Mike Hennike’s Black Denim Street Bob

Barnetts Magazine 

Looking back on the 20th century, there were unparalleled leaps and bounds in discoveries that have changed life radically as we know it. Oh sure, things like curing diseases, television, splitting the atom, the Rubik’s Cube, and the Internet are just a few of the milestones of man conquering the unfathomable, but I think the greatest invention of the past century was eBay. Yeah, it’s a little myopic perhaps, but this global online auction has filled all my empty places and continues to, every day and night. There are so many people hooked on eBay that pretty soon they’ll have meetings where a person will stand up and say, “I’m Buck, and I’m an eBayholic . . .”

Street Bob that had been modified by Racine, Wisconsin’s Dave Neu, owner of ASI Customs. “Most of the things I liked he already had incorporated into the design,” said Mike. “I asked for some changes which I thought were improvements on it visually and aesthetically, it just hangs together better I think.” After seeing a shot of it in our coverage of last year’s Smoke Out EAST, I gotta agree. Hard to believe this bike is still titled as a Harley, but that’s what makes it so stinking cool. 

Dave’s shop primarily modifies muscle cars, hot rodding them with more reliable mechanical components, but he builds bikes when requested. Thumbing through one of his hot rod magazines, Dave saw an ad for the then-new model, the Street Bob, and bang! “I looked at that bike and in five seconds I saw the bike that I built,” said Dave. “I didn’t want to stretch the front, I wanted to keep a 29-degree rake so you can actually steer it. I wanted to stretch the rear because nobody ever stretches the rear because it’s much more complicated than the front.” Another reason was that he wanted a straight frame angle going from the neck, through the gas tank and down to the rear axle for visual flow. For a hot rodder like Dave, cutting the frame off between the seat and the gas tank, just above the swingarm, is like doing a back-half on a pro street Camaro. Using materials he was familiar with, Dave took some racecar tubing and decided to build a 5.5″ longer, single-sided swingarm to replace the stocker. “I just sketched it out, I saw the swingarm finished before I even drew it,” said Dave. “It’s not a solid tube, but it’s definitely not a thin tube either.” The sportbike shock has a 2.5″ coil-over racecar spring because the added length of the swingarm creates a lot of leverage through the shock linkage he built. “It’s 4 x 1 off the top of my head,” said Dave. “I stretched a few sportbikes, so I had some background in this.” There’s about 3″ of travel, which matches the front travel nicely.

Dave’s fave wheel of all time, which he puts on everything he owns, is the American Racing Torq-Thrust II. These are actual Chevy bolt-pattern wheels front and rear sporting 180mm Dunlops. “There’s a hub adapter between the rear hub and pulley and one inside the front wheel that holds the rotor assembly and bearings,” said Dave. That’s not all that’s automotive, though. The Wilwood brakes are sprint car brakes whose visually large calipers have four, really small, motorcycle size pistons. Dave then built his own master cylinder, just above the pipes, from an aluminum tube while Wilwood 12″ drilled rotors complete the racecar look. Brake actuation is by pedal only with an adjustable Wilwood proportioning valve handily located under the seat.

Maybe he didn’t alter the front-end geometry, but he couldn’t leave it stock either. A reproduction springer adds just the right Old School mechanical look and further disguises the Street Bob’s roots. A small 3.5″ headlight sits high over it and H-D bars flow unadorned back to the Anvil Customs seat. Bodywork and paint was simple as there are no fenders in sight and what looks like an oil tank holds the wiring, computer, fuses, and the battery. The stock tank makes for a lot of wrong guesses when people first see this bike. “I asked Willie G. to sign my “Street Bob” and when he saw it, he just about fell over. He said, ‘That’s pretty neat!'”

Drivetrain-wise, things were left pretty 2006 stock with the exception of the dual velocity stacks on the factory throttle-body matching the stunning dual ceramic-coated 2.5″ Speedster pipes with Samson baffles. A nice in-and-out symmetry you can’t help but appreciate. A tall hand shifter with the clutch lever mounted on it easily swaps gears. Not a bad idea either when the other foot is busy stopping the bike. “With Harley’s new clutches, the clutch pressures are so light, it’s just a two-finger setup,” said Dave.

Mike gets the final word, “I ride it all the time; it’s a really comfortable bike. I really like the handling and it always draws a crowd. I’m just the lucky guy that found it, bought it, and enjoys riding it. It’s a super cool bike.”