It's no secret that something as small as handlebar selection can make or break the way a bike looks-especially when it comes to proper choppers! There are plenty of bikes out there with big, wide, comfortable bars, or ridiculously tall ape hangers, but why not have a set of bars that makes your scooter look good-not some over the top cry for attention.
There are quite a bit of off the shelf bars that do this job well, but what if you don't want the same bars as every other jerk out there? You can make some if you have good fabrication skills, a nice tubing bender (NOT a pipe bender), a bunch of money in fab tools, and a decent TIG welder. Oh, wait; most people don't have all that. Well, you could cut up a shopping cart and weld it back together or better yet, just have someone who knows what they're doing craft some for you!
Scott "T-Bone" Jones has been around the bike block a few times with his welder in-tow while working for some of the heavy-hitters in the chopper industry and has a good eye to boot. He has since struck out on his own and began building custom stainless and mild steel handlebars for customers as well as narrowing tanks and a few complete, narrow, lane splitting bikes under his new company called NOISE. You won't find T-bone with any Fat Bobs, way out there forward controls, or dangling from the aforementioned higher than a giraffe's balls ape hangers.
After putting my own Shovelhead on a diet by swapping the 3.5 gallon tanks and hinged rear fender for early Sporty items, ditching the electric start, the closed primary, and building a tall sissy bar, the within reason and comfy 12-inch apes that came on the bike were just too wide looking. I thought of going with tall risers and drag bars, and as timeless chopper as that is it was close but no cigar-so I called T-Bone.
T-Bone can make pretty much anything you can dream up, draw, or describe, but there are six basic measurements he needs to know beforehand.
First of all is riser spacing. With all the different frontends there are this is a biggie. Do you have a wide glide and is it early or late, a narrow glide, Triumph, an old springer, or even a metric frontend? An exact as possible measurement on the riser bolt centers is needed to make sure they'll bolt onto your bike. Second is the rise or how tall you want the bars. This measurement is from the top of the top triple tree or springer top clamp to where you want your hands. Third is the amount of pullback in the horizontal bar, risers, or both. Usually a little bit of pullback is easier on the wrists, this can be measured in inches at the ends or degrees. Fourth is the amount of fall. This is similar to pullback in the horizontal bar, but measures the amount of downward bend you may want on each side of the horizontal bar. Fifth is the overall width you want the bars and this can be left long if you want to trim them yourself since sometimes it's hard to gauge without sitting on your bike with them. Sixth is the amount of rake your bike has since all the previous points would be thrown off if your rake was on either end of the spectrum.
The more info you can give T-Bone, the better he can make your bars. So follow along to witness this Big Twin's diet take place over a couple of hours and how much the little things matter. SC