Shake Ya Tail{4}

For all the things that Harley did right when they released the 48 – the one thing they kinda let slide is the tail end…

Sportster 48 Tail End

…in Canada, at least. In the US it comes with a nice bobbed fender, side mount plate and a kit that allows your signals to operate as running/brake lights as well…

Sportster 48 Tail End

Killer went ahead and bobbed his fender and installed the light kit, but in an effort to not make our bikes look identical as we both modify them, I want to try something a little different…

I figured that I’d install either a Posh or Küryakyn low profile / LED conversion tail light which, with relatively minimal work and investment, would clean up the tail end quite a bit.

Posh Laydown Tail Light

…especially if I got it in the “smoke” colour.

Posh Laydown Tail Light

The first thing I did, though, was order a laydown curved license plate mount from Sportster Specialties but get this…

The mount was $29… Fine. The shipping was $23… annoying but whatever. They shipped it UPS so of course I find out that I’ve got to pay a $23 brokerage fee… $46 in shipping on a $30 plate mount? Come on now…

I wanted to tell UPS to go fuck themselves because there is a big part of me that would rather loose some money rather than give those fuckers a single extra penny. Unfortunately, UPS would also charge the sender a fee to return the package who would pass that along to me + a 20% restocking fee so it looks like I’m stuck with it.

Of course I went to install it after work and once I had it mounted nicely to the fender I realized that the holes didn’t line up and then I realized that I had lent away my drill so I rode over to Bikes On Wheels to use theirs… And of course, it had gone missing so I punched the new holes out with a screw driver and finished them off by hand with a nice little round file.

For $30, it’s a nice little way to clean up that tail end as it does look much, much better but for the $75+ I ended up paying? Hardly worth it… In the end, I expect that I’ll just order one of these…

Black Beauty Bobber Tail Lamp

…which has an integrated license plate holder which would, at least partially, cover the hole left in the fender once I remove the original tail light.

The real priority right now, though, is to get me one of these…

Sportster 48 Passenger Pillion

…and a set of these…

Sportster 48 Passenger Pegs

As I’ve said before… A bike I can’t put a babe on the back of from time to time is not a bike that I want to ride. Ya deeeeeeig?