Realizing he'd actually be stepping down in displacement and losing a bit of cash on the deal, Gerard decided to stick with the Softy and continue with his own bagger vision. "I got a Dragonfly fairing, and that changed everything. The fairing was supposed to be detachable, but once I started riding with it, I never took it off, with the exception to get it painted," Gerard told us. "Next I decided to swap out the bags I had for a set of stretched Bad Dad bags and one of its stretched rear fenders. I couldn't believe how low the bike sat from the ground once I dumped the High Low Air Ride I installed. I felt that because the back end was so low, I had to change the front fender to match. I went with the Sinister Industries 21-inch fender, which brought the whole bike together. At this point the bike looked badass; definitely a one of a kind. I felt I had to take it to the next level; I had to paint it, but not just regular paint, I had to get Kandy paint. I talked to my buddy, Horacio Ramirez, owner of Kreative Koncepts and we went through a color book."
As anyone who's ever painted anything knows, choosing a color can be one of the hardest decisions to make. After noticing that his first choice of Kandy Tangerine was a pretty popular color for custom motorcycles, Gerard decided that Kandy Brown could be just as elegant and seemed to be a less popular color, perfect for standing out in a crowd. However, to give a little more flavor and appeal, Horacio added a taste of Cinnamon to give it a beer-bottle brown look. Graphics were another tough choice for Gerard and with a background in graffiti, he wanted to create his own images for his bike. After being reminded by his wife that flames and skulls were on just about every bike in all the magazines he had, Gerard began working on his own designs. "I wanted something simple and plain, but yet flashy and definitely different, so I came up with the split arrows that ended up being done in gold leaf which was inspired by the 24k gas tank emblems that I originally didn't care for when I first bought the bike," Gerard said. "Once the bike was painted, I was then pushing for time to have it back together in time for my first bike show in 2010. This show was the Arlen Ness show in San Mateo, where after two long days I took First Place in the Full Custom Softail class. At that point I felt I had done well. Next, I took it to the Laughlin River Run where I had it parked with my good friends at the Sinister Wheels booth. Jeff Holt came by and saw it, and felt it was good enough to have it in the magazine. The next day, Eric Ellis, stopped by and talked to me about getting a photo shoot done and I guess the rest is history. As I think back to what I originally started with, I feel that it would have been cheaper had I bought a Street Glide, but I know that I ended up with a one-of-a-kind bike, and it was all well worth the hard work.