Rogue Flatliner
Hopping
up cars and motorcycles has been a worldwide, universal hobby for over
100 years now. Most of the time, the work is never done and the hobbiest
keeps reading more and more articles, seeking just a little more torque
or a little more horsepower. The finishing point seems to be as unreachable
as the horizon. That is until now. I have ridden and tested the ultimate
Harley-style hot rod and discovered that most people, including myself,
might be happier at lower levels of performance, just dreaming about getting
a little more in the future. The Rogue Flatliner is a handmade, 139”
monster that is simply more than can be handled on public roads. It left
me somewhat dazed and speechless; quickly calling the builder to find
out what could be done to de-tune it a little for regular street use.
He of course laughed and said that he had already detuned it from its
200 horsepower potential to a rideable 150 hp or so. He also told me that
the bike was named the “flatliner” because one twist of the
wrist and your heart would stop beating.
Most hot rod riders start off with a set of pipes, graduate to an aftermarket
carburetor and cam and live happily ever after with their reliable, noisier
mounts. The more adventurous among us might buy a 96” S&S motor
or even a 107” TP or 120” Merch monster. I once spec’d
a Confederate with a 120” Merch and thought I had ridden the ultimate,
the fastest streetbike available without entering the explosive world
of professional drag bike applications. I was wrong. The 139” STD-prepared,
Donnie Bittman-designed engine in the Rogue Flatliner will absolutely
trounce anything I have ever ridden. It is unclear and I did not have
the instrumentation to measure, but this bike appears to be very close
to Suzuki Hayabusa or ZX12 Kawasaki performance. These latter two bikes
are marketed and sold to the public but the Flatliner offers the same
performance at half the RPM! That means you have to be very careful -
you don’t have the one or two seconds for the motor to rev up before
the power hits. The power is immediate and relentless. Twenty, thirty,
forty, fifty, and even sixty mph don’t exist on this bike. As you
accelerate and get into third, 70 mph is the number hitting you as your
eyes focus. After that, various thoughts of licensing, arrest, injury,
and the great beyond enter your mind as you debate staying on the throttle
and venturing into fourth or fifth.
This
test bike was the sixth of six Rogue Flatliners built by Don Bittman of
Riverside, California. Don was the first builder to bring an aftermarket,
Harley clone to the marketplace in large numbers. His Illusion motorcycles
sparked the handmade, Harley-style revolution in the early 90’s.
Don’s early bikes sported 97 inch engines built up from the high-quality,
aftermarket parts once used mainly by Harley drag racers. Throughout the
years, Don’s engines got a little bigger, inch by inch. I would receive
calls inviting me to ride his latest 105 inch model and I even bought
a 108 inch softail he made when that was on the top of the power heap.
Then, I must admit, Don started losing it and telling me I had to stop
by and ride his 129 inch or 131 inch models. He stopped by our store once
in Texas and unloaded a 131” FXR-style bike with tiny little minibike
forks. The bike was a purpose-built drag racer and I declined his offer
to ride it since the weather was bad and the streets were still wet from
an earlier downpour. The bike looked somewhat dangerous and honestly I
was thankful the streets were wet.
Each step of the way up the cubic inch ladder, Don would explain how his
previous models were nothing compared to the latest; how the larger motors
just kept getting more and more fun to ride. I was skeptical, remembering
having to push start my 108 incher on cold mornings when the battery just
didn’t have enough juice to get the big engine cranking. I thought
Don was now up into drag racing specs and that the bikes would be unrideable
on the street. A year or so ago, Don told me about his ultimate street
bike, the Rogue Flatliner. He told me that he had built five for a client,
put a thousand miles on each to prove their reliability and work out any
bugs, and that the bike was actually a riot to ride. He urged me to fly
out to LA and ride one. This time I was curious. The bike looked like
an FXR chopper, with solid upside down forks, massive PM brakes, a steering
stabilizer, wide tires, and all billet construction. The Joker Machine
billet primary matched the billet transmission covers, oil pump, and huge
engine cases. The bike looked super solid and the story of exhaustive
testing made me believe him that the bike might be streetable. I choked,
of course, when I found out that the bike was priced at $60,000 and told
him I didn’t want to risk riding someone else’s property in
that price range. Accidents do happen you know.
A
year went by and by good fortune I was able to trade Don for the bike
at a more modest price and then was face to face with that big engine.
