Todd Mills is one of those mechanically inclined guys. Even as a little kid he would take stuff apart just to figure out how it worked. As he got older, he transferred his mechanical ingenuity into bikes and muscle cars, tinkering with them every chance he got. Right out of high school he had a pro-street car that he constantly had to work on. He's also had bikes in one form or another since he was a teenager, going through the phases from dirt bikes to crotch rockets, but after picking up his first Harley in '99, a brand-new Fat Boy, Todd's strictly been a V-Twin guy ever since.
After the Fat Boy he was hooked. He fiddled with it a little, but didn't really get into serious customizing until his next bike. Back in 2000, before Big Dogs got huge, Todd picked one up and decided to customize it a bit. Working with sheetmetal for a living gave him the know-how to do some serious work to the bike. He ended up changing out all the sheetmetal except for the tank.
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A Beautiful Bike Deserves A Beautiful Girl Posing With It, And Miss Rachel Was More Than Happy To Oblige. It's Just Tough To Say Which Has The Better Curves. |  |
Obviously Todd had some skills, and pretty soon his friend and neighbor, who liked what he did with the Big Dog, asked Todd to build him a bike. Of course he couldn't refuse. He ended up using a roller from Carolina Custom for his first ground-up build. The build came out great and all, but because it was for someone else, he was bummed he couldn't enjoy the fruit of his labor. At this point he knew he'd have to build one for himself.
When it came to his own bike, Todd had a pretty clear idea what he wanted. It had to be long and low, have a huge rear tire, and be clean as hell. That was the most important part. He wanted to hide everything that would take away from the natural lines of the machine. he other thing was that he wanted to build a bike to just ride. It not only had to be cool, but also rideable.
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Todd Wanted His Personal Bike To Be Long, Low, And Have A Huge Rear Tire. He Accomplished The Wide Rear Tire Portion With This 300MM Avon Mounted On A Carolina Customs 18x10.5 Inch Joust Wheel. |  |
Since he was pretty happy with the Carolina Custom roller, and not to mention they are located 30 minutes from his house, he decided to use one of their RSD Pro Street frames with 44 degrees of rake and 6 inches in the backbone for his new build. The first frame he got from them was engineered really well and everything seemed to fit perfectly.
For the front suspension he went with American Suspension inverted forks with an integrated caliper to keep the look clean, and for the rear, well, it had to be a rigid. To cure his horsepower craving Todd went with a 127ci Ultima motor, paired up with Trick Shift six-speed tranny and Hi Tech primary.
As the build progressed it kind of grew into what it is today. Originally his idea was pretty basic, just something to ride and something clean, but as time went on Todd got more and more involved and into the build, kind of like an artist with his work. To keep the bike super clean, Todd ran Matt Hotch stainless oil lines and ran all the wires and cables inside the frame.
So Much For Keeping It Simple, Todd Couldn't Resist Letting Shannon Davidson Of The Chopp Shop Lay Down A Mean Paint Job Of Skulls And...What Is That...Muscles Being Pulled Apart? |  | |
When it came time for paint, he took it over to Shannon Davidson at The Chopp Shop. Todd's intention at first was just a simple paint job, two colors, no big deal, but when he started checking out Shannon's work, he began to get other ideas. Todd was impressed by Shannon's airbrush work and had to have him work on his bike, so they both sat down and came up with what you see here.
Todd's been pretty stoked on his creation. "I just didn't think it was that good, but all these people really like the bike, so I couldn't be happier," Todd said. Todd's bike ended up meeting and exceeding his expectations, and being very comfortable to ride. In fact, he rides it all the time.