"You're the storywriter...my story is a common one," said Dan Bergman from Mesa, Arizona. Bandit gave me the assignment to write this feature, but I wanted to buy a six-pack of Coronas and chase a bubbly blonde named Coral around the shop, while he was picking up parts at Bennett's Performance in Long Beach. I dropped Dan a note inquiring about whether he could write his own feature.

"I blew the motor on my '02 Road Glide," Dan reported. " While we were putting it back together, I went thru a Kuryakyn catalog and ordered several chrome pieces for the motor. Guess I got carried away. When it was done one of my pals said, 'Too bad the paint doesn't set off all that chrome.' That started the project. I wanted a $10,000 custom-looking bike without spending $50,000. I was convinced I could do it and started seriously shopping for 'bolt-on' parts. I liked the Gatorboxes extended bags (they bolt right on) and I found Native Custom Baggers 14-gauge steel rear-fender and filler panels.

"Once those two main parts were here, it was just a little welding on the filler panels. I realized I didn't want to have a shiny new bike put together with ‘old’ parts, so I got all-new gauges, new radio, speakers and speaker covers, new wheels and tires, new Progressive shocks, new windshield, and a new seat. Miguel did his magic on the paint, and I have a brand-new 2002 Road Glide for much less than $50,000. The bike is very fast and rides like a dream. Long hauls are a pleasure and I get a lot of people saying, 'Man! That's a good-looking bagger.'"

I downed a couple of Coronas, ran out of limes, and Coral told me to pound sand. She had her eye on a brunette with even bigger tits. Nobody in the world has softer boobs than Coral, and she broke my heart, so I read over Dan's diatribe and knew it wasn't up to Bikernet snuff. Bandit doesn't like to publish stories containing a simple litany of components used to build a world-class scooter. There's always a passionate edge. Bill Gardner of GMA Brakes said to me one night in Spearfish, SD 15 years ago, "I don't know why anyone would take a perfectly good set of brakes off a new stock bike and replace 'em with mine, just because they're custom, but I'm sure glad they do."

This industry is all about the passion, the fun, and the artistry of building custom bikes; but fuck, you know that. Anyway, I knew better than to toss this feature together, so I called Dan at his office in smoldering Mesa, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, smack in the middle of the Maricopa Desert, just east of the Vulture Mountains. The meat of the story behind the motorcycle quickly unfolded from Dan's 20-year history in the medical industry, supplying hospitals with customer-service software programs; but ever since he was a kid, motorcycles played a major role in his life.

"I rode a Whizzer at 16, and my stepfather owned a used-car dealership and sold me a '52 Indian that I rode until I bought a '46 Ford Coupe. Then I owned a 150 cc H-D popper, a 45 flathead, and in the '70s I built a 750 Honda-four, custom rigid in a Savior frame," Dan said.

I knew immediately Dan had a set of spokes somewhere in his brain. He's 66 now, so he's been in one saddle or another for 50 years.

A year ago, his son called from San Diego Harley-Davidson, home of New York Mike, the owner. His son Derik works there and told him about an '02 Road Glide with 25,000 miles on the clock for sale, just $11,000. Dan flew in from Phoenix, paid for the bike and rode it home—almost. The engine blew up on the way home; the cam bearings came apart in the lower end. He called the dealership and they volunteered to retrieve the bike and fix it, which was very gracious of them.

"I thought that was cool until they returned the bike with a rebuilt engine and charged me $5000," Dan said, "plus $400 for the transport. What [started as] a deal quickly turned into a so-so bargain. That's not all. I rode it for a couple of weeks and it blew up again." He owned the bike for five months and the engine was rebuilt twice. But the bad shit was out of the way and he had a fresh, strong twin cam Road Glide to ride for the rest of his life.

"That's right," Dan said, "so I decided to thumb through a Kuryakyn catalog and started buying all their chrome goodies for the engine."

He was just beginning to scratch the surface and a mechanic at Chester's H-D in Mesa said, "You're not going to add all that chrome and leave the paint stock?" That was a like a bolt of lightning to his medical-profession brain, and he hauled the fresh-engine Road Glide to Main Street Custom Motorcycles where John and Chip added their two cents, "You're not going to paint a stock dresser and just put it back together stock, are ya?"

"I opened a manila folder and started stuffing it with magazine clippings, ads for parts, and pages out of catalogs," Dan said. "My mind went on overload, so I hooked it to the Scottsdale, Arizona, Billet Bar, owned by bike builder, Myron Larabee. I sat there with a margarita and my wife Gayle and we watched a $50,000 electric-blue chopper roll into the parking lot, and it drew a crowd."

He looked over at his wife and said, "I think I can draw a crowd with just $10,000 and my Road Glide."

"So, shut up and do it," his lovely wife of 30 years responded.

That singed the deal. Paul, from Native Custom, suggested a rear fender and filler panels. He worked with Bagger Bill of Gator for the extended saddlebags; and Chip at Main Street mocked up the rear section before he took all the sheet metal to Miquel. "Don't call me

," Miquel said. "I'll call you when it's done."

"Everywhere I turned there were new ideas, suggestions, shortcuts, and money-saving notions," Dan said. Main Street handled the final assembly. "I called Bagger Nation and Paul Yaffe answered the phone. I ordered his new bagger bars, the only set he had. Miquel told me to go for a tan seat, and when I told him I had a set of Ostrich cowboy boots, he said that was perfect. We installed Bassani True Duals, and I replaced all the instruments on the dash with Tar Baby units." He discovered some killer speaker panels and replaced his dash with an Arlen Ness job.

Three months later he rode back to the Billet Bar and rumbled into the parking lot. "Before I could park, the R-Glide was surrounded," Dan said. "I wondered what the hell was wrong. They just walked past me to check out my Glide."

As the interview wound down, I asked Dan if he had any suggestions for riders with dressers. "Guys constantly tell me that they want a unique bike, but don't have a lot of cash," Dan said. "I tell 'em that they don't have to spend a bunch, just do it wisely. We only changed out the rear of the bike, and that didn't cost much. The tanks and front fender are still stock, just painted, and Miquel did an amazing job."

There you have it. He had a helluva story and I'll still have a job in the morning.

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