t probably never occurs to anyone to be thankful for a breakdown on the road, at least not at the time. But Rick Eckhardt’s life might have been very different if not for a mechanical failure suffered by his friend Bob Pearce as the two rode home from Sturgis in 1990. As a result, Bob got home a day late–and, as it turned out, a job short, as the delay got him fired.
     At that time Rick was in the carpentry business. Maybe it was Bob getting fired, or maybe it was just the nature of the carpentry business, but as Rick says, “We decided to start a bike shop.”
     So Rick and Bob opened Reno Custom Cycles, building custom bikes and installing parts on customers’ bikes. When you’re in business for yourself, you start to notice things others might not. For example, when you depend on outside suppliers for your parts, sometimes you find yourself responsible for the supplier’s problems. “A lot of the parts we used didn’t work very well or fit very well,” Rick says. Not only that, but Rick and Bob saw holes in the aftermarket that needed filling. And that’s just what they did.
     Along about 1991 Harley-Davidson came out with self-canceling turn signals, a boon for street riders, maybe, but a headache for customizers. “When we put the smaller custom lights on the turn signals would no longer flash correctly. They would come on and stay on. Basically the factory canceller was looking for an 1157 bulb in the front and an 1156 in the rear.” The answer was the Load Equalizer, a device that returns amperage draw to the correct factory specification so custom turn signals work just like the stock ones.
     Along with the new product came a new name, Badlands Motorcycle Products. The Load Equalizer was quickly followed by a number of other innovative electronic components, and since then it’s been Badlands’ goal to “build quality products that fit like they are supposed to, work like they say they do, and that the guys can feel proud to stand behind 100 percent.”
     In January of 2006 the company underwent another change. It was getting harder to manage both the motorcycle shop and the production of the product line, so Badlands Motorcycle Company split. Bob took the bike shop and operates it today as Badlands Custom Cycles. Meanwhile Dan Lewis, a lifelong biker with a technical and managerial background in engineering and manufacturing, bought Badlands Motorcycle Products from Rick on the condition that Rick stayed on as general manager. And thus was born–or you might say reborn–a company with the expertise and experience to produce top-quality electronic components for both Harley-Davidsons and custom bikes.
     One of Badlands’ most popular products is the Illuminator, a module that triples a bike’s visibility in the rear. Install a pair of red lenses or custom turn signals with red lenses, and the Illuminator turns all three of them into running lights. Hit the brakes and your three running lights become brake lights. Hit the turn signal and whichever side you selected flashes like a turn signal, while the other side acts as a running light or brake light as the situation demands.
     Another hot seller from Badlands is the Illuminator Pro, a custom-bike builder’s dream. This module is perfect for stock Harleys or ground-up customs, and controls every feature you want your turn signals to do. You get automatic canceling. You get front and rear running lights on single-filament incandescent or halogen bulbs, as well as LEDs. A built-in Load Equalizer runs LEDs and up to 70 watts per corner. You can manually cancel turn signals at any time for quick lane changes, and there’s a built-in emergency flasher mode.
     Building a custom with a sleek stretched tank, or converting your stocker to a tank with no provision for the stock dash? Badlands’ digital mirrors include all the instrument functions there’s no place for in your plans. They have displays for the speedometer, odometer, trip odometer, tachometer, turn signal, high beam, neutral, low oil, and low voltage. They work with the Harley speed sensor and both single- and dual-fire ignitions.
     Badlands has a long history of making billet components, too. “We were the first ones to do the 1-1/4-inch risers where the outside of the riser is 1-1/4 inches and the inside is 1 inch so stock controls and grips fit,” Rick says. “We have a couple of billet horns right now, and we’re currently working on the third generation of the horn. We get a lot of requests to make a louder one than stock.” Customer input is something the Badlands boys actively seek out. “Certainly that’s a part of the development process. It sometimes works both ways. We might have an idea and talk to people about it who are using one of the existing products, and we’ll say, ‘What would you think if the product did this?’”
     No need to ask what Rick and the entire Badlands Motorcycle Products crew thinks of Drag Specialties. “I like to let people know Drag gave us our start. We do this because we love riding motorcycles, and it gives us a chance to make a living doing something we love. It’s a lot better than punching a clock. We’re grateful to Drag Specialties and our customers for giving us this opportunity.”