Trackline | 2011 Harley-Davidson Blackline Custom

Simple installations of the RSD handlebar and riser assembly along with RSD’s Sportster gauge and headlight mount incorporated the stock Blackline gauge and a factory Nightster headlight. Hard to believe stock parts could look so much different. Also appearing on the Trackline are a slew of covers from RSD’s Clarity line: timing, air cleaner, and especially the cam cover, which exposes the gears and somewhat reminiscent of an H.R. Giger painting with its mechanical glory. The Clarity line in this case has also been treated to RSD’s newest finishing treatment, Black Ops. It’s more of a matte, industrial type of black finish that seems to be taking off amongst the Harley crowd, according to Roland. Other off-the-shelf RSD parts on the motorcycle include the Nostalgia Rocker Box covers and top motor mount for a bit of contrast, a Tracker fork brace for keeping the frontend wobbles down, and Tracker 2-into-1 exhaust pipe, which has been a huge hit since its release a couple years back. If you’ve noticed, the RSD brand likes to categorize its products into different lines, i.e. Clarity, Nostalgia, Tracker, and so on. These organizational subtleties allow certain products to cater to multiple individuals’ tastes. Most people wear matching outfits, right? Bikers aren’t any different. “We prefer to create designs that work in harmony while not being so overtly obvious, you won’t see a line of skull covers, or Maltese cross covers from RSD. Our designs tend to flow with the rest of what a guy chooses to put on his bike, whether it’s an RSD part or not,” Roland says.

The Clarity line of covers from RSD allows the inner workings of different motorcycle components to be seen.

The Clarity line of covers from RSD allows the inner workings of different motorcycle comp

Being that Roland was a world-champ racer, it’s evident that the sport bike world influences creativity and design. “We’re trying to take the best of both worlds and put that into all our products. If we’re going to design something sleek, we still want to make it comfortable. If we’re going to design something structural, we’re going to want to make it lightweight.” The perfect balance of yin and yang definitely plays a part when creating/designing the next big project or product.

Since the October 2010 opening of the Roland Sands Design Center in Los Alamitos, California, we have looked forward to a lot of exciting things coming down the pike for RSD. The almost 7,000-square-foot facility is open to the public for lookie-loos to witness the inner workings of the well-oiled machine. The facility also allows the RSD posse to focus more on the concept, design, prototyping, development, real-world testing, and marketing of every RSD product with Performance Machine still handling the engineering, testing, manufacturing, sales, shipping, and warranty duties. RSD also released its own apparel line, which includes eight sexy and functional jackets in multiple colors, three styles of rugged riding gloves in different color variations, quality-crafted wallets and belts, and much more. The future looks bright from all aspects of the Roland Sands and company product line. “Our brand is stronger than ever so I feel like we’ve done the right things. People like what we’re doing. Life is good. I have the freedom to do what I want to do, be creative, and do the projects I want to do with who I want to do them with,” Roland says. It doesn’t get much better than that… HB