Win a 2026 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy — Friendship APL x FIDO's Companion Raffle

What you're looking at

A brand-new 2026 Harley-Davidson Fat Boy, raffled by a county animal shelter with the bike parked in a bar in Avon, Ohio until it's drawn. The Fat Boy's shape hasn't really changed since 1990 and that is entirely the point: solid-disc Lakester cast wheels front and rear, a 160/60R18 up front and a genuinely enormous 240/40R18 out back, and a laden seat height of 25.9 inches that puts almost anyone flat-footed at a light.

What's new sits between the wheels. For 2026 the Fat Boy runs the Milwaukee-Eight 117 Custom — 1,923 cc, 103 hp at 4,800 rpm and 126 lb-ft at 3,000 rpm — through a six-speed and a belt final drive. Dry weight is 694 lb. Harley lists five colours for the year, from Vivid Black through to a new Olive Steel Metallic two-tone; the organizers haven't said which one is going in the drum.

Why it matters

For most of the last generation the Fat Boy was a 114 — pleasant, a little soft in the middle. The 117 Custom is the upgrade that changes the character: 126 lb-ft arriving at 3,000 rpm means the bike leaves a corner on torque alone, without the downshift the old motor wanted. It's the difference between a bike that looks fast parked and one that actually moves.

Be clear-eyed about the rest. At 694 lb dry it is heavy, and the 240-section rear tyre is the price of the look — the bike is lazy to tip in, resists mid-corner line changes, and that rear tyre is expensive and short-lived when it comes time to replace it. There's no fairing and no luggage: this is a boulevard and Sunday-morning machine, not something you'd point at a 600-mile day. None of that is a defect, it's just what a Fat Boy is, and anyone buying a ticket should want it for the silhouette rather than in spite of it.

The fine print worth knowing

This is a charitable raffle, not a sweepstakes, and the distinction matters to what your $40 buys. Ohio permits qualifying 501(c)(3) organizations to run raffles, and a ticket purchase is the entry route — the organizers do not publish a free alternate method of entry. Friendship Animal Protective League of Lorain County is the named sponsor (EIN 34-6529498, 8303 Murray Ridge Road, Elyria, Ohio 44035), co-hosting with FIDO's Companion; proceeds are split between the two.

The ticket count is capped, which is the genuinely good news. Only 1,500 tickets exist at $40 each, with Friendship APL allotted 500 of them and the balance sold by the co-host into the same pool. Sell-out odds are therefore 1 in 1,500, and better than that if the run falls short — a far shorter queue than the open-ended online sweepstakes this site usually covers. Second place takes $5,000 in cash, drawn as a separate winner.

The drawing is at Mulligan's Bar and Grille in Avon, Ohio, and the organizers state it as "October 1st at 9pm." They don't say whether a winner has to be present, and the full entry terms — age limits, any state restrictions, how a winner is contacted — live on the RallyUp entry page rather than on the shelter's raffle page, so read them before you buy. Two practical costs sit behind the prize: a roughly $23,500 motorcycle is reportable income, so budget for federal and Ohio tax alongside title, registration and insurance, and raffle ticket purchases are not deductible charitable contributions under IRS rules, however good the cause.