The Harley Davidson Roadster is the most sport-oriented version of the Sportster series offering an alternative to more conventional cruiser variants. This newcomer to Harley’s Sportster range may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it is a better fit for the current market.

Now though, this roadster fell into the hands of some custom cracks and had been prepped up to become the finalist in the annual ‘Battle of the Kings’ contest. And what did they come up with to get there? A (insert a slang here) snow bike with skis belts and a mad looking electric paint job.

Every year, the Milwaukee motorcycle brand organizes a custom works competition that commissions top builders to work with the dealers to put their best foot forward and present a bike worthy to be called as the ‘Custom King’.

For 2017, the competition saw thirteen entries that had worked around the brands' three Sportsters: the Iron 883, the Forty-Eight, and the new Roadster. The sinister most looking of those was the one customed by Harley-Davidson Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Because-holy-cow-these guys just built a Harley-Davidson snow bike.

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 being on the right and the tracks to the left.

The entire swing fork and dampers had to be redone to attach the drivetrain and the belt tracks together which also gets a set of suspension units for the track. The bike had to lose the entire brake system including the ABS.

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 braking unit rather than two and the steering setup is, well, compliant to just a few degrees. Which works perfectly for snowy conditions though.

The powertrain remained untouched with the 45 degree V-twin engine having the traditional air-cooled system running on a compression ratio of 10:1. It is a torque-rich engine giving out 71 lb-ft at 4000 rpm and 70 hp. However, it gets performance air filters and free flow exhaust units to compensate the snow belt drag.