One thing we've been hearing we need more of is content related to women, bike features events, riding shots etc. Females are gaining more ground in the Harley world, and they're not just sitting on the back of bikes, they are riding, servicing and building their own bikes.

This past February while attending the V-Twin expo in Cincinnati, I ran into Derik Jones of Hells Foundry. THe V-Twin expo is the place for manufacturers to show off their new parts and that's exactly what Derik was doing, with his newest piece the SoftDash. Currently available for FLH models, the SoftDash is a colored, coated and textured, inner fairing that replaces the stock dull, black plastic inner fairing. Similar to the dashboard on may cars, the SoftDash features a soft textured finish that gives your bike a more finished and custom look.

We're all about safety, but when it comes to run/turn/brake signals, bigger isn't always better. An LED (Light Emitting Diode) signal half the size of a stock signal can outshine stock any day-or night, for that matter. There are several other benefits to LEDs as well: they last many times longer than traditional bulbs, are more durable, draw way less power, and conduct minimal heat.

Diamond Heads, a family owned and operated company since 1999, specializes in diamond cutting motorcycle cylinders and heads. Located in Henderson, Nevada, Diamond Heads is the only company of its kind, adding sparkle and shine to your bike while helping it run cooler by adding more surface area to cool the fins. The cut fins create more surface area, and the diamond cuts create turbulence in the air that flows over the fins. When tested at U.N.L.V., they found that the Diamond Head-treated heads cooled down 12 percent faster compared to stock. Owner Keith Brinton and his wife Amber started the company after Keith decided to enhance the looks of his FXR motor with polished fins.

Here at Hot Bike, we strive to stay on top of the most innovative parts to hit the American V-Twin industry, so we're bringing you a new tech piece entitled First Look. With this series, we will search out the newest parts and get you the inside scoop on what they are and how they work.

Inspiration often comes from unexpected sources. Most enthusiasts will impart muse credit to another bike, a car, or even a girl. The inspiration for this bike came from handlebars. Yep, bent tubing with a slathering of chrome set off what quickly became a bobber on a budget. Why the "Bobber on a Budget" moniker? Well, it turns out I'm just an average guy, with average skills, a set of average tools, and quite likely a below average wallet. With that said-and with a fresh set of Burly ape hangers on my workbench-I set off on a quest for the other parts I would need, the first of which was a motorcycle.

Blacked Out
As we move forward to black out our '06 Night Train test bike, we're up to the point of wanting to make the biggest change in the bike's looks by swapping out the paint. There was nothing wrong with the denim blue paintjob; it got a lot of compliments, but it's not black. As we looked through H-D's P&A catalog, there were a lot of paint choices, from bright colors to basic black. We wanted to black out the Night Train, but thought adding a little color to the bike would look better. We picked a black base with Harley's orange highlight flames. As we placed the order for the paint, H-D's P&A catalog guru Jennifer Gruber told us about the all-new Diamond Black Attack parts for the Softail line. We had the parts shipped to us, and once they arrived we went to Pomona Harley-Davidson to get the goods installed. Service Manager Chris Dyer handed the parts to Service Tech Brian Breeland and turned him loose on getting everything installed.

With baggers being all-around bigger bikes, that leaves more room to add parts and accessories. However, there's also a lot of room to upgrade stock components on these bikes like the speakers (those models that come with stereo) and the multiple gauges.

Boyesen Engineering, intake innovators for both the two-stroke and four-stroke markets since 1972, recently developed the Power X-Wing (MSRP: $129.95) specifically for the V-Twin market. Even though Boyesen has only dabbled "in the V-Twin industry" for a little over a year now, they know what it takes to achieve results.

As one of the editors of HOT BIKE, I have seen a lot of motorcycles over the years through the lens of a camera. One thing that I have noticed is no matter how much work went into getting a bike in the magazine or to getting it to stand out in a crowd, it was usually the paint job that got it noticed first. A good paint job can grab your eye from across a parking lot or snap your neck trying to get a second look. A builder could have countless hours in custom sheetmetal work, but it's not until the painter uses his or her creative touches that the bike really comes to life. From a stock Harley-Davidson to a top-notch custom one-off bike, it is essentially the paint that sets a bike apart from the rest.

Picking parts for your bike usually requires you to decide between form and function. But there are some parts out there that serve needs, cool looks, and great functionality. One such part is Kryakyn's Flamin' Switchblade pegs ($149.00), a slick flame style footpeg with a hidden/flip-out heel rest to make those long rides more bearable.

PSI specializes in the design, testing, and manufacturing of innovative high-performance products for the snowmobile, motorcross, ATV, and Harley-Davidson V-Twin marketplace. PSI began in a three-car Wisconsin garage in 1983, building 2-stroke exhausts systems for the MX and snowmobile industries. By '85, PSI moved into a 30,000 square-foot building with a SuperFlow dyno and grew to over 40 employees. In the '90s, PSI became involved in Personal Watercraft racing and was picked by Seadoo to campaign one of its national race teams. During that time, PSI also developed Genesis snowmobile engines that produced 200-300 horsepower reliably and could be trail ridden or raced. Today, PSI snowmobile engines produce between 350-500 horsepower.

Not everyone wants to hit a button to start his bike. For those guys, flipping out the old kicker pedal is just what you do. However, once you get your bike running, you swing the kicker pedal back out of the way of your leg and take off. Once you get going down the road the pedal can swing back out and get in the way of your leg as you ride or when you put your leg down when coming to a stop. If you own a bike with an old-style kicker pedal, then you have had to deal with this. Nash Motorcycle Co. has come up with a solution for you kickers out there which will stop the bruising of your leg.

