Ride Info Site

Author: Scott Olewiler
When Jesse James and his West Coast Choppers first appeared on the Discovery channel the world got a small taste of what custom motorcycles were all about. The economy was good and many men started to dream about having their own custom motorcycle. Of course many of them being upper middle class soccer dads thought the biker lifestyle as portrayed by the great Jesse was a little too scary for them.

Then the Teutels came along. American Chopper struck a chord with men that Jesse failed to do. It made them spend money. Suddenly every man in American over thirty wanted a custom motorcycle. And those that had the money bought them up in droves. Custom bike shops sprang up in almost every small town in the country and many a custom motorcycle builder thought they had hit pay dirt.

Even people who really didn’t plan on buying a custom motorcycle ended up buying a bike because we got caught up in the phenomenon that was American Chopper. Five motorcycles later and two custom motorcycle builds under my belt, I can honestly say that if custom bikes had not been all over the TV I probably wouldn’t have a garage full of them now. The country just went nuts over custom motorcycles.

Doctors and lawyers gladly shelled out for $30,000 bikes so they could join the custom motorcycle fad. Along the way a few production custom motorcycle companies went into business and made their fortunes in a very quick time. If you had the money and wanted a cool bike without the worries about getting parts and such, the production chopper fit the bill. Many of these fad riders actually turned into true motorcyclists, myself included, but that’s where the trouble began.

If you’ve ever ridden a custom motorcycle you’re well aware that these things are great for bar hopping and to parade around at your local bike night but as a full time rides they just don’t work. Trust me I know; after a 400 mile ride to Niagara falls I quickly realized that have a low long custom bike wasn’t what I wanted to ride on long trips. And many other new riders learned the same lesson. As sales of touring models soared the custom motorcycle industry started to hear the death knell that was around the corner. Then tragedy struck the motorcycle industry in general.

As the US economy fell demand for custom bikes fell with it. Many newcomers to the bike building business whom had lucked into a full time carreer out of a hobby soon discovered that when only real bike riders wanted custom bikes built, only hardcore established custom motorcycle shops got the business. Even the well know OCC felt the pinch as their once coveted theme bikes became a low priority for corporations who were now on a budget.

Watchers of the show watched as Paul Teutel Sr had to lay off a bunch of workers and fans could only wonder if their new building was ill timed. The custom motorcycle fad was over.

So what does all this mean for the custom motocycle business in general. Is it dead? Hardly. It’s way bigger than before than fad started. A lot of upstart companies have managed to survive because they created a good product. Some production chopper companies have fallen by the wayside. But the most importan thing, to me is that motorcycling in general has finally become main stream. In spite of a tumbling economy and HD in financial trouble more people are riding motorcycles now then ever before. And that means more people will be customizing them also.

It’s a rare sight to see a motorcycle that hasn’t been customized in one form or another and I confidently predict that after this economy bounces back the custom motorcycle industry and custom motorcycle parts industries will flourish. How do I know all this? Because in spite of lagging sales and the passing of the custom motorcycle fad , websites about Custom Motorcycles are busier than ever. People may not be spending money right now but they’re doing something almost as important. They’re making their bike parts wish lists and in some case determining who they are going to get to build their custom dream bike when things turn around. Which they will.

Take heart my friends, the custom motorcycle industry is not dead, just taking a much needed siesta.

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For more controversial reading on custom bikes and choppers visit http://www.chopperssite.comArticle Source: ArticlesBase.com – Is the Custom Motorcycle Industry Dead?

Author: Scott Olewiler

No one knows who exactly built the first choppers, but it is generally agreed upon that they were built by soldiers returning home from WWII. Soldiers who had ridden bikes in Europe found that the Harleys being produced in the US were slow and bulky, something that is still true today. In an effort to lighten these bikes up the riders started to remove unnecessary parts and “bob” the fenders. Had the European motorcycles been readily available in America I believe that these bikers might have abandoned Harley right then and we would have a completely different biker scene than what we have today.

These early modified bikes were called Bobbers and the term Choppers actually didn’t get popular until the sixties and early seventies. Most sources reference the movie Easy Rider as the start of the cultural phenomena, but national news about the antics of the Hells Angels certainly had the image of the biker outlaw already fixed in the public’s eye, a much badder version than we saw in the movie The Wild One from 1953.

The new generation that was chopping bikes made their own style by not just bobbing the bikes but by adding additional rake and longer front ends and of course the obligatory sissy bar. The bikes we know as choppers were born. I think it’s interesting that even though the two terms “bobber” and “chopper” became distinct 40 years ago they are now being used interchangeably, mostly by people who don’t really understand the terms at all.

The choppers of the late sixties went from just being bobbed Harleys with no turn signals and mirrors to being also modified bikes with ape hanger handle bars, like Sonny Barger was using back in the late 50′s, skinny front tires and the already mentioned sissy bar. Now we were no longer just removing unnecessary parts but were also adding a few touches of our own. Back then there were no “custom bike builders” and most of the work was being done in the rider’s own garage. As we went into the seventies, builders began to get really creative and the bike as a form of art was born.

Artist David Mann captured the entire chopper lifestyle in his work, and builders actually tried to now build bikes based on Mann’s more extreme artistic interpretations of what choppers could look like. The bikes that Dave imagined soon came into actually being. The seventies were definitely made for custom bikes.

Interest in motorcycles kind of fizzled out around during the 80′s when young people were more interested in building muscle cars out of models from the late sixties and seventies than they were in motorcycles. At the same time a lot of riders were converting to Japanese sport bikes and moving away from the Harley scene and any choppers you did see just seemed like relics from a bygone era. The biker scene didn’t go away by any means, but it definitely went underground as far as the general population was concerned.

Of course, everything we know today about custom motorcycle building as been brought about by cable TV trying to fill the dead air with stories about anything they could and the first show done about Jesse James was never intended to turn into a new television genre, but it did. The well-to-do suddenly decided they needed a custom bike and not knowing any of the history of motorcycles they immediately started calling every custom motorcycle a chopper, even though by definition it wasn’t. In fact the bikes made popular by builders not on TV were usually more in the style of Pro Street motorcycles that were run on the drag tracks then by anything that resembled a true chopper, with a few notable exceptions.

As the desire for custom bikes and motorcycles in general bloomed in more middle class citizens, these new riders were more likely to take the time and understand their bikes, many of which had to learn to work on them out of pure necessity, like the original bikers did. Motorcycles and custom bikes became an acceptable form of fun for everyone and the image of the outlaw biker as been converted into the lawyer or plumber biker.

Even though we still have some real choppers being built, the true meaning of the word has probably been lost forever, but not the spirit of those that built them. As custom bikes go out of style we’re left with a very large core group of new riders who will now ride the rest of their lives, and many of them will be also building choppers.

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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – History Of Choppers As I See It