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Here's what I heard when I was involved with Harley, from an insider there. He said that H-D hadn't authorized skull designs for years - not sure of the reason - but that Willie G, who has become one of their lead designers, came up with one and they authorized it and were going to start making parts with it. This was before the design was ever used. He's been influential on H-D bike & accessory styling and people know that so the skull logo was probably named as a Willie G theme originally and the name stuck; this last notion is conjecture on my part. At the very least I was told it was his design so that could simply be the reason why it's called that.
Now we go back to derailing this thread about the virtue of fingerless gloves. I like em because I can pick the dry boogers out of my nose on long rides, and also push the buttons in my stereo. That, my friends, is a winning series of events on a long ride, and important. Plus you can pull over and take a leak without pulling your gloves off.
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