As I look out my window through the rain to the garage, I see a good looking, 250mm fat-tired bike with a flashy metalflake paintjob just waiting for me to beat it up. I was starting to put on my warm leather jacket for a ride when the sky decided to change. Instead of the rain clearing up, it started to pour so hard that and the sky went black and the streets started to fill with water, as sheets of the stuff were making it hard to see the garage that was holding this metalflaked beast hostage. I took off my gear and sat back in my chair reading about the more than necessary torque numbers (121 lb-ft at 4,000 rpm) and the frame setup with that fat tire in the rear.
It was not long before the sky and the streets dried out and the leathers went back on. The first thing I needed to do was clean out the pipes with a blast of a few full twists of the throttle on the open highway, just what this 112ci S&S motor needed. The seat was padded and shaped to hold me in place as the motor's ponies came to life. The handlebars were at the right height and pulled back far enough to give me support without feeling as if I was hanging on for life. The fat 250 rear tire stuck to the road like glue as I went through all six constant-mesh gears. With the rigid frame you do feel all the bumps in the road, but I didn't think about it much because the motor was so powerful at the high speeds.
It was at this time that I realized that it was the flake paintjob that was getting all the looks from the cars that I was passing. I loved the look of the old '70s-style paintjob. When the sheetmetal and frame was handed over to their painters in Arizona they took the time to ask what some of us old salt of the past wanted. The answer was a sliver base covered in silver flake with a contrasting color of candy red panels along with red pinstriping to highlight the work. The paint is not for everyone, but the guy that likes it, will love it, just like me.
Second Opinion
By Greg friend
Out here in Southern California we're usually blessed with great weather. Unfortunately, the month we had this Titan Radical Chopper it rained for three of the four weeks we had it. I was able to ride the bike a couple miles, but I didn't get a chance to abuse the bike how I would have liked to. My first opportunity to ride the bike was through traffic -- everyone can see you when you're riding a bike this big and flashy. I was getting unusual hand signals from the hoards of people in their cars, thumbs up instead of the finger. While people love the paint and large presence of the bike, I was having trouble seeing the road around the in-your-face tach that blocked my view. My second opportunity to ride was late at night, the perfect time to avoid traffic, so I could open the motor up and hit some curves. The bike is on the heavy side of almost 700 pounds and the steering neck sits on some stretched downtubes so the bike isn't very quick to steer at low speeds. Once it's on the highway it's at home, running through the gears with a whole bunch of throttle in your hand. Overall it was a fun bike. I appreciated the quality of the comfortable seat, a real bonus because of the rigid frame construction. If I had to change one thing about the bike it would be the tach. Pull it off completely or mount it somewhere else.