When it comes to customizing your motorcycle, even subtle changes can often make a difference in the look of your ride. If you have a Harley-Davidson touring model and want to spruce it up a bit, Ironspirit in Thousand Oaks, California, offers a backrest mounting plate to help personalize your bagger. Designed to replace the stock triangle mounting plate on your backrest, Ironspirit's plates will mount to '97 and later Road King, FLHT, FLTR, and FLHX models equipped with docking kit and detachable sissy bar upright.

Bulletpruf K-Clutch
$450
Bulletpruf aptly named their company after the way they manufacture their products, and the new K-Clutch is just that. With an extra friction plate and steel plate installed in the assembly, Bulletpruf says it will increase your torque. More torque, more power. Hell, you might even be able to drag your boat behind your bike. This replacement clutch is made for '90-'93 setups, and it won't drain your bank account.

Power is an interesting thing. Whether it's achieved in the societal hierarchy of our capitalistic class structure or in the top end of a Twin Cam, once you've achieved it, you still search for more. It's confidence laced with accomplishment-or so we've been told. We definitely wanted more power. But we were looking for it in a Twin Cam B motor, so we started with the top-end and asked for a helping hand from V-Twin innovators Branch-O'Keefe. Jerry Branch started working on Harley-Davidsons in 1969 and hired his apprentice John O'Keefe-who owns the business today-in 1974. Branch-O'Keefe knows heads like the back of their hand. John could probably port/polish a head with a blindfold on. We took a trip over to Branch-O'Keefe's shop in Signal Hill, CA, for a step-by-step explanation on how to port/polish heads. It's fascinating.

Harley-Davidson Skull CollectionLED Fuel Gauge $149.95
-Replaces the analog instrument with six bright LED lamps
-Lamps glow blue when the tank is full, and extinguish one by one as fuel is consumed. The final light glows red at low fuel level, and flashes red as the tank nears empty
-A photocell automatically brightens the LEDs for visibility in direct sunlight, and dims them at night to avoid distraction
-The gauge is designed for plug-in installation with no wire splicing
For more information, contact Harley-Davidson at (800) 443-2153, or visit www.harley-davidson.com

You could win this bike for as little as five bucks! All it takes is buying a raffle ticket and hopefully when the time comes they draw your number. Here at HOT BIKE we know that you read every issue from cover to cover and buy extra copies for your friends and mom, but in the exceptionally rare occasion that you missed the #5 (May) issue, we told the story of how J&P Cycles built a bike to raise money for the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa, Iowa, which will be raffled off to help keep the museum doors open and to showcase new exhibits. In the first part of the story we showed the basic mock-up of the bike, giving you a look at what it will look like. It was nice to see the bike so close to getting on the road, but sadly the bike was torn down by Kody Wisner and Jeff Wiley of J&P Cycles and the sheetmetal was sent to paint and the frame out to powdercoat.

If you're a Harley performance enthusiast, we're sure you know that there are several ways to make power-several ways to skin a cat, so to speak. For instance, some guys prefer lots of cubic inches while others are more comfortable with a high-revving small engine. Still others like pulling up to the boy's club with a power adder like a turbo. Nick Trask, owner of Trask Performance in Phoenix, Arizona, is just one of those guys-a turbo type of guy, that is. And so is Jesse James of West Coast Choppers in Southern California. Since Jesse was looking for a power boost for his '07 96-cubic inch Street Glide without having to disassemble the entire engine, he contacted Nick to see how development of his new Bagger Turbo System was going. If you've been following HOT BIKE, you probably know that Nick builds some great turbo systems for the V-Rod and was developing a similar line of turbos for Harley Baggers. Fortunately, Nick was putting some finishing touches on his new Bagger Turbo System and asked us to follow along as his crew performed the install on Jesse's bike.

Looking for a good solution for big-cubic inch motors or hard-starting motors? Whether you have an old, tired, worn-out starter or you are building a bike from the ground up, having the right size and power (volts) will make all the difference in the ease of starting your bike without wasting your battery. We wanted to install a new starter in a build bike and wanted the right one to do the trick. After calling the guys at All Balls, we got our hands on the new 1.7kw All Balls chrome starter ($392). We were given all the info needed to pick the right starter for our build using an S&S 93ci motor and BDL belt drive. So if you have any questions about what to do, or what starter to get, give All Balls Starter a call. This will help save time and money, and will help you figure out if you're getting the right one in the first place.

One of the sure ways of making a bike owner cry is to damage a piece of custom bike history. Yes, we have an example. One of the shops we frequent is Four Aces Cycle Supply in beautiful Pacomia, California, who presented us with a customer's set of Flanders' risers, one of which had a funny "tilt." The Flanders risers came with a note containing the question: "Can you fix and replate?" "No problem," was Wes White's (Four Aces owner) reply.

The Harley-Davidson Nightster is a fun motorcycle to ride around town, but requires a little imagination when it comes to taking an overnight bag for a weekend jaunt. This particular situation recently came to our attention via Jeff Leighton, the proud owner of an '08 Nightstser. It came to Jeff that there was limited area for tying a jacket, sweatshirt, or overnight bag on his bike without scratching the paint.

All right, so you don't want big bags on your bike, but you're tired on bungeeing your belongings to your ride-what to do? If you're looking for small bags and pouches for your rigid or Softail, for instance, Garage Leathers may be able to help with your search. The Midland Park, New Jersey-based company makes and specializes in small handmade solo bags and pouches for your ride-even right-side bags-and will work with you with custom colors and orders.

Basic maintenance is the key to ensuring a long life for your motorcycle. Scheduled fluid changes and replacing the air filter regularly will not only yield more miles over the life of your bike, but will help it run better as well. But just because your bike says Harley-Davidson on the side of it, does that mean you have to use H-D branded lubricants and filters?