When the Milwaukee-Eight engines celebrated their premiere, a murmur went through the rows of long-term Harley enthusiasts, but now tempers have calmed down again. Compared to the Twin Cam engines, advantages like performance and torque power, and even the low heat generation when waiting at the lights, is positive. As far as customizing is concerned, friends of individual style also get their share. Rick’s Motorcycles has given the Harley-Davidson Street Glide a 23-inch front wheel, a rear conversion and other fine detailing, which give the bike more individuality without influencing ride performance negatively.

Harley’s Tourers are more popular than ever, leading with the Street Glide models as the most sought after long distance touring vehicles. Even the stock version leaves not much to be desired. In this case top of the list of the customer was a 23-inch front wheel in ‘Rick Rod’ design. But what sounds easy in theory is often more complicated in reality, or requires a lot more work, and simply “old wheel off, new wheel on” is not enough. If you were to do that, the bike would after mounting of the larger wheel be lifted up at the front, thereby negatively influencing the whole bike geometry and later ride performance. Rick’s Motorcycles not only has the necessary know-how and decades of experience of building custom bikes, but also their own construction department and parts manufacture with all necessary machines and tools. For the Touring models, completely new triple trees were developed, which were adapted to wheel sizes of 21, 23 and 26 inches, with which despite larger wheel dimensions ride properties can be achieved which are largely similar to stock. Customizing nowadays is more than just exchanging parts and bending a bit of sheet metal.