See Belly’s Rocker C

I’VE HAD bikes since I was eight-years-old; been on trail bikes since I was a kid and rode bikes for about 10 years from when I was 18. I didn’t have a bike for about seven years, then about four years ago, I got a Yamaha Roadstar Cruiser. My friends had Harleys, and of course, eventually you get sucked in.

I wanted the Rocker C with the big fat rear-end when they came out in ’08. I started from there and 14 months later look what I’ve got now. Something individual I can ride round.

The previous owner didn’t like it. Well, basically, he was about 50 kilos, a little Vietnamese bloke. He had a Honda 600 he liked riding round Phillip Island and his mates bought Harleys. So he bought a Harley but couldn’t handle it—it was too heavy and too big. He had the Harley in the shed and his Honda in the lounge room.

I thought, “I’m not going to spend any money on this one; I’ll just ride it like it is,” but a few months and $25,000 later it is what it is now. Bought it secondhand in November, four months old with 800 km on it; it’s done about 14,000 now.

Wild Rhino Motorcycles have taken care of all of it for me—thanks very much guys; I appreciate it.

In the last 14 months we’ve put air ride suspension on it, a ThunderMax power control unit, obviously the Savage wheels, Vance & Hines Short Shot exhaust, Screamin’ Eagle heavy breather kit, Burleigh 1.75 inch Rocker bars, chrome controls, paintwork…

Ray Drever did the custom paintwork, black with candy purple and metallic pearl flames. The original paintwork had a flame clean through it and I didn’t want to detract too much from the originality of it.

The Shotgun air ride suspension certainly gives you a better ride. You can adjust the height and you can also adjust the firmness of the ride so if you’re going over rough roads or just cruising around town you can set the height and firmness to whatever you want. It’s quite beneficial.

It sits low to the ground and the noise attracts attention wherever you go. I generally have it up more high than low but I leave it down when I park it so it looks cool. Obviously with the Rocker C, the rear guard’s attached to the swingarm so it moves up toward the seat so you have to leave a bit of a gap there—if not, the seat gets bumped and you move along as well.

It’s had the rear indicators actually built into the taillight and all flush mounted, just to improve the look.

The rear guard has been modified slightly at the back. I wanted to keep the same rear-end as was original on the Rocker C because that’s what makes them different to the Softails.

pics by Chris Randells; words by Belly