Dyno Diaries

Despite an uncharacteristic cool month of June delaying the onset of summer, the Dog Days (of sorts) were soon upon us, putting heat to our resourcefulness here at CW. We currently have a Big Dog bagger in our possession that is undergoing the full battery of performance tests. When it came time to roll the stretched, slammed and raked cruiser onto our dyno, however, the bike's 73-inch wheelbase proved a wee bit long.

Having recently dealt with a similar issue when dyno testing the Honda Fury, I applied my MacGyver 101 technique of fully compressing the fork with a ratchet tie-down, thus shortening wheelbase. While that was a move in the right direction, the Dog's 250-series hind paw still wasn't resting fully on the dyno drum. I initiating Plan B and did what many CW readers have done over the years, soliciting input from Senior Editor Paul Dean, who authors our Service section in the magazine.

Putting our collective noggins together, we came up with a solution. Temporarily removing the sheetmetal shroud covering the dyno room's cooling fan won a few extra inches of clearance so that the dyno's wheel chock could be cranked to its full forward position. While this Big Dog Bulldog model is the longest bike we've ever strapped on the CW dyno, the Wichita, Kansas-based manufacture builds some choppers with nearly 10 additional inches between the axles. Yikes!