Tribal Drum Custom Motorbike

MY PARTS were just starting to arrive from the States when I crashed my Harley-Davidson Fat Boy and snapped my leg. That sure made it a difficult build. I’ve been riding Harleys for many years since I got my Sportster in 1980, but like most blokes of my era, I started out on a Honda 750 Four when I got my licence at 17. It was K2 Model—bought in 1975—and it had six-inch-overs, peanut tank and all that shit, but them came the Harleys. I’ve owned about five H-Ds since then, but truthfully, this one’s not really a Harley at all. It’s only got about twenty bucks worth of Genuine Harley parts on it—just the ignition module holder hidden under the seat where I cut it into the fender, and a Genuine neutral light setup which is hooked into the Prowler six-speed gearbox.

It’s funny, but my Missus made me build this bike. I was helping a mate, Dirty Dave from down the road, with his bike, putting an S&S 113 cube motor into his Heritage and the Missus started the ball rolling by saying I should build a custom for myself (Wonder Woman for sure— Ed).

I ordered all the parts, including the S&S 113 cube and DNA frame and LA wheels over the internet. We were dealing with Joe Cree from California Custom. He’s a big bloke; a good bloke too; the only difficulties we had was the gulf between what’s road-legal in the States and what can actually be used over here. Americans have it easy compared to the strict laws we’ve got to follow in Western Australia. We ended up going to the States and dealing direct with Big Joe. That was easy. What was hard was having all the parts landed in Australia and not being able to do much about it other than hobble around on crutches and wait until my leg healed.

I had a few mates help with the build: Phil, John Chapman and Johnno Bowman who is a Genuine H-D technician. I’m a tree lopper and wood machinist by trade, so I’ve got the ideas on machining. It was handy for making stuff like the shift linkage and the belt guard. The guard is made from 3 mm stainless and the ‘Tribal’ design and flames were laser cut before being polished up. I’ve tried to keep the tribal theme going throughout the enter bike; and the paintwork, done my Ryan at Kustom Mods in Malaga, carries it along.

It’s been in two shows and won two trophies so far: a first place in the Narrogin Revheads show, and People’s Choice at the inaugural Veteran’s Run—there were 150 bikes on that one. 

It’s nice to ride—I’m getting rid of the Fat Boy and keeping this one—it’s got about 5000 km on it already.

I reckon I still love building the things. People sometimes drop in while I’m working on some part and they’ll say: ‘Gee, you must have some patience to do this sort of thing,’ but to my mind, designing and building a custom is what keeps you sane.

Make sure you check out the feature on Clare & the Tribal Drum Motorbike.

pics by Brian White; words by Kelly Ashton.