In its recent adventures, Harley Davidson has been seemingly busy with increasing involvement of snow and ice competition. Recently, the Milwaukee brand entered the Snowquake 2018, a snow dirt event in the Italian Alps, and then started the Snow Hill Climb, its own event at this year’s Winter X Games where riders drag up the hill on purpose-built Snow Hill Climb Sportsters.
For the same event, Harley came up with an ingenious idea and teamed up with Aaron and Shaun Guardado from Suicide Machine Company to build two snow bikes with skis and belts from a Street Rod 750. These bikes would act as safety vehicles for the event, and to haul athletes around between events.
Now that’s a phenomenon.
Harley partnered with the organizers to introduce a new event, the Snow Hill Climb, at this year’s Winter X Games. It is going to be a medaled event where riders will climb onto modified Harley-Davidson Sportsters and race up the snowy hill in a drag-race style competition. In every segment, one rider will be eliminated and three riders will stand on the podium eventually.
Acting as a sidekick, the snow bikes were commissioned by Harley Davidson specifically for this event. They roped in known hooligans from the Suicide machine Company and dropped off two Street Rods at their workshop located in Long Beach, California. Luckily, these guys know how to run flat tracks and different disciplines with dirt.
Now, they have a new challenge in front of them, and they are going the full monty. The Camso DTS-129 snow kits they found were not made for conventional motorcycles like this Harley, but for motocross and dirt bikes whose swingarm and track placements are all different.
Replacing the front wheel with skis and the rear with a snow belt is no child’s play. It meant getting the front fabricated with adapters and the rear getting some mad brains to deal with the drivetrain tethered to the tracks. They had to fabricate a pair of struts having a quick-release system that connected the track and the bike. A few spacers then took care of the drive chain alignment to the gearbox.
Luckily the tracks came with its own braking system which was then hooked onto the brake levers. That means, this Harley just has one set of the braking unit rather than two. The tracks even had their own integral suspension units voiding them from breaking more heads. They added an additional seat on the tracks to haul around riders and fabricated handles for them to grab onto.
The powertrain remained untouched with the Revolution X 60 degree V-twin engine having70 hp and 45 lb-ft. However, it gets a high-performance Screamin' Eagle parts like the tuner, intake, and exhaust to compensate the snow belt’s drag. The stock clutches were swapped with custom Radius X auto-clutches from Rekluse making them easier to use in the snow.
Last year, the finalists of Harley Davidson’s Battle of the King’s competition also saw a 1200 CX Roadster equipped with skis and snow belt. It was made by the folks of Harley-Davidson Banská Bystrica, Slovakia and was called the ‘Harley Davidson Roadster Snow Drag’. It had a mad looking electric paint job.