Choppers

Choppers at Sturgis Roadshow

The Sturgis Roadshow cam to Harrisburg, PA over the weekend. The weather was absolutely horrendous, they charged way too much to get in, and they had very little going on during the afternoon.

But, on the bright side I got to stand right next to Dave Perewitz and I saw a lot of really nice bikes. Shot a couple of short videos of the choppers as well took a few photos:

Geico Bike PJD Choppers

Vicious Cycles Chopper

One of the Choppers

Looks like the settings on my camera must have been a little off. The pictures of the choppers are not in 100% focus. I’ll post more of them in the next post.

Big Dog Choppers Closing

Cyril Huze announced on his blog yesterday that after years of financial hardship Big Dog Motorcycles will be closing their doors. After previously laying off more workers it was reported by Cyril that Big Dog called its dealers to inform them they were finished.

Big Dog has been struggling for about five years and I was actually surprised that they managed to survive not only the recent downturn in the economy but the slowing interest in custom, especially production customs, motorcycles and choppers for as long as they did.

Since the bank now owns the company if you own one of the 25,000 or more Big Dog motorcycles out there may be out of luck. Obviously the banks not going to honor your warranty, nor will they have any plans to produce any parts for it.

Big Dog managed to hold on a long time in my opinion especially considering the ridiculously high price they placed on their bikes. Their original market was upper middle-class guys who had the money and want a bike on the spot.

Anyone who wanted a true custom would wait for it.

I think part of what killed Big Dog was the fact that these new riders of choppers soon realized that buying a Harley Davidson touring bike was a lot more practical and way more comfortable.

In spite of my preference for handmade choppers I still love the idea of being able to buy a production bike that looks like a custom chopper and I find it very sad that these companies have all fallen by the wayside.