6/7/08

Time Travel, Jet lag & New Parts



This photo was taken a little over five hours ago at 9:15 p.m. Friday, June 6... or was it?

It's 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning in SoCal and I feel like I've been up for a thousand hours. When I look at everything we finished this week I think maybe I have.

Here's a random sampling of the last-minute stuff we wrapped up before taking the bus to the airport this evening:



Did somebody say "CNC-machined billet 6061 aluminum with hand-polished and chrome-plated finish?" That's what I thought. Chris and our friend Erik submitted SolidWorks drawings of this bar riser to our factory a couple months ago, and we saw the first raw CNC'ed samples last week. This morning the factory delivered the finished product dripping in the beautiful chrome plate you see here. Trust me when I tell you, these things are absolutely stunning. Expect to see them in person at the Smokeout East in two weeks.



Satin black electroplate continues to be the most popular finish in our handlebar array, but several customers and bike builders have asked us to do our 1-inch OD bars with stock-H-D dimples for hand controls. Your wish is our command. We've added dimples to our 1-inch Frisco, Keystone and Aces Bar for easy installation on any bike with stock H-D hand controls. 


Here's a detail of that dimple on the underside of the Frisco bars shown above.


Chris and I were so stoked when we received our last-minute chrome-plated samples, we busted out this makeshift studio with an old SNAFU BMX banner that was lying around. In case you are wondering, the factory that makes CNC-machined billet alloy goosenecks for BMX companies like FlyBikes and SNAFU also makes our new bar risers and billet alloy throttle.



The body of our new throttle fits 1-inch bars and is CNC machined from billet 6061 aluminum. It comes with a CNC'ed alloy throttle tube that works with all stock double and custom single cable applications. Chris designed a clever solution for cable fitment that involves a set of screw-in ferrules. These ferrules work with both 1/4-20 and 5/16-18 cable adjusters from a broad range of H-D model years, or you can do like we do and just make custom throttle cables yourself. The throttle body will be available in two finishes (C/P and black electroplate) and the throttle tube will be anodized for durability and smooth operation. Chris has spent many months dialing in the function and universality of this new Biltwell product, and when it's available in late summer we think it's going to leave everyone who sees it very impressed.

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