I bought this bike way back in June 2002 after spotting a near unbelievable ad in Motorcycle News: a fairly low-mileage 1994 Road King for private sale at (then) a very low price of about £7,295, and although the paper was a week or two old I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained and rang the number. It was based in South London and was amazingly still unsold, so I made the trek south to see it.

A 1994-registered Road King, it is the very first of the FLHR line, introduced for the 1995 model year to replace the Electra Glide Sport, and is therefore in the distinctive (and yet to be bettered) black and silver livery with the subtle red pin stripe. It seemed in pretty good nick and rode well enough, but unfortunately was bedecked with lights and gee-gaws, Live to Ride bolt-on 'goodies', a massively over padded long-haul two-up seat and was missing its windshield. Negotiation beckoned, he settled for £6,500 cash, and finally I was the owner of my own Harley-Davidson heavyweight Big Twin - a far cry from my previous beloved Sportster - heading back the following weekend to pick it up, two-up with Andy on a 2002 model Road King.

I was utterly made-up for the first hundred miles and the bike ran like a dream, but the utter shame of riding such a tastelessly accessorised 'Grand Wazzoo' gradually overtook my sense of achievement and I indicated to Andy that we should pull in at what was then 'Wheels International' on the A5, grabbed my Sportster's old tool roll and began un-accessorising with a vengeance. I half-heartedly tried to off-load the teetering stack of offending items at the dealership - and unsurprisingly failed - before resorting to stuffing the panniers to overflowing. The Road King was already now looking like a bike I would own.

In pretty short order Andy located the original seats and screen for the Road King, languishing at a custom shop as as 'take-off parts', and I bought standard handlebars, grips and mirrors and arranged for a set of decent tyres. Since then the bike has seen new switchgear, a Bubba Cross Dresser exhaust system, a set of GMA differential bore calipers on floating discs up front, lots of tyres and lots and lots of miles.

I've also started a cupboard under the stairs which is slowly filling with other purchases like a set of oval-section S&S silencers which will get bolted on when I locate a set of standard down-tubes, a brand new TC88 chaincase that will bolt straight on and a one-off adaptor knocked out by John Reed so the later chain case WILL accept the Evo Derby cover. It's an ongoing project. I'm thinking of taking the Road King over to my mate Tony at Classic Approach in Leicester for his magic touch at some point, but it won't be anything radical, I've more or less taken my Road King back to standard (with some obvious improvements) because, basically, I like it that way.