Roxy’s Sporty

July 30, 2016

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Article By: Roadside Marty

Photos By: Dino Petrocelli

Originally Published In the November 2012 Issue Of Cycle Source Magazine

I’m sure most of us remember times in our lives when things were just plain simple, especially when it comes to motorcycles, and the man behind this machine is no exception. The man is Dave Perewitz, and his name is synonymous with custom bikes. His one- of-a-kind builds are u s u a l l y built for repeat customers or used as an example of how to do incredible paint jobs. However, every once in a while, Dave and the crew at Cycle Fabrications i n Bridgewater, MA I get to go back to their roots and turn out a bike like they did when Dave first started out. This is something that Perewitz says he really enjoys getting the opportunity to do. You see, for the first ten years that Dave and his friends were out riding the streets around Bridegwater, they all rode Ironhead Sportys. Naturally, when Dave opened Cycle Fab, the Ironheads got most of the shop’s attention. So recently, when a close friend of Dave’s by the name of Rene, aka Roxy, brought him this bike that she had owned for the last 15 years and wanted him to give it a little bit of a makeover, Dave jumped at the chance. The only stipulation that Roxy had for Dave was that it absolutely had to be green! Yeah yeah, I know you might be saying that that’s supposedly a “bad luck” color for a Harley, but that’s what the lady wanted.

Dave has a solid crew in place over at Cycle Fab., and Big Ron wasted no time getting on the re-build. He immediately began hard-tailing the stock H-D frame to give a little bit more of an aggressive stance. In order to get that oh so beautiful and timeless H-D Springer to fit the 7/8” neck, they had to bore out the neck cups to 1.” Next, they went on to make some spacers so it would fit like it belonged there to begin with. Some of Big Ron’s other handiwork included lining up and mounting the rear fender, making the oil tank, battery box and exhaust pipes all in-house.

Of course, Dave took on the task of laying down that sweet paint job with PPG Green Metal Flake because it just wouldn’t be a Cycle Fab. build without that awesome Perewitz paintjob. One of my favorite things on the bike is the incredible pinstriping which was done by Keith Hanson. In my book, you just can’t beat a nice striping job; it really sets off a paintjob like this even more! For the seat, Dave went to one of the best in the business: Christian Marsh from Xian Leather. You can see in his work how talented he really is, and it shows. Between other jobs going on at Cycle Fab., and waiting for some pieces to come back, it took Jay Souza 3 months to do the final assembly. In all that time, Roxy never got to see what Dave and t h e crew were doing; you know, blind faith. The first time Roxy had the chance to lay her eyes on Dave’s creation was when he unloaded it in Laconia. Since then, Dave says she has ridden it like it was meant to be ridden: hard and fast! After all of the custom bikes that Perewitz has built over the years, and there’s been a lot, Dave says this bike was one of the most fun to build. Other than the paint color, he basically had free-range to do whatever he wanted. It brought back memories of days gone by when Sportsters were his specialty. And by looking at this Sporty, you can see that he still has that magic touch. Cycle Re-sources Perewitz Cycle Fabrications Bridgewater, MA www.perewitz.com