What We Ride - Jonny's Sporty

Owner name, location: Jonny Bourgault - Ventura, CA @jonnybourgault

About: 23 year old motorcycle enthusiast/wannabe wrencher chopperizer. Ecommerce/customer service/product photographer/content ambassador at InR and former warehouse and retail employee.

Bike name: I’ve had this bike for so long and I’ve never gotten around to naming it, I’m pretty sure by now it’s too late..

Backstory of the bike: I bought this bike for a killer deal off Craigslist about 3 years ago when I used to live in Boston. I was broke so I was originally just looking for an 883, but scored hard when I found this one. Picked it up as a bone stock evo sportster and honestly haven’t done a ton to it since then. It wasn’t my first bike but I’ve definitely done the majority of my riding on it and it's taken me so many different places. This bike has always been special to me even if to most people it’s just another Sportster.

Craziest thing you’ve done on this bike/craziest place you’ve ridden: This bike has been my only form of transportation for the past 3 years so I ride it almost everywhere. One of my craziest memories was going to the first Motos in Moab with Cierra and Holly from the @ladytramps and riding 2/3rds of the way there in the pouring rain, only to get to a campsite that was completely flooded, then turning around the next morning bright and early to head back to make it to work the next day! Other than that I’ve ridden this thing up, down and throughout California numerous times, ridden through all of the New England states, and I hope to ride it cross country and back some day soon!

Engine/tranny, year and make, model, modifications: 1995 Harley Davidson Sportster XL1200

Other mods, accessories, cool parts, etc.: For the most part this bike is still very much stock. Removed the turned signals n such, relocated the speedo, Biltwell bars, spoked front wheel, old crusty trident sissy bar made for a rigid frame that my buddy at Lucky Wheels Garage helped me adapt to fit the stock HD brackets and I rattle canned the tank in my garage, thanks to my buddy Tommy T. for helping me make the old AMF style stencils. I’ve had so much help from friends working on this bike and I've tried to learn as much as I possibly can from it.

Favorite thing about this bike: My favorite thing about this bike is honestly just how great and reliable it has been for me (knock on wood). There’s almost 60,000 miles on it and 35k of those are from me. The only thing major besides basic maintenance I’ve had to do to it is replace the charging system which my good buddy Paul generously helped me out with.

Next modification will be: I’m going to have my buddy help me rewire the bike and ditch all of the unnecessary crap that comes from the factory, really cleans everything up. More importantly I want to redo the top end and freshen up all of the leaky gaskets and fix all of the stupid jankity parts of my bike that aren’t significant, just annoying. Maybe one day I’ll hardtail it, but until then I’ll be out there riding the piss out of it!

Photos by Michael Krantz