There are custom frontends, and then there are custom frontends. The suspension for the front wheel is of the latter type, and at first glance, it is hard to find anything that even resembles a factory part. Although he did retain the Road King’s original triple trees, that’s where the recognizable parts end. Starting from scratch, Aaron bent tubing, cut plate-steel, and welded together a mono-shock springer frontend that is engineered specifically to handle 23- and 26-inch wheels with no frame modifications. Appropriately named the G-Spot Springer, it features an adjustable Progressive shock with a custom spring for superb handling. “One of the most difficult parts of this build was engineering the frontend to perform perfectly,” Aaron said. With his penchant for extensive R&D, it’s safe to assume that he spent more than a few hours on this part of the bike, and one can rest assured that it performs exactly as he intended.
Simple and elegant, he laid down a healthy helping of Hyper-Mint Pearl to cover the majority of the bike, and accented the tank ...
In order to balance the oversized parts on the front of the bike, Aaron had to enlarge aspects of the rest of it as well. He started with a large and smooth Yaffe gas tank that he modified and fit to the backbone. An extended and modified Klock Werks rear fender was fit to cover the rear wheel with spacers cut to span the gap between the fender and bags. Hix Design made a custom two-up, tuck-and-roll seat that segues between the tank and fender with the help of a slick-looking dash that matches the color of the seat. There aren’t many bags longer than Milwaukee Baggers extended bags—they’re stretched a full 4 inches—anything longer and the bottoms would scrape on every turn. It almost goes without saying that Aaron modified the bags, but Milwaukee did a great job on the aesthetics, leaving the fitment to Aaron. “I enjoy a bit of ’glass work now and then—all I had to do to get the bags to fit right was cut a channel and exit for the tip of the exhaust pipe. Luckily, I designed the tip of the pipe with a double wall that acts like a heat shield which allowed me to tuck the pipe in closer to the bag without any risk of melting the fiberglass or ruining the paint,” Aaron said.
Speaking of paint, it’s unusually important to an engineer type of person like Aaron, but that’s how he originally started in the industry, as a painter. “Without a mind-blowing paintjob, you might as well not even build a custom bike,” is one of his common sayings. Not everyone would agree with him on that point, but no one would disagree with the fact that he did a fabulous job painting this King. Simple and elegant, he laid down a healthy helping of Hyper-Mint Pearl to cover the majority of the bike, and accented the tank with Vintage Vanilla in a pattern that duplicates its contours.
The real evidence that Aaron practices what he preaches is that this bike doesn’t scream, “Custom!” It’s only when a person looks close at the details and compares it to a stocker does one realize how far removed from each other the two actually are. In other words, the bike is good-looking and completely practical—the form and function are in the “harmony” Aaron strives for, and clearly his goal was achieved. HB