Building a custom bike has been on Terry Lee's mind since 1974, but it wasn't until four years ago that he was able to make it happen. He couldn't resist the urge to build anymore and finally found enough time to heavily modify a Harley. When he was finished he wasn't satisfied and had to try his hand at a full custom. A few years later, Terry had a custom motorcycle shop called Envy Cycle Creations and an aftermarket exhaust pipe company as well called Street- Walker Exhaust Systems.
Thirty years of pent-up creativity breeds multiple bike ideas, and this one, called "Sling-Shot," was born from the idea to build a bike with old-school looks combined with cutting-edge design. Basically, it's a new interpretation of the long bikes Terry was inspired by in the late '60s and '70s.
Terry started this build with a single downtube rigid drop-seat frame with a rear section wide enough for a 250mm tire. The backbone was stretched 9.5 inches plus an extra 2 inches were added to the section of the frame behind the seat post area. The frontend had to be long, so the neck was raked to 54 degrees. Terry also fabricated a severely narrowed Springer frontend built 11 inches longer than stock. Beautiful RC Components Venom wheels were bolted to the chassis, a skinny 21-inch with a matching 11.5-inch rotor in the front and an 18x8.5-inch Venom bolted to an Exile sprotor in the rear.
As a big fan of S&S motors, Terry had the company's polished 111ci Evo-style motor in mind from the beginning. He ordered an S&S mill and fit it between the framerails along with a Crane ignition and TrikShift five-speed transmission with a BDL 3-inch open belt primary. Once the driveline was secured to the frame, Terry fit a set of his StreetWalker Drive-Byz exhaust pipes complete with his Old-School heat shields.
With the driveline in place, Terry started working on some skin for the bike. He fabricated the rear fender first, then built an oil tank behind the transmission and next to the battery. Soon after that, covers developed on either side of the bike to hide the oil bag and battery. Next, Terry fabbed the curvaceous gas tank with contours that match the way he modified the single downtube of the frame. He also molded and painted the bike in a homemade paint booth and laid down multiple layers of black and tangerine candy. After the paint had dried, Tony Perez from Pinstriping by Tony pinstriped it.
There were only a few things left to do to get the bike finished, and Terry wouldn't be spending much time looking in catalogs for parts. He custom-made the handlebars and used an Exile internal throttle as the only hand control. A custom jockey shifter was made and works in conjunction with the custom foot clutch and a right-side foot brake that operates the front and rear brakes.
When he finished the bike he was stoked that modern styling fused so well with old-school design elements. In fact, his wife came up with a name for it: reform school!