2014 Harley Breakout

2014 Harley Davidson Breakout

Project: Samantha

The Story Behind the Build

Oh, Samantha…
This one’s definitely one of my favorites. The story behind her starts in 2016, when I was hunting for a Breakout and stumbled across an ad for a 2014 model—with only 83 miles on it. Yeah, 83 miles. That caught my attention real quick.

I arranged to meet the owner and check it out. When I got there, the bike looked brand new. The guy told me he’d always wanted a Breakout since they first hit the scene, so he bought it on a whim. But not long after, he realized he had a condition in his hand—after riding for about five miles, it would go numb. He kept trying to make short rides work, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was ridiculous to own a motorcycle he couldn’t really ride. So he decided to let her go.

I brought her home and started customizing—something you’ll see clearly in the pictures. It was an absolutely phenomenal bike. Honestly, she’s one of the ones I really regret letting go. But I also knew, at my age and with my riding style shifting more toward touring, that chapter was closing. These days, if I want to scratch that Softail itch, I just hop on McKenzie—she’s set up pretty hot too.

I rode Samantha everywhere. I’ll have to double-check the records, but I’m pretty sure I put somewhere around 47,000 miles on her—and that was just from 2016 to 2018. That gives you an idea of how many miles we were logging back then. I took that bike to Sturgis, all over the Pacific Northwest, through Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, even down to California. Which is wild, considering a Breakout isn’t the first bike that comes to mind for long-haul rides.

Some folks complain about the 240mm rear tire being tough in the corners, but not this bike—she carved through curves like she was on rails.

I won’t dive too deep into all the mods here—I’ll let the photos and videos do the talking—but I do want to call out two things that dramatically improve the Breakout.

First: those tank emblems on the Twin Cam Breakouts… you know the ones. They stick out so much it looks like Princess Leia’s buns coming at you down the road. Hated ’em. That was the first thing to go.

Second: this one was a biggie. The Breakout always reminded me of Harley’s short-lived “Blackline” model. If you compare the two side by side, you can see the family resemblance. It’s like Harley took the Blackline back into the lab, slapped a fat rear tire on it, tweaked a few things, and rolled out the Breakout.

One feature I loved on the Blackline was the center console—it had this sleek, stingray-style look that gave the bike a custom vibe. So I hunted down some parts and retrofitted the Blackline console onto the Breakout, replacing the stock one. That little detail made the whole bike pop.

She fell victim to my desire to upgrade to an M8 114. I foolishly sold her to a guy in California—who, by the way, never even saw the bike in person. We handled everything over video calls and phone conversations. He was sold on the customizations I had done.

Funny enough, years later I reached out to see if he’d consider selling her back to me. His response? “No way, man. I’m keeping that one.”

At least she found a good home with someone who loves her as much as I did. I’ve got some great memories riding that old girl.