Page 11 - Beep Beep August 2021

Roger Weeks’ story of the Conversion of his Harley Road King
I originally purchased a 2017 Harley Road King because Angie (my wife) and I were doing some fairly long trips (Tassie, Alice Springs etc.) on the bike and wanted a bit more comfort. With all the options of Top Box for passenger backrest and some engine modifications – such as a torque cam, better air intake and exhaust – the bike was just over $38,500 but made long trips very enjoyable. After riding this for around 20,000ks the bike was upgraded to a 2018 model.
The wide wheels and offset combined give the trike a slightly wider track than a standard Harley trike and combined with the independent suspension makes the ride smoother and more comfortable than the standard Harley trikes which are live axle.
Sadly, my medical
conditions have made it unsafe for me to ride any form of motor bike anymore and as a result I have lost interest in the trike which means it has
to go.
Roger Weeks
Before
After
After riding the new Road King for a while (another 12,500ks) both solo and two-up, I found the bike was starting to get a bit heavy for my artificial knee, so I started looking at the options of either putting a side car on or converting to a trike.
Talking with riders who had ridden both, I decided on the trike option. Then how to go about it? Because of the age of the bike, it was difficult to find anyone who was prepared to make the conversion as the regulations state that any safety feature that is on the bike must be on the conversion and ABS was a feature that they did not know how to overcome.
I did find a company in Western Australia who would do the independent suspension but that was going to cost $30,000 plus freight to get the bike there and back. Then I found a company in America who would do a conversion kit with everything I needed to be compliant, ‘IMC Trikes’.
The kit with all the options came to $18,000 [after converting to Australian dollars] and then another $3,500 in freight and import duties. Wheels, tyres and a few other bits and pieces added another $1,500 odd to the project.
After 6 long months, the kit finally arrived in Australia. The conversion was straightforward enough, however the body did not quite sit right and took a fair bit of fiddle to make it go where it needed to go! Part of the problem was my choice of wheels; I went with the widest legal rims for a trike (8”) but did not consider the offset which caused me to have to offset the guards a little.
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