150 tire we added to the rear.
We decided to french in a rear license plate/ LED taillight to clean up the fender and made filler panels to weld into the fender and fill the big ugly gap between the fender and bags.
We added some LED lights to the bags and the filler panels so the bike would have great visibility from behind on the dark roads late at night.

The tank was next. We found another stock type tank, extended it about five inches so it would flow into the custom seat that Guy Tieman built for us. Then we built a ultra low steel dash panel long enough to cover our extended tank and house the micro LED lights that we used for our idiot lights.

We decided that since the intention of this bike was to be a back roads long distance cruiser, a little custom fairing capped off with some extra dark Plexiglas would give Scott a little break from the wind and look cool.

Scott is a hard core chrome freak so most everything that bolted on got a dunk in the chrome tanks while the motor was getting an upgrade to a 95 incher, some cams to help the breathing along with a little head work.

Scott loves the bike, says it is a great cruiser that he can ride all day, but quick enough he can eat up his riding buddies stock softtails. Me, I was happy to get the opportunity to put a closure to a build project that had been rolling around in the back of my head for too long.

Terry Lee