Anatomy Of A Two-Wheeled Ripper

The VTV Sportster RS

Word and photos: Jeff G. Holt

When Harley-Davidson approached us in the early part of 2022 to have us to build one of their all-new Sportster S motorcycles we were excitedly trepidatious. We had our kid gloves on while discussing with our handlers at Harley that these bikes were new, so there were very few if anything available in the aftermarket for this Revolution Max-powered machine. Like nada, none, zero zilch was available in either custom or performance parts. We don’t like failure at VTV, so looking at this bike in its stock form, we already knew it was going to be a pretty big project to get this thing up to VTV standards.

So with much debate, we took on the project. Yet again, like the first M8FXR we built, we were on a journey into the unknown setting sail into “never done before” territory. But we relish a good challenge. Don’t all idiots?

The initial ride of the stock bike was with mixed emotions. The motor just plain ripped and the transmission shifted like butter. It was quick as hell off of the showroom floor with great suspension and brakes. But the bad part was the riding position. Yet again I felt like I was riding on top of the bike instead of being down in it. It gave me PTSD from all the years I spent testing V-Rods. The front wheel is big and fat and the whole bike looked kind of odd and pudgy. That’s when we came up with the working project moniker Pugsley.

In the initial design stages of the bike we went from tearing it all down and making it bare-bones, but then we decided on quite the opposite. That’s where Pete Watkins came into the picture. Known for being a metal master and king pin of fabrication, he was my first choice when it came to making a not-so lean bike look like a sleek machine. My orders to him were to make this motorcycle look like a Moto GP bike that was converted to race on the Bonneville Salt Flats. I wanted it to look fast, but to be fully-faired, so we could basically hide a bunch of the bike’s ugly OEM plastic, big ass radiator and miles of plumbing.

Pete got busy with drawing up the design and we got busy figuring out what parts we could find for the bike to take it to the next level. And in all actuality we couldn’t find shit. After rethinking the project and knowing that was an an amazing bike with poor ergonomics, we concentrated on making it a machine that was equal parts flow and go.

Starting with the tail section of the bike we removed eve thing out back and re-worked the tail section stutter to be lower in the front and higher in the back, so a rider would now feel “locked it” instead of the stock poison, which pretty much mimicked riding a mini donkey. We used the stock seat and Pete added a one-off hand-fabricated tail section. This was the first move into making the VTV build evolve from being Fugly Pugsley to a real-deal Rally Sport style motorcycle.

Up front Pete built an insane full lower fairing with integrated belly pan, which covered the radiator wiring, hoses and all it’s other ugliness to a tee. Pete also hand-fabbed a really great looking aluminum top fairing with a Rigid headlight that also cleans up a bunch of the bike’s essential hoses, cables, and wires. With that done, we really only figure out the bike’s foot controls and that is where we waffled on using mid controls versus rear sets. So we decided to make mounts for both. Miss of the track and rear sets for the strip. We made the controls with the full intent that they could be easily converted in a few minutes with a couple of hand tools.

When we debuted this bike at the Harley-Davidson 120th Celebration we kept it in its original bare metal livery, but as you know keeping bare metal free for rust and corrosion is not the easiest and funnest thing to do. As the saying goes “a custom bike build is never done.” So now we are entering into the next chapter of the VTV Sportster RS with some paint, race-inspired graphics, a few upgrades to the engine, and possibly a chance we do race this badass machine on the salt at Bonneville.

You are just going to have to stay tuned to see the next level this Sportster S hits.