Custom Dyna Street Bob – Tested

I had the idea to build this Street Bob in the beginning of the year and the final result is just what I had pictured in my head. Starting off, this is a 2016 Harley-Davidson Street Bob, which is a part of the Dyna family. When we first got it, it was gold flake with H-D's standard chrome 2-into-2 exhaust system and it had mini apes equipped. I am 6-foot on the dot and the handlebars were not comfortable for me, making my feet and legs uncomfortable with the mid foot controls, which I normally prefer over the forward controls. So I ordered a ton of parts for the thing and couldn't be more happy with the outcome.

Starting off with ergonomics I ditched the mini apes and replaced with Harley's Hollywood Handlebars paired with their 4" straight risers. This was a much more comfortable position for my arms which made the mids feel much better. The aesthetics of the bar and riser setup aint bad either! I really did the look of that bar with a decent riser underneath them. For hand and foot controls we installed their new Defiance line to help the flow of contrast pieces already on the bike. We ditched the rear shocks and slapped on a nice blacked out set of the Emulsion shocks to help with the ride, which they definitely did, but they still left me wanting more.

Of course, you can tell right away we ditched the 2016 gold flake paint job and we replaced it with a paint scheme new to 2017: the charcoal denim/black denim kit. I really dig the aesthetic balance on the gas tank between the charcoal and the sweep of black.

I decided to do just a moderate amount of performance upgrades to the Street Bob. I installed the Stage I kit from H-D using their High Flow Air Cleaner and I did a bit of cross referencing for the exhaust. I love a good 2-into-1, but the only one that Harley has is the Dyna Switchback. So, I ordered the head pipe and all mounting brackets from the stock Switchback and paired it with the Screamin' Eagle NightStick Muffler. Everything bolts right up easy as pie with the exception of the head pipe if you are rocking mid controls. If you have forwards the head pipe wouldn't make contact but it does with the mids. I was not willing to give up the 2-into-1 or the mids so a little grinding of the mid peg mount and we had clearance. I went with black header wrap instead of the heat shields just to change up the look a bit more, the right call in my opinion. We used a full kit to wrap the head pipe from DEI and I painted the header before wrapping using VHT Header Paint. Just to add a simple easy bit more I went ahead and installed Screamin' Eagle's Perfromace Spark Plugs for stock compression along with their 10mm Phat Spark Plug Wires.

All in all, I fit on this bike perfectly and it is by far the most comfortable Harley I have ever put together. I love the look of the thing, it has that badass sinister look to it with the new paint scheme and those handlebars. The exhaust note on it is perfect, a little louder over stock, still street legal and it dumps out so far back, you can’t hear it at all in the freeway, saving your ears from constant thundering. The handling of the bike is as good as it gets, enough height to lean the thing in the canyons and with the ergonomics the way they are you have the confidence to rip and push yourself. Your body is positioned in such a way that you feel like you can make the thing do whatever you want, and you can. Ripping onto and off of the sweeping on and off ramps to the freeway you can just throw it into and out of the turns like it’s a bicycle. I love this bike and am having a hard time calling it finished, as that means I'll have to take it back to Harley. I am not ready to let this thing go and I have a few ideas that could help improve this build even more. So let me get back to work and stay tuned for the next part of this bike's future.