Rasheed's sharknosed beauty
Atlanta, Georgia, native Rasheed Nowell came out to California to visit some friends and left with a sickness for baggers. With Rasheed already owning one of the nicest Deluxe Softails in the Dirty South and thinking that baggers were for old folks, it only took that one trip to LA to change his outlook on the Harley-Davidson FL series of bikes.
After getting home, he put the Deluxe on the chopping block and decided to buy himself a nice 40th birthday present in the form of a 2007 Road Glide. A few days of keeping his bike purchase a secret passed. He finally had to spill the beans and fess up to his wife about what he had done. Surprisingly, she took it very well, he told us. With the cat out of the bag, it was on to phase two. Owning a box-stock bike is just not Rasheed's scene, so he started making a wish list of what upgrades he wanted on his bike. A few weeks later on the actual day of his birthday, his wife duped him into going to have a quiet birthday dinner that actually turned out to be a huge surprise party in his honor. All his friends and family were there with most of the parts he had written on his wish list as well as a pile of gift cards from his favorite Harley dealership. He was floored that so many people would take interest in his hobby. Even the Arlen Ness wheels were a gift from a special someone.
The day after his party, Rasheed showed up at Great South H-D with a truckload of parts from FBI, Klock Werks, Arlen Ness and Bad Dad, to name a few. Not to be upstaged with just another pretty bike, Tweet the parts manager at Great South also made sure the bike would have plenty of power in the form of a Screamin' Eagle 110 upgrade and some S&S gear-driven cams. One thing to note: Rasheed did not even ride the bike one time before it was taken down all the way to the frame. He wanted it the way he had it drawn up in his mind's eye and would take nothing less. During the five months it took to build the bike, Rasheed stayed tight-lipped about it, but the only thing he let slip was the color. So after the 20th one of his friends asked, "Where's the Orange Crush at?" the name stuck sight unseen.
When the bike was finally finished and ready to ride, the first time the Orange Crush ever hit the road it picked up both Best H-D and Best in Class at the World of Wheels Show. After Rasheed spoke with his longtime friend Ronnie Cooley and told him how much people were digging his ride, Ronnie told him that he had to get the bike down to Daytona for some fun in the sun, and that is where we caught up with him for this shoot. At first sight of the bike at the Rat's Hole show, we knew Rasheed had an eye for color and chrome. Early the next morning, it was in front of our cameras on the beach just for the simple fact that we wanted to show the rest of y'all how a truck driver from Georgia does it.
Big ups to Rasheed for stealing a bit of the LA style and bringing it home to the ATL.