Northwest Cycle Report

The sad and infuriating story of the custom bike stolen from the Eastside dealership recently made me think of something from the good old days. The stolen bike was referred to as a ‘custom bike’, by the media. It had been built as a tribute, in some way, and was valued at nearly fifty thousand dollars.

“Factory choppers” is another term for that type of bike, and it has come to mean those bikes that are built to look as if they are one-off customs. The whole idea of a ‘chopper’ started out as a form of lightening and hot-rodding up the bikes of the fifties, sixties and early seventies, so they made a personal statement, as well as went fast.

It was a counterculture sort of movement, back in the day, and those of us who took part knew that we weren’t about to see anything else like our bike being ridden by any other dude out there. That spirit of individuality and rebellious style gave birth to the whole ‘chopper’ craze and it’s still going strong.

Now, you can buy that kind of ‘originality’ and attitude, if you just have the green. The catch is, so can everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the way the cruiser and chopper market segment is growing and impacting the culture of two wheels. Call them factory choppers, manufactured customs, cruisers, or whatever, bikes like these are the single largest growing segment of the motorcycle business, and have been for several years. EVERYBODY wants to look low slung and cool, and be seen as ‘bad to the bone’.

I have no problem with this, mind you, but it has some odd repercussions.

Bike shows have had to revamp their class structures to differentiate between the bikes built by the dozen in a factory, and those built to spec in some guy’s shop.

Back in the day, if you rode a chopper, you dang well built the thing yourself, or with limited help. Today, with shops like American Iron Horse, Confederate, OCC, Big Dog and Thunder Mountain, about the only requirement to having a chopper is to flop down the credit card or cash. You don’t even have to know what the basic geometry means or how come the thing may pull to the side with that 280 rear tire.

I’ve talked with guys who bought their rides for the paint job or the pipes and really didn’t know that the look of their scoot was designed around a set of racing qualifications like the Pro-Street class bikes.

And, maybe they don’t have to know that.

The rambunctious dudes who kick-started the chopper movement were all about personal statements, but they also had to know some basic engineering and handling facts. And, most of us couldn’t afford to have some specialty shop (even if there WERE any) build their bikes. We did it ourselves cause we were CHEAP, and cause it was fun! Riding one of those pretty much guaranteed that a crowd would gather whenever you parked it. There were very few of the ‘bolt-on custom parts’ you see now.

Now, that same sort of bike costs between $30K and $100K and it still amazes me how many people can lay down that kind of money for what is essentially a toy.

Oh, I know that those bikes are ridden, but not many of them are daily riders. The majority of the factory chopper owners have other primary transportation. They probably even have another bike, or two. These things are hobbies.

So, back to the stolen bike story. The lowlives who swiped that bike weren’t riders interested in the sport. They were jerks who were looking to literally chop the thing into its component pieces and sell them off as quickly as possible. That kind of thing happens all too often, and there are a lot more of those expensive semi-customs out there for them to steal.

Can you say ‘security system’?

Yet, I wouldn’t trade the ‘cookie-cutter chopper’ craze of today for those jackleg, build it yourself times. The truth is, the sport is healthier than ever and the number of riders is growing every year. The idea that people ‘outgrow’ motorcycling is laughable, and if the trade off is a lot more of the expensive bikes out there to be targets for thieves, then it just means that we all have to do what we can to help the sport stay strong.

There will likely be a big insurance claim involving that stolen bike, and that’s too bad.

But the fact is that there is a huge segment of the population who can justify spending $25K to $50K on a hobby that enriches our sport. The popularity of factory custom bikes, on TV and in the news, makes us, and our bikes, just that much more visible and ‘fore-brained’ for those who drive four wheeled vehicles. And anything that makes us more visible is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned. And, who doesn’t like to have a crowd admiring your ride, when you park?

Watch your bike….and ride safe!