Lonnie Griffin’s
2011 Road Glide
Story by Loney Wilcoxson
Photos by Lonnie Griffin
Reputation is important in all aspects of life.
Somehow though, reputation seems to be a little
more important in the motorcycling community.
Reputations can be good or bad and carry with
them all the positive or negative things that go
along with them. You may have noticed the incomplete version of this fine lookin’ Road Glide at
our bike show near the Hard Core Customs area.
Now you get to see the finished product and hear
the story behind the scooter.
Lonnie Griffin is from Omaha, Nebraska. Like many
of us, he began riding motorcycles as a teen. Also like
many folks, having a family put him on an extended
leave of absence from the sport—a 10-year leave of
absence, in Lonnie’s case. When his sabbatical was
over, Lonnie got back in the saddle, so to speak, and
has been back on two wheels for the past six years.
64 Wide Open
He now rides with the Heavy Rotation MC out of
Omaha, last year some of his brothers began switching from sport bikes to touring bikes. At the time, Lonnie was riding a 2009 Hayabusa and when he
decided to make the switch, a 2011 Road Glide
seemed to fill the bill. Now we all knew that this bike
was not going to remain stock!
Here is the part of the story where reputation
kicks in. Lonnie had stretched saddle bags and
side covers installed on his bagger as a starting
point, but then he was ready to jump into some
big changes. In discussing these changes with
some of his friends, he found himself being
steered towards a shop that had done several of
them right. That shop happened to be Hard Core
Customs. Now Omaha is not a continent away, but
it is a pretty fair distance away from Gladstone, Mis-
souri. It turns out that the shops good reputation
made the distance a non-issue. This is not out of
the norm for Hard Core Customs, a customer
drives from St. Louis regularly just to buy his parts
from Kevin Burns and his staff. As a matter of fact,
he popped in just recently with a wish list and
found every item on it. Sounds pretty damned
smart if you ask me.
Lonnie brought his bike to Hard Core Customs
for what turned out to be a two-stage makeover.
Numerous phone calls and emails were passed
between Lonnie and Kevin while laying the
ground work for the build, through this process
they also planted the seeds of a friendship. Along
with having some wiring issues tackled and having his previous custom parts installation brought
up to snuff, the bike was going to undergo major