In 2008 Randy Butler of Juneau Wi entered the trike world as a retail trike dealer offering most major trike brands at the same location of his late model reparable and sales business that was started in 1988. By early 2009 Randy was disappointed with the quality of the kits that were available, and the manufacturer support, so he decided to create his own.

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Randy had been building things since he changed a garden tractor into a go cart at eight years old. Never did get around to putting brakes on her. Started working at a body shop when he was 13, had his own shop at 16 while still going to high school. An extensive history with fabricating race car components, suspension, and driving open wheel race cars began in 1980 when he started racing winged super modifieds and his mentor was Russ Barnes. Russ was a Mercury Marine engineer whose business of Barnstormer Modifieds built open wheel race cars. His cars held just about every track record they raced at. Russ was and still is a true craftsman and innovator and they are still friends today.

 

During that time Randy was already a GM Certified Technician and a certified ICAR auto body technician, so he had a huge background to build from. Randy also created Butler Motorcoaches that converted semis into motorhomes, specializing in contour sided Kenworth T2000's in one of his buildings while the other building had three frame machines and a complete Auto repair facility where 1300 repairable cars, trucks and motorcycles were brought back from the dead. But there were new frontiers to be explored.

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The trike world became the next endeavor and his vision from day one was to build for more of a niche market, the buyer that wants something special and different than the masses. Build the best trike kit, not the most. The development began in 2009 and in 2010 the first independent suspension trike kit was available to the retail buyer. That kit today still uses the same basic components and specifications as in the beginning though refinements have been made, especially to the mounting configuration to take the bad vibrations and harmonics out of the motorcycle.

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In 2022 Randy sold that trike business. It was time to change things up a bit, and by saying that I mean come out with a new generation of trike kits. He looked at every part and assembly that went into the original design and upgraded and improved everything that could possibly be modernized and taken to the next level. Complete new drive system, three new suspension designs including both cantilevered coil over, and a true 100% air ride suspension that can be dropped to the ground.

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Updated drive assembly and axles. With that change alone the rotating weight was reduced by 10#'s. The base kit is now 25#s lighter.  If you want the 100% all aluminum trike kit it is 68#s lighter, but that is a specialty kit not meant for the serious touring bike rider. Components were updated with newer versions that weren't available 14 years ago. Shock angles and valving has been updated.  Everything was looked at and reevaluated. Kind of went back to the racer mentality of if you remove a half an ounce of weight from 32 places you are lighter by one pound. The goal was to take the trike suspension to the next level. It is like nothing else out there.

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New bodies are being created as part of the lineup.

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Cool Tikes Independent Suspension is a 100% purpose built trike suspension for Harley Davidson motorcycles, not a repurposed suspension out of the sixties adapted to a motorcycle. Cool trikes suspension didn't look like any other trike suspension when it was introduced because it wasn't like any other one in the market, and still isn't. Everything was designed with ride quality, handling, and overall performance in mind using a lot of automotive and performance components that are available from most auto parts facilities not "special" parts only available from the kits manufacturer.

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For further information call Randy himself at 903-310-9027. He still answers the phone and assembles every kit that goes out the door.