The cases were made by Rocky Mountain Billet, the House of Horsepower
people I believe. The Carrillo rods pushed the pistons through Hyperformance
cylinders with external oil lines. STD oval port heads topped the engine
off. The huge bore and stroke dimensions of 4 3/8” by 4 5/8”
were visible externally. The engine was a solid 17.5” from the center
of the crank to the top of the rockers. The frame was made to order with
the extra clearance needed. Compression releases on each cylinder were
required to start the beast, the rear one requiring the rider to hold
it down for several cycles before letting off and getting the bike going.
My first ride was uneventful and a little frightening. The clutch plates
were sticking a little from sitting for six months and the bike was impossible
to get into neutral. I accidentally had turned the steering dampener off
and managed to get the bike out of shape on my first romp up through the
gears. I had to admit though, the bike started easily, idled and ran cleanly
without a hiccup. It was in its own sick fashion, quite streetable. After
flushing the primary and just getting a few more miles on the bike to
wear off the storage gremlins, I suited up in leather clothing, a serious
helmet and my old road racing gloves. I was determined to put the bike
through its paces and protect myself should I prove unworthy.
A friend drove along beside me on the first mile of the test. I did not
believe the speedometer reading from my first short rides and thought
it must be off by 20 mph or so. I was quickly informed that my friend’s
bike read the same. The Rogue simply went from zero to seventy in about
three or so seconds and there wasn’t much you could do about it.
The long stroke motor wanted to be revved and complained if the rpms dropped
below 3000, so I let her run up where she wanted. Fourth gear brought
on a loping 80 mph and fifth was only useful above 90 mph. 
Once
I got into the countryside with no traffic, I barked it up through the
gears a few times. With the steering dampener turned up to the middle
of its range, the bike stayed stable up to about 110 mph where I lost
interest. What was amazing was the short time required to reach those
speeds. The acceleration was relentless and the big engine got smoother
and smoother as the rpm increased, something I have never experienced
with a big inch bike. This engine was designed to wail and it does. The
only similar feelings of acceleration I’ve experienced are takeoff
on a jet plane when after two or three seconds of brutal acceleration,
you find yourself kind of surprised when the acceleration doesn’t
stop. And I would say that super tall roller coasters offer a similar
feeling. As you crest the top of the tallest climb and the coaster drops,
you get that feeling that sometimes the drop is going on just a little
longer than you expected. That is the way the flatliner gathers speed.
After establishing that the straight line acceleration was simply unworldly
but also unreasonably fun, just had Don had promised, I sought out some
curves. Don’s client had specified high ground clearance, mid-set
pegs and a wide rear tire so the bike could be ridden on mountain roads
and keep up with sportbikes. I ran the rear tire down to about 1/16”
from its edge without anything on the bike touching down. The bike cornered
well for a long fellow and the front end never got out of shape as long
as the dampener was turned up.
In my opinion, Don has created one of the most outrageous streetbikes
of all time. A Harley-style bike that can run with bikes of any cylinder
configuration. He topped off the spectacular motor with the finest components
available, all of which were really necessary to harness the incredible
torque of the Flatliner engine. Unfortunately, we were unable to get a
final dyno reading on any of Don’s monster creations. Early bikes
snapped their three and four inch primary belts under dyno testing. This
bike came equipped with a chain primary but spun its tire uncontrollably
on the only dyno available at a mere 3000 rpm. At this lowly, just off
idle level, the Rogue made 145 lbs of torque and 125 horsepower. My seat
of the pants, superbike hind end dynometer estimates final figures would
be around 150 horsepower and perhaps a 165 lbs of torque had the dyno
testing been successful and reached the upper rpm limits of this engine.
Don has built smaller motors that made over 200 hp on gas and 270 on nitrous
for dyno shootout competitions. So I tend to believe him when he told
me that this engine was de-tuned and understressed - set up for street
riding.
Though
I have since sold the engine in this bike to an enthusiast who will undoubtedly
go through all the emotional turmoil I experienced on this beast, I am
very happy to have found my horsepower limit. I will no longer go through
life thinking about which exhaust pipes can make me go faster or what
the optimal bore and stroke should be for a street monster motor. I have
survived a ride on a bike about twenty percent over my brain’s sustainable
enjoyment level, and am now looking for that perfect street bike closer
to the 110 to 120 horsepower bracket. A flatliner with a couple of heartbeats
still left in it.
- Mark Barnett