Orange Dragon Harley-Davidson Road Glide

WHEN I left school I got onto bikes, rode trail bikes, motocross bikes, road bikes, raced for a while on bikes. When the family came along, I still had my bike in the shed, always had it there, an old Kawasaki 900, and come 2000, I wanted something a bit more comfortable to ride on the road so I bought a brand-new Harley-Davidson Softail.

I hung onto that until 2012 and I wasn’t really planning on selling it, but my youngest son, Owen, had done his apprenticeship (his L’s and P’s) and was looking for a bigger bike and wanted a Harley right or wrong.

I went up to Frasers in Wollongong and they had the Harley-Davidson Road Glide there. I took one for a demo ride and I was quite impressed by it, and after a bit of haggling with them, I got the Road Glide at the right price, and gave my son the old Softail. I knew he had a good bike as I always looked after it.

The Road Glide started off as a straight black bike and I kept it that way for a while. I never really wanted a black bike; I hate black Harleys, I always wanted to get it painted so I said to Owen, you can go to town on it, do whatever you want with the paint job but not black, and not flames, not skulls, like everyone else has.

The orange colour was the input from me as I didn’t want black.

Owen suggested dragons and I said, ‘Yep, that’s fine,’ and he ran with that. Owen and his mates did an absolutely brilliant job of it considering it was all done in the shed without a proper spray-booth.

I put the chubby bars on the front-end. Haven’t done a lot more to it. I want to do the suspension and change it up a bit; it’s just having the time and money.

Even though the paint work is absolutely beautiful, it’s built to be ridden. I get tons of enjoyment from riding it. I love it and everyone does.

words by Colin; photos by Huck Finn