Outta Focus Interview With Garage Builder Robert Carmen

Continuing on in our Outta Focus Interview Series with our partners at Cycle Source, we take a look at a beautiful custom 2010 Harley Fat Boy built by Garage Builder Robert Carmen. Robert showed this bike at one of our Garage Build Bike Shows. Here, he competed against other amateur motorcycle builders and was one of the top builders. Check out his build in the interview below.

Transcript Below:

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“My name is Robert Carmen from Simsbury, Connecticut.

This was a relatively stock 2010 Fat Boy when I bought it and I pretty much modified everything that you could modify to this thing. And I went with an Arlen Ness Slash grip because I specifically needed a set of grips… well one, that were kind of different but two, had slats in it that would allow me to remove one of them in order to replace it with over here some sort of switch set up because I needed four switches for this. I needed an up/down for the air suspension and I needed an on/off on and off for the LED light system.

So, internal throttle and that internal throttle was from Exile Cycles and internal wiring, internal hydraulic lines. And in doing that, I had no choice but to convert the clutch from a cable clutch, which most people have, to a hydraulic clutch.

Hawg Halters bought Renegade Wheels so they’re Hawg Halter slash Renegade Instigator 18-inch wheels. The front is an eight and a half and the rear I believe it’s ten and a half.

The paint, it’s from a guy in Long Beach California by the name of Mitchell Johnson. I shipped all the parts, the fenders and the tank out to him and he painted it and he did some hand pinstriping and obviously he did some silver leafing by hand. And this was his first time ever doing silver leaf. And then he did the airbrush graphic on the side.

So, the gas tank, I had modified and stretched out in Bristol, Connecticut by a company named Melnick Metals with three pieces of metal and then weld them all together and then weld them onto the tank after.

So, we’ve got Hawg Halters instigator air cleaner. We got Hawg Halters rotors that match the wheels, Instigator Wheels, the Hawg Halters calipers, front and rear.

The Fat Boy Community is basically anti-changing of the wheels because that’s to them, what makes a Fat boy a Fat Boy is the wheels. So, I ended up getting, you know, this idea from Rick’s in Germany and so I wanted the bike to be, I wanted the people to be able to see the wheels unobstructed by rotors while it was on the kickstand. So, when you look at the rear wheel, you can see it. You can see this massive hub that’s here and you can just see the make of the wheel and the artistic work that went into it, really.

The pipes are Vance and Hines Big Radius pipes. This air system I have on this is made from Legend. It’s a Legend air ride, modified. Heavily modified. The air tank is made by Deadline Customs and the air tank allows me to go instant up and instant down.

I don’t do this for a living, but I race mountain bikes and I race road bikes and I built all my bicycles that I had. Because I was in the Navy as an Electronics Tech, it allowed me to, it kind of gave me the skills and the ability to do all the wiring and all the soldering and all the modifying electronically that I, that needed to be done on this. I basically did the build in an office over the winter from January to May. I had a client that had office space, so obviously lit, heated, everything and it gave me the convenience to work out this thing in a heated space in the winter up in Connecticut. And then he rented it out to somebody, so I had to move out in May. So, it ended up in my living room for two months and that’s where I finished it.

My name is Robert Carmen from Simsbury, Connecticut and I’m a Dennis Kirk Garage Builder.”