Photos by Al Conte

Gilroy, California, home of the Garlic festival and now Indian motorcycles rests on the edge of Silicon Valley. Up until 15 years ago, it was a dry agricultural community between San Francisco and nowhere. That's where Al Conte lives, the owner/builder of this putt. It's his first custom.

Al recently turned 50. Some 22 years ago Al married Debbie and proceeded to raise a family. His priorities changed. He set aside his wild days and went straight, like so many brothers do. He became an engineer in the semi-conductor industry and kept his clean snooze to the grindstone, as they raised three sons. Twenty years past, and their anniversary drifted onto the calendar. His wife nestled up to him one day and whispered, "The date's just around the corner. Do we get diamond earrings or a Harley?"

His sons, Matt, Jeff and Doug, had no notion of what really flowed through their dad's veins. To them he was another computer nerd, buried in an air-conditioned, cubicle industry.

Startled, Al turned and gazed deep in those knowing eyes and a smile crossed his lips, "A Harley," he said without hesitation. That was 1998 and he is still riding that Fatboy. In touch with his feelings for riding, Debbie had no notion of his desire to build a custom. "I just wanted to build one," Al said.

This project took him a year and a half. He spent two months just laying out the design, making plans and checking mags. "I built the bike 30 times mentally before I purchased a single part," Al said. He kicked off the street sweeper with a ProOne chassis with leading link swingarm. "I encountered no problems fitting the unit together, but they hadn't allowed chrome clearance in machining the threads, so the chrome chipped off as we attempted to assemble the unit."

Al figured the project carefully and decided to spend the big candy on two areas of the bike to maintain a billet theme. "I spent $2,000 on the inner and outer primary from Pro One and $750 for the Yaffe taillight," Al recanted, "I could have bought any number of taillights for half that amount."

I asked him if he had any other problems with the wild swingarm. "I ordered a Jesse James rear fender and cut it in half, extended it and altered the radius to contour the 200 Avon and fit the swingarm." He also used a Jesse James front fender, but only lowered it to hug the front tire.

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