2005 Harley-Davidson Road Glide - The Replacement

The story of Tim Deckard's 2005 Road Glide starts out just like so many others do-with another bike altogether. Things seemed as normal as could be with a leisurely morning ride with Tim and his wife on his Heritage Softail going to breakfast at their favorite little caf and then deciding to wander west out to the Pomona Fairgrounds to meander around for a few hours at one of the giant bike shows put on there every year.

Tim was walking out to the parking lot with his wife, talking about some of the great ideas he had to complete on his Softail, when they must have turned down the wrong aisle, because they should have spotted Tim's bike by now. So they went up to the next aisle, and still no bike. Tim started to get that feeling in the pit of his stomach, and the farther he walked, the stronger that feeling became. And finally, when his wife pulled out her cell phone to call the police to report the bike stolen, Tim had to sit down, because it felt like his guts were being torn out. He managed to stand up long enough to dig his driver's license, registration and insurance card out of his pocket for the police report before all of the memories of the hours spent working on his Softail made his guts hurt again, and back to sitting on the curb he went.

After all, it was Tim's first bike that some bastards made off with. It was the culmination of all those bikes that Tim saw from the back seat of the family car as a kid and painstakingly memorized. Hell, you could go so far as to say it was his dream bike-and now it was gone.

The very next day, Tim's wife was already tired of watching Tim mope around the house, so she suggested they make a trip to the Harley-Davidson dealership to look at new bikes, just in case the police didn't find the old one. Needless to say, Tim ended up riding home on a brand-new 2005 Road Glide that very day.

Almost immediately, the bike ended up in the capable hands of Steve Mihali in Riverside, California, to add some extra cubes to the powerplant. He swapped out the cylinders and pistons to punch out the engine to 95ci, worked the heads a little bit, added a set of Thunderheaders, and turned the bike into a real touring monster. Before Steve let the bike out of his sight, he added a Legend Air rear air suspension setup to allow for the height of the rear of the bike to be adjusted on the fly.

With the bike sitting right and running good, it was time to massage the look of the bike a bit. Ness extensions were added to the bags along with a wide rear fender before some cat who goes by the name Talent was called in to spray the entire bike orange and add both traditional and real fire flames.

Then came the Hogpro wheels, Hawg Halter brakes and the amazing audio system by Jessie over at J-Dog Customs. And honestly, the amazing-looking Road Glide made Tim forget all about the pain of someone making off with his Heritage Softail- well, that is, until someone brings it up. Like those damned magazine guys...