2006 Harley-Davidson Road Glide - The Company Car

Ron Simms Just Can't Seem To Keep His Personal Rides Around
Ron Simms is either the luckiest guy to ever throw his leg over a custom bike, or he is the unluckiest guy we've ever met, depending on your point of view. On one hand, he gets to build a new bike for his personal use a couple of times a year, and he gets to ride the bike so long as it doesn't sell at his very popular shop, Ron Simms Custom Cycles in Hayward, California. On the other hand, these bikes don't usually make it very long before someone comes along and has to have it, and Ron has to watch the bike he built for himself ride off into the sunset. Granted he got to put some miles on the bike, and he got to build another custom bike to his very high standards-but it has to get old watching the bike he worked so hard to customize roll right out of his life.

A low-profile seat from Corbin was stitched with the Simms logo.

This 2006 Road Glide isn't the first time that Ron has built a bagger for himself, either. In fact, he has owned many a Road King and quite a few of the "batwing" fairing bikes over the years and has used them to develop a full line of parts for baggers, including fenders, filler panels and just about anything you can carve out of aluminum or chrome-plate as well as their ultra-popular, stretched saddlebags. Their bags are actually deeper than the factory bags (not just extensions that mold to the outside of the stock bags), and that increased storage capacity comes in handy when hitting the road for a long trip. The unfortunate thing for Simms is that as soon as he would finish one of these bikes, he would load it up into the trailer and take it to a show to show it off or put it on the showroom floor and it would disappear.

This bike has been a little different though. It has actually spent quite a bit of time parked in Ron's garage at home instead of at the shop. And when they need to find enough space on the truck for another bike, this is the first one taken off and left behind, safe and sound at home. Sure, Ron wouldn't hesitate to sell this Road Glide-that is the deal he made with himself, after all. But he really hasn't put this bike out there in front of the general public like he has with his other bikes in the past. But who could blame him? Would you be in a big hurry to sell off a bike that looks and performs like this one? We didn't think so...