Friends come and go, but brothers are with you till the end. Having your pals back in a bar brawl is only one brick in the brotherhood road. Talking a pal off a ledge when his old lady leaves him or letting a guy urinate in his sleep on your couch can be yet another. But taking up a fellow friend on even the most ridiculous of challenges is a cornerstone of all things brotherhood. Both of these guys seen here had ridden their fair share of big twins in the past but were looking for something a bit less clunky. "We should build Sportsters," one of them said. "Sure, I'm in, 'cause we would look cute riding around on a couple of bitch bikes," said the other. With the gauntlet firmly thrown, these two men went on to build some of the coolest "girl bikes" that Street Chopper has ever seen.
Steve "Ballbreaker" Braeger adopted his fathers '94 H-D Sportster by "borrowing" it from his garage and began his literally cutting it up. Ballbreaker, was in fact ratted out by his own daughter Camille, who innocently told her grandpa why her father couldn't come to the phone by uttering the words: "Daddy is cutting up some motorcycle with a Sawzall".
Todd "Toad" Stanford actually bought his '96 Sporty to spite his live-in girlfriend who spoke the famous words "it's me or the Harley." Buying the H-D was a blessing in disguise since his now ex-old lady turned out to be a tweaker who stole a bunch of his shit and sold it on eBay to support her habit.
The two bikes could not be more different. Ballbreaker, who is 6-foot 4-inches tall, wouldn't fit on a stock sporty even if his feet were cut off at the ankles, so the stock frame was hard-tailed and stretched 2 1/2 inches and lowered 2 inches. To gain even more space Ballbreaker used modified H-D forward controls with a Brembo master cylinder attached to a Yamaha ATV reservoir and Delisle Products footpegs, so his lanky frame could have first-class style legroom.
The engine was cleaned up by Clint at Highway 66 and converted to a chaindrive. Ballbreaker hand-cut and reworked the ugly-as-sin OE cam cover into a thing of beauty. The Induction system is handled by a Mikuni carburetor topped off with a Joker Machine finned air cleaner. For an exhaust, Ballbreaker Initially bought a stainless and titanium FMF dirt bike exhaust that he modified to fit the XL motor, but when it was finished he found it to look too "Detroit Bros," so he chucked it into the trash can. Frustrated, he drank a 12-pack of PBR and while in a stupor with torch in hand, came up with the bike's current exhaust.
Up front, Ballbreaker spent more than 100 hours reworking the triple trees, shaving and polishing the legs, then rebuilding them with a 2-inch lowering kit with emulators by Race Tech.
Being an avid motocross rider, Ballbreaker wanted to bring the functionality of MX bikes to his Sporty, so he used a set of Pro Taper Raptor ATV 7/8-inch bars with a Works Connection clutch lever, a Joker Machine throttle, and a Brembo brake lever. Scott grips are wire-tied to the bars for white knuckle riding.
When it came time for sheetmetal, Ballbreaker kept the OE tank and only re-worked the rear mount and petcock location. Out back, a West Coast Choppers fender was reworked by Jeff Delisle, then sent off to Butch and Kelsey Lynch of Uncle Bitchen for many coats of black lacquer topped off with Butch's custom-mixed silver scallops. The paint was then topped off with Dennis Ricklefts' killer pinstriping.
Ballbreaker loves a good ass-pounding now and then, so he modified a Delisle Products seatpan and cut up a vintage WWII leather jacket for padding, or lack there of.
Toad who is 5-foot 6-inches on a good day, kept the frame as-is with the stock swingarm and slammed it with a massively lowered suspension. Though the front end looks rather stock, major work was done to the forks. Shortening and nitride-coating the tubes, shaving the fender mounts off of the lowers, and reworking the Race Tech springs to allow 3 inches of drop. The rear suspension is provided by White Power Super Adjuster shocks that also lower the bike 3 inches.
The bike rolls on a stock H-D wheel up front and a Performance Machine solid 16-inch wheel out back. Both wheels have been powdercoated gloss black and shod with Metzeler ME 880 tires. The bike slows down by way of stock H-D calipers and floating rotors both front and rear.
Toad really doesn't like the way stock and OE parts look and feel, so he tends to buy things cheap then cut them up to his liking. After a long search he couldn't find any handlebars that both looked good and were comfortable, so he had Jeff at Delisle Products bend him up a set. The hand controls hanging on the "Toadie Bars," as they are now called, are Joker Machine JX jobs that came from the factory black anodized, but he did a bit of cutting to make the Mooneyes mirror fit. The foot controls are carved-up H-D midcontrols with Fastway titanium motocross footpegs that have been shortened to allow plenty of ground clearance.
Toad also couldn't find a seat he liked, so he bought a Saddlemen solo seat at the swapmeet and cut it up to his liking right there in the parking lot before the ride home.
After bobbing the OE rear fender and sinking in the gas cap on the tank, Toad also had Uncle Bitchen paint his tank and fender. Instead of a slick shiny paintjob, Toad opted for flat eggshell white that was then pinstriped in gold by Scott Smith of PPG paint. All of the other painted parts were carted off to Orange County Plating for some gloss black powdercoat.
The finishing touches on Toad's bike were the WP steering dampener, Sparto Tailight, and a set of Fly-Rite Choppers grips in white.
With both bikes completed at roughly the same time, they were christened simultaneously with a Pabst Blue Ribbon fueled midnight bar-hopping session filled with lawn jobs, smoky burnouts and plenty of "kickin' and a screamin' in the mud and the blood and the beer." Not too bad for a couple of mofos on girl's bikes. SC