Visionary Cycle Products FXR
Word on the street is, Visionary Cycle Products back East picked up this 1989 Harley-Davidson FXR Convertible as a corpse in Connecticut (a.k.a. basket case). Aside from the whole image of buying a dead body, the other unusual aspect of that is of an East Coast shop taking a shot at building a West Coast bike. We here on the Left Coast don’t own a monopoly on FXRs, but most of us agree that the wheelie-crankin’ performance version of the bike is more popular here than on the Eastern Seaboard. Carmine Bellamore was up to the task but he had to make it under a constraint many of us know all too well: “We were going for the modern West Coast FXR look. I was on a budget with it so I didn’t have a sky’s-the-limit approach to it.”
What that usually translates to is homing in on the major details mandatory to whatever style you’re trying to create. For a performance FXR, that means suspension upgrades, new brakes, more grunt, maybe a little fairing of some sort (or not), and some paint.
Carmine took care of all of those things, balancing cash and design requirements in equal measure. The end result is something you see a lot of out here and not so much out there. If you’re going to buy a dead body to play with, there are worse things you could do than to turn it into a road-ripping custom motorcycle. Carmine Bellamore tells us the finished scoot is nimble and gets up and goes, making good power and tempting all kinds of mayhem on the road. And that’s what FXRs are all about.