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As the 1st year with my Sporty draws to a close, I've got to admit that I like this bike much more than I thought I would. She's given me almost 18,000 trouble free miles, more smiles than I can count, my 1st trip to Sturgis, and of course the "wind therapy" that we all need. This past year has also given me a lot of time to get to know her, do my research, and figure out what direction I want to go with my mods. I like bobbers and lane-splitters more than any of them. That's not to say I don't like long-chops, pro-streets, and stockers, but for my 1st sporty build, it's going to lean very heavily towards a bobber. Now I know that what I'm going to do wouldn't be considered a bobbers by purists, but I could care less. To me the point of building your own, is to build what you want, something that reflects you, not to please anyone else. Mine will be very bobber influenced, lol!

The wrenchin' began on Christmas Eve. One of the 1st things I wanted to change was bars and risers. I don't care for the stock mid-bucks or the goofy curved riser at all. I like things simple, so off they came.

One of the bad things about doing it this way is that the top clamp also houses the speedo and idiot lights. In HD's infinite wisdom they decided to make the top clamp for the customs with a different hole spacing than the others so finding risers that would re-use the top clamp and look good was near impossible. After not finding anything that I liked I said to hell with it. I stopped by the local indy shop, Cowboys, to see what they had. After not finding anything new in stock I asked if they had anything used. A set of 5" straight risers were found with a 25.5" drag bar attached to them. Not perfect, but in nice shape, $50 later they went home with me!

There were no holes or dimples in the bars so I had to run the wires internally. Don't let anyone bullshit you, this sucks, it's not necessarily that hard, but it still sucks. A slight color blindness issue played hell with me, see previous post, lol!

The finished product-

Tonight, Jimmy headed back to KC, I figured I'd go clean up the garage a bit. While I'm out there I'm thinking I really don't care for that mirror, it looks ok, but you can't see a damn thing out of it. Those 5" straight risers gave me alot of clearance between the tank and the blinkers at full lock, I wonder...........

Yup!! Plenty of room!!

I like it! Plenty of room between the tank and mirrors lock to lock and very good visibility, plus it keeps the top nice and clean, I like it!! Yes Jimmy, you can have the other mirror, lol!

It's definitely far from finished, I need to figure out how to clean up that bunch of wires in-between the risers. I'm also on the hunt for ideas on how to get my speedo and dummy lights back on the cheap, but so far no good ideas and it looks like I'll be stuck spending the green for a Joker side mount speedo set up. My new tail light got ordered today so next weekend it gets mounted along with a generous rear fender chop!

There's alot more in store for her over the winter!

P.S.

 Jimmy, thanx for hangin out, drinkin beer, helping out the ol' man when he needed it, and just for being there. It was a great Christmas!!