Matt Barker is a native San Diegan who's mucked about with old iron for the past 20 years. He originally started overhauling bikes from across the pond, mostly Triumphs and BSAs, and when he bought his first Trumpet at age 20, he fixed it up, rode it, and then sold it to fund his next project, a BSA.
After a few years of seat/build time with the Brits, a little law was passed in The States that required motorcyclists to wear some kind of protection on their noggins in case they were to fall down and go boom. When that happened, Matt sold all of his bikes. "I'm not going to ride anymore if I have to wear a helmet!" Matt thought at the time.
It didn't last too long as Matt missed riding and wrenching, so he gave in and picked up a pre-unit '52 Triumph and rekindled his romance with bike building. After he finished with the pre-unit, he got into building Harleys. He's since focused mostly on playing around with V-twins because he's noticed that Harley parts are much more readily available than old British parts.
Matt's boss had a '65 FLH that wasn't running so he asked Matt to help him out with the Panhead. After getting the FLH up to speed, Matt was ready to buy his first Harley, a '66 Ironhead. At the same time his friend Mike bought a basket Shovel, which stayed a basket in Mike's garage for quite a while, so Matt took on the Shovel project, too. He started by sending the engine to Dave Osman from Dave's Motorcycle Machine to rebuild the Shovel. Dave kept the original '69 bottom case, but beefed it up with a 93ci S&S stroker kit. It took a year or so to rebuild the power plant, but when it was done, Matt was ready to ride the wheels off it so he bolted on the necessary parts and put building on the back burner. After a while, Matt had some fresh ideas for the Shovel so he tore it all down, started anew, and realized again the fun of trying to fit certain parts on a bike. "A lot of the build was trial and error, just figuring things out," Matt said.
With the bike stripped to its skeleton, Matt asked his buddy August Bruns to help him out. August is a longtime friend of Matt's that does fabwork on the side when he's not tending bar, or bouncing people out the front door when they get out of line. August cleaned up the frame and did a ton of other work on the bike as well. "He did the fender, the gas tank; basically any little piece that needed tweaking. He also built the 2-into-1 straight exhuast and had it coated black," Matt said. After the frame was done proper, Matt sent it to Pacific Ship Powdercoating to be finished in black. Black Bike Wheels sent Matt this set of spokers wrapped in Metzeler rubber, a 21x2.15 front, and a 16x4 rear to fit the Exile rear Sprotor setup. The Springer he ordered from the V-Twin catalog fit the frame without a hitch and one of Matt's other friends donated the dog bone risers, along with the gas cap, and other various parts. The bar sitting between the dog bones is just a slightly sloped drag bar with a little bit of bend. "It's pretty much just a straight piece with a slight arc in it," Matt said. He and August made the license plate bracket out of a kicker arm so it folds flat and doesn't stick out; it has a little ball and spring in it so it folds up and down.
Once the major components were in place, Matt got the painted sheetmetal back from Blue Moon Kustoms. Matt said he wanted black, silver, and red... Blue Moon did the rest, and did it right, too! Matt was ready for final assembly with the painted parts back in house so he spent the next few days in his garage getting the Shovel ready to ride. He dropped some good coin on the project and says it was worth every cent. "This thing is my baby! This is the one that I've put tons of money into; so much money where I don't keep track because I don't want to know how much I've spent," Matt said. Sometimes money is no object with cool projects like this vintage Shovel, so we're right there with you, Matt!