The book Big Twin High Performance Guide by D. William Denish is highly recommended. From fundamentals to esoteric it is all well written and easy to understand. If you plan to do any performance modifications, buy this book FIRST. No ISBN, but may be ordered direct from Crystal Publications, P.O. Box 699, Gates Mills, Ohio 44040 216.423.0331.

The Sportster Performance Handbook by Buzz Buzzelli is recommended by Chris deHahn and others. ISBN:0-87938-601-0.

Tom DeBoni recommends Alan Girdler's Illustrated HD Buyer's Guide, 2nd edition as a good introduction to Harley Davidsons.

How to Build Harley-Davidson Horsepower by Tom Murphy is a good read. ISBN 0-7603-0150-6

Recommended magazines include:

All American Heroes (UK)

"A good down to earth publication dealing with custom Harleys mainly built by bikers, there is very little of the big bucks professional built stuff." -- Chris Marshall

American Iron

The publisher Buzz Kanter is a Sportster phreak and consequentially there are a couple of XL articles in a typical issue.

Easyriders

A Bro of mine has every copy of Easyriders.

Heavy Duty (UK)

"has grown over the past few years into the UK and European definitive Harley mag. The technical content is its strong point and goes much farther than the simple reprint of the sales literature so common in US published mags. Basically if it is SHIT then the guys at Heavy Duty call it shit. For folk in the US this is a good mag that will compliment their usual diet" -- Chris Marshall

The Horse Backstreet Choppers (was Iron Horse)

Jon Boulle says about Iron Horse:
"No monster creations, just plain riding iron. FWIW, this is probably the most literate motorcycle mag available. Sometimes you have to shuffle through a bunch of editorial stuff that may piss you off, but on the whole these guys seem to have all their excrement in one bag."

PhilB tells us "Iron Horse is no longer. It's been revived as "The Horse Backstreet Choppers", and can be found at http://www.thehorsemag.com/.

It's the only bike rag I subscribe to!"

Hot Bike

recommended by my wrench. This is where Cheezie, a frequent digest contributor, writes under the name Jimmy Johnson.

Hot Rod Bikes

A new technical rag with a good unit focus every issue. A technical contributor of theirs, Rick Diaz, hangs out in r.m.h.

Iron Works

Quick Throttle

"Unlike the new breed of glossy Harley mags full of pin-ups of barely streetable, dysfunctional beauty queens, QT's emphasis is performance. The current issue covers how to install NOS and has a magneto performance guide, but the best piece is a monthly column called Reader's Dyno Runs where several reader bikes are dyno'd and their performance upgrades listed." -- Steve Manes

Thunder Alley

Thunder Press

A comprehensive free monthly tabloid with West, North(east) and South(east) editions. They have terrific calendar listings for events from their respective regions and feature ads from lots of independents. The West Coast edition has a web site (that isn't as comprehensive as the tabloid. The Elert Publishing Group page for Thunder Press has contact numbers for all three regions. Several regulars have written columns in this rag.

Women's World

Recommended for their tech tips.