"My name is Bob Spurling but most know me as Soup Bone. I've been riding Harleys since 1976 when I bought my first big bike from a friend. It was a 1947 Knuckle head set up for a man who is six feet tall and weighed about fourteen stone, and I certainly wasn't as a 21 year old. This amused my friend when he saw me test riding the bike, and he was heard to remark that his Knuckle had a soup bone on it, and it was a name that stuck. That old Knuckle, complete with its hand shift and foot clutch was the first of a run of bikes comprising a 1960 Panhead, an '81 Shovel and then a couple of FLSTCs, an Evo and an 88B. And now this. This one is mine, I built her, and I call her Hard Candy.

Before I got the first of the Heritage Softails, I started talking about building a custom bike. I love the lines of the hardtail - as anyone brought up on Knuckles and Panheads inevitably will - and that was the shape I decided I'd go for, and so on, and so on. I didn't know just how much I'd been going on about it until last year, on my birthday, when my lovely wife game me a large sum of money and said she was of tired of me talking about it, it was time to do it.

Told you she was lovely.

This is what she got for her money.

The CCI Stinger was the obvious choice for a hardtail fan, so that was the starting point, with the 100-cube RevTech option. It was duly ordered and we got on with life in anticipation of its arrival.

It was waiting for me when we got back from Sturgis. A box as big as a fridge and identified as such by my neighbour until I explained there was a motorcycle in there somewhere, I brought it home and started unpacking and sorting out the parts.

One of the joys of having a complete kit to start with, is you can dispense with some of the dry-build work, and I got started straight away, making love to the frame as I smoothed out any rough edges before sending it away for two long weeks at the powder coaters.

Eager to restart work, on its return I had the 100-inch motor and six-speed transmission fitted, and both front and back ends mounted in six hours, for the first quick trial run. Sounds easy, but it was the result of spending the time constructively while the frame was away, building up the subassemblies and concentrating on how I wanted this build to go: planning is everything if you want things to flow, and while this was my first ground-up build, I could fall back on a lot of past experience. I also had a good idea what I wanted it to look like, having owned two of the most beautiful Harley-Davidson motorcycles ever built: only wish I had all the custom parts back then that we have now.

Still, back to the project, it didn't take me long to see that some modifications were going to be needed for me to feel comfortable with the drive-line. For my peace of mind, the lack of a bearing providing support between the inside of the wheel and the outside of the belt pulley needed sorting out. The stress that would be placed on the rear wheel pulley wasn't acceptable for me, so I resolved it by fitting one of CCI's rear bearing support and some specially made spacers. The end result is that the rear wheel has three bearings: two on the wheel itself, and the third outboard of the pulley. Over-engineered? Can you over engineer something like that?

Moving onto the cycle parts, there were a few more jobs to take care of, and a few personal decisions as regards how things should fit together. The Jesse James One Ton rear mudguard needed brackets to mount it, and it was a close fit round the 200 section rear tyre but it does give you opportunity to choose whether you want to ride high or low. It was a rough finish in the first place, and after I'd finished with it I knew the painter was going to earn his money on the rear mudguard alone.

The fuel tanks needed some cleaning up to satisfy my requirements, but they passed a leak test. I took them away again, cleaned up the welds and did a bit of grinding before leak testing them again and sealing them before handing them, and the rest of the sheet metal to the painter.

With the metalwork away, it was time to concentrate on the power-train again. The final fit went smoothly enough except that as soon as I got the whole thing finished, they recalled the six-speed transmission. With everything being clean, it was no big deal to take it out, send it away for the warranty work to be done, and then put back in. Doesn't sound too bad if you say it real fast!

Recalls aside, I was getting excited by then. It was just a spark away from firing up the 100-inch power plant, and as I'm a line man for the rural electric company it's not as though I'm not used to dealing with cabling, and the kit came with a Wire Plus harness with everything ready to hook up. I'd already decided to solder all connections, so with my reading glasses on, and a magnifying glass so I could read the wiring diagram, I set about getting it right - paying lots of attention to the detail and hiding as much as I could. I found it quite a challenge, and it isn't something I'd recommend if you have no electrical background. With the extra time it takes to keep everything tidy, and to solder all the connections, it took the best part of two weeks, but it was the first one I'd done from scratch and I know it's right.

Whatever you do, don't try this at home - and don't say I said to do it if it goes wrong on you - but after I made it spark I needed some 93 octane and hadn't got a fuel tank. Did I wait 'til it came back? Did I hell. I was all fired up so decide to funnel feed the carburetor: a couple of old pipes to take the fuel and time to give the neighbours an idea as to how the project is going … and give my father in law the idea I was trying to burn the house down.

Thankfully the sheet metal returned before I made a habit of running it this way, and the careful planning paid off with everything fitting smoothly. That just left me to juice up the brakes, before firing her up for the first test run.

Through careful planning and previous experience, but partly though the completeness of the kit, I'm pleased to report that the test ride went according to plan, with everything being right straight out of the gate - and for a first time ground-up build that's got to be good.

Better still, I reckon if I'd bought the bits separately to build the bike up to a road-going state, it would have cost me $25k whereas it came to just over $20k including me billing my labour on the project at $3,000,the original cost of the kit at $14,000 and more than $2,000 worth of special additions.

Disadvantages are there too, but much the same as with a new bike or a buying a complete finished bike: there were a lot of parts with the kit that I just didn't use either because I didn't like them, or because I wanted to use something special. There were a number of things which I wasn't happy about too, but as you'll already have gathered I know what I want, and I know how to get it so didn't compromise. There were also some surplus bits, and some parts doubled up so I've got a lot of hardware left over, but all-in-all, I would do it again. It was a great experience over eight months from start to finish, which called on my previous experience and a fair amount of patience, but the result is something that you'd never think of as a kit.

She even won her first show! You can't say fairer than that.

In finished form, and still running her in, Hard Candy weighs in at 580lbs, has no leaks, minimal vibration from the well matched 100-inch RevTech and six-speed and I have to report being impressed with the ride quality and handling.

Having worked for someone else for the last thirty years, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to do when I leave the Electric Company. Putting the bike together has made me realise how broad a range of skills are required for a full ground-up rebuild, and I know that some people just don't have the skills or confidence to take the job on: maybe there's a market in there for me somewhere building them for others.

Either way, I've had a great time building Hard Candy and am looking forward to building the next one … and soon, I hope."